Jordan Rift Valley
— — the lowest light on earth.
Not only on a wall.
“The northern arm of the Great Rift Valley, scored along the Jordan River as it falls from the Sea of Galilee toward the Dead Sea and down through the Arabah. The land drops below sea level long before the water does. Light reads different here, washed pale by salt and limestone, held thin by air that sits four hundred metres lower than anywhere else humans walk. Bedouin shepherds still cross the wadis at dawn. The valley does not feel dramatic so much as old, the way an old hand feels old.
Jordan Rift Valley, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
The Jordan Rift Valley is the northernmost section of the Great Rift Valley system, the long tectonic seam that runs from the Beqaa in Lebanon south through the Red Sea and on into East Africa. The Israeli stretch follows the Jordan River from the Sea of Galilee, drops through the Dead Sea at roughly four hundred and thirty metres below sea level, and continues south through the Arabah to the Gulf of Aqaba. The Dead Sea shoreline is the lowest dry land on Earth. The valley is the boundary between the African and Arabian tectonic plates and has been pulling apart for millions of years.
Light in the rift behaves the way it does because the air column above the valley is thicker than the air over any other inhabited land. At the Dead Sea, the column adds roughly four hundred metres of atmosphere that filters out a measurable amount of the burning end of the spectrum. The result is a softened, longer-wavelength daylight that the Israel Meteorological Service has logged for decades, and that the salt flats and pale marl scarps reflect back as a kind of muted glow. The hour after sunrise and the hour before sunset hold the valley in colours that nowhere higher gets to see.
The valley has effectively two seasons. From November through March the rains push through the Galilee end and feed the Jordan; daytime highs at the Dead Sea sit in the high teens Celsius and the salt pans hold standing water. From May through October the heat settles, with August averages above thirty-eight degrees and the air over the Arabah completely still by noon. The Israel Nature and Parks Authority recommends winter and shoulder months for the southern reserves, including Ein Gedi and Timna Park. The light is best in the cool months; the colour of the land is best in the hot ones.