Jordan Valley
— — the valley that runs below the level of the sea.
Not only on a wall.
“The long furrow of the Great Rift, running south from the Sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea. The river finds its bed below sea level the whole way, dropping more than 400 metres before it stops. Date palms, banana fields, the baptism site at Bethany Beyond the Jordan on the east bank, Jericho on the west. The light off the water is hard and white at noon.
Jordan 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 Valley is the section of the Great Rift between the Sea of Galilee in the north and the Dead Sea in the south, a stretch of about 105 km along the Jordan River. The valley floor is the lowest land surface on Earth: the river leaves the Sea of Galilee at roughly 210 metres below sea level and reaches the Dead Sea at about 430 metres below. The valley forms the eastern border of Israel and the West Bank with the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, and three faiths trace foundational events to its banks.
The Jordan River carries only a fraction of its historic flow. Most of the water that once reached the Dead Sea is now diverted for agriculture and drinking from the Sea of Galilee and the Yarmouk tributary. As a result the Dead Sea is shrinking by more than a metre a year and sinkholes are opening along its western shore. The lower river below the King Abdullah Canal runs at roughly five percent of its nineteenth-century volume. The baptism site at Bethany Beyond the Jordan was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2015.
Date harvest runs from late August through October along both banks. Medjool dates from the Jordan Valley supply a meaningful share of the world market; Israel and Jordan together produce roughly half of global Medjool exports. The banana fields between Beit She'an and Jericho fruit through the warm months. Winter is the only time the valley floor stays walkable for long distances. Summer highs at Jericho routinely exceed 40 °C, and the air above the Dead Sea carries a fine mineral haze that softens the Moabite ridges across the water.