Mount Nebo

Close to the village of Faysaliyah seven kilometers west of Madaba, Mount Nebo rises from the Transjordanian plateau. It is bound on the east by the Wadi Afrit (which extends into the Wadi el-Kanisah) and the Wadi Judeideh further south and on the north by the Wadi en-Naml and further the Wadi Ayoun Mousa . It is flanked on the west by the Jordan Valley

Mount Nebo's highest crest reaches an altitude of 800 meters above the surrounding Belqa plateau.. The other peaks are slightly lower, all of them rising from 700 meters. Of these, the two most important, historically speaking are the peaks of Siyagha (710m.) on the western side and the peak of el Mukhayyat (790m.) on the S-E. All the year round several streams flow down the sides of the mountain: Ayoun Mousa and Ain Jemmaleh on the north, Ain Judeideh, Kanisah and Ain Hery on the south.

Nebo provides a unique natural balcony for a bird's-eye view of the Holy Land and southern Jordan. If the observer looks to the south, the panorama extends over the Dead Sea and the Desert of Judah. Looking to the west, it includes the Valley of the Jordan with the mountains of Judea and Samaria, and more to the north Jebel Osha and the southern slopes of the Wadi Zerqa. The hills around Amman are plainly visible to the observer in the distance, and on the steep limits of the plateau Hesban and the mountain of Mushaqar.

On very clear days the unaided eye can pick out Bethlehem and not far from there the singular cone that was Herod's fortress of Herodium, the towers and buildings of Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives all the way to Ramallah. In the valley of the Jordan Qumran is easily discerned by the side of the Dead Sea, then the oasis of Jericho, Shunet Nimrin, the dams of the Wadi Shueib and the Wadi Kafrein, Tell er-Rameh-Livias, Tuleilat el Ghassul and Suweimeh. On the edge of the plateau near Jebel Osha on the hilly spurs of El Salt Iraq el-Amir is visible.

Mount Nebo Jordan (a video tour)