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- WADI KHARRAR, Jordan
(AFP) - Two thousand years on, John the Baptist's haunts on the east bank
of the Jordan River are probably sleepier than in the days when he baptised
Jesus Christ here.
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- Small flocks of birds alight on the remains of an early
Christian baptism pool, unbothered by a team of archaeologists taking a
break to consider the risk of night attacks by the wild boars which lurk
among the palm trees of this lush valley.
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- But with millions of Christian pilgrims expected to descend
on the Holy Land in a matter of months, and a visit by Pope John Paul II
on the cards for March 2000, the boars could be the least of the disturbances.
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- Excavations began two years ago at Wadi Kharrar and quickly
established the existence of hermit dwellings contemporary with Jesus Christ
in hills overlooking the springs which feed the valley.
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- It is in the calm, fresh water of those springs, two
kilometres (1.3 miles) east of the Jordan River, that archaeologists now
believe Jesus was baptised, and not in the fast flowing, dirty waters of
the Jordan as tradition tells.
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- "This is where Jesus was baptised. This is where
John the Baptist lived. This is where the first Christian community on
earth emerged," Jordan's Tourism Minister Akel Beltaji said with enthusiasm
on a weekend visit to the site.
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- Beltaji and his team of Jordanian archaeologists are
convinced the site is the biblical "Bethany beyond the Jordan,"
recorded in the gospel of John, and have issued an open challenge to theological
archaeologists to come and prove them wrong.
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- Their theory is backed up by the discovery of an early
Christian settlement at Tell Kharrar, a hill which rises out of the reed
beds at the head of the Wadi Kharrar valley.
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- A Byzantine monastery and three churches have been unearthed
along with a series of shallow pools they believe were used for baptism
when the site rapidly grew into a pilgrimage centre in early Christianity.
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- The Vatican itself has given Wadi Kharrar a seal of approval,
supporting a pilgrimage to the site in January 2000.
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- The Holy See's representative in Amman, Dominique Rezeau,
told AFP Vatican theologians believe Jesus was "most probably"
baptised on the Jordanian side of the river, to the displeasure of Israel
which is promoting two rival baptism sites on its side of the Jordan.
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- But while Jordan touts Wadi Kharrar as "one of the
three most important sites in Christianity" next to Bethlehem and
Jerusalem, curious tourists currently have little chance of finding their
way through a sea of banana plantations to reach the serene location.
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- No signposts mark the road to the site which, up until
1994 when Jordan and Israel signed a peace treaty, lay on the front line
between two countries at a state of war.
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- And while the area's long-neglected infrastructure may
have helped to preserve the holy site, work on new roads and tourist facilities
appears to have hardly begun.
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- But the tourism minister -- who stressed he would not
want "millions of tourists" to swarm the fragile site in the
year 2000 -- assured AFP that the basics would be in place to welcome visitors
and pilgrims by the end of 1999.
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- "It won't be a Disneyworld, but the place will be
accessible," Beltaji said, giving his longer-term vision of developing
a site stretching from Tell Kharrar down to the River Jordan without jeopardising
the archaeological remains.
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- "You don't develop a site on a kill basis,"
he explained. "We're not going to have some millennium festivities,
light some candles and disappear.
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- "After all, the year 2000 for us is a base year,
not a peak year," said the minister, leaving open the possibility
that the boars may continue to find a refuge in Wadi Kharrar's green oasis
in the new millennium as they did in the days of John the Baptist, undisturbed
by an uncontrolled influx of tourists.
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