This 360° panorama stands on the ruined walls of Qasr Burqu, far out in Jordan’s north-eastern desert, where the black basalt desert meets the flint plain. The square basalt tower is the oldest part of the site, probably a late Roman or Byzantine watch post. Around AD 700 the Umayyad prince al-Walid, later caliph, built rooms and a courtyard around it, as an inscription dated AH 81 records.
Turn towards the water. In wet years a shallow lake fills the basin beside the ruins, held back today by a modern earth dam, with a stretch of an older dam nearby. The lake draws birds and Bedouin herds, and since 2020 the area has been protected as the Burqu Nature Reserve.
Look down at the tumbled basalt at your feet, then out to the dark plain on the horizon. Bedouin camped here in spring for centuries after the Umayyads, and the site is still a long drive from the nearest town.
