What is your favorite view in the Middle East? I have a number of places that I aspire to be on the rare day when the air is crystal clear. Perhaps my top three viewpoints in Israel are Nebi Samwil, Mount Carmel, and Arbel. On the other side of the Jordan River, Mount Nebo ranks first.
Unfortunately, I have never been there on a really clear day.
The photo below was taken in the 1930s, when factories and automobiles were less troublesome to photographers. The view is from Mount Nebo, and you can see beyond the northern end of the Dead Sea to the Judean wilderness and even Jerusalem.
I’m linking this photo to the highest resolution available (5200 x 3700 pixels), which will make it a slow download, but those of you with interest will be able to pick out a lot of detail.
For comparison, the photo below was taken from Mount Nebo on a more typical day.
The top photo is taken from the Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan volume of The American Colony and Eric Matson Collection (Library of Congress, LC-matpc-03779). The bottom photo is rotten and will never appear in one of my photo collections.
One thought on “View from Mount Nebo, Then and Now”
It is interesting that in the AC/Matson photo there appears to be a distinct "delta" of deposited material where the Jordan River system, then relatively free-flowing, discharged into the Dead Sea.
The one time I visited Mt. Nebo, in March 2007, it happened to be at sunset, and I captured the following image (if the link works!). Though not visible here, with binoculars my friends and I could make out the towers atop the Mount of Olives some 30 miles distant:
http://www.esnips.com/doc/2874657f-7b50-4e1f-b607-3dd69afa5aed/What-Moses-Saw—-View-from-Mount-Nebo