Episode 2: Discovering the Palace of the Lady with Mohamed Waheeb
“We are not exaggerating when we say that we found the remains of the two rooms of Mary of Egypt. This is no legend; it’s reality. It’s a holy place, where the heavens opened three times. . . . It is the most important spot in the world.”
Welcome to In Search Of, a podcast where we go in search of voices and perspectives that inform and expand a life of faith. In this episode, we dive into Amy’s search for Mary of Egypt, which is the subject of her book Wild Woman. Today Amy is speaking with Jordanian archeologist Mohamed Waheeb about his excavation of the Palace of the Lady, a site described in Wild Woman. Join us as Waheeb weighs in on whether or not St. Mary was a real person and describes his discoveries at the site of Mary of Egypt.
Mohammad Waheeb is a professor of archaeology at Hashemite University in Jordan and has published more than 50 books and 200 articles on the archaeology of Jordan.
Show Notes
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You can find the full poem by Rainer Maria Rilke referenced in the introduction in Rilke’s Book of Hours, translated by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy.
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Amy’s account of her experience at the site of Mary of Egypt can be found in Wild Woman: A Footnote, The Desert, and My Quest for an Elusive Saint.
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Waheeb’s research on the site of Mary of Egypt is published in the Annals of Archeology, and a selection of Dr. Waheeb’s other papers is available through ResearchGate.
- This article from One magazine describes Waheeb’s excavation of the site of Jesus’ baptism visited by Byzantine pilgrims on the eastern bank of the Jordan River. Waheeb’s research was instrumental in the preservation of this area as a World Heritage Site in 2015.
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