Amman

Amman

A sprawling city spread over 19 hills, or “jebels,” Amman is the modern – as well as the ancient – capital of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Known as Rabbath-Ammon during the Iron Age and later as Philadelphia, the ancient city that was once part of the Decapolis league, now boasts a population of around 2.3 million people. Amman, often referred to as the white city due to its low size canvas of stone houses, offers a variety of historical sites. There are a number of renovations and excavations taking place that have revealed remains from the Neolithic period, as well as from the Hellenestic and late Roman to Arab Islamic Ages. The site which is known as the Citadel includes many structures such as the Temple of Hercules, the Umayyad Palace and the Byzantine Church. At the foot of the Citadel lies the 6,000 seat Roman Theatre, which is a deep-sided bowl carved into the hill and is still being used for cultural events. Another newly restored theatre is the 500-seat Odeon that is used for concerts. The three museums found in the area offer a glimpse of history and culture; they are the Jordan Archaeological Museum, The Folklore Museum and the Museum of Popular Traditions. 

Amman’s history spans nine millennia dating back to the Stone Age. It boasts one of the largest Neolithic settlements (c.6500 BC) ever discovered in the Middle East. The Citadel hill contains early Bronze Age tombs (3300-1200 BC).

By the beginning of the Iron Age Amman had become the capital of the Ammonites, referred to in the Bible, and was called Rabbath-Ammon. It was here that King David of Israel killed Uriah the Hittite. Fortress towers ringed the city at that time – the best preserved of these can still be seen today – but they were little protection against King David’s attack. His forces toppled the Ammonites and, apart from a brief revival in the 9th and 8th centuries BC, the area was ruled in succession by the Assyrians, Babylonians and Persians for several hundred years. By the 4th century BC the city had been renamed “Philadelphia” after its Ptolemaic ruler, Philadelphus. 

Seleucid and Nabataean rule followed until 63 BC, when it was absorbed into the Roman Empire and the Roman general, Pompey, annexed Syria and made Philadelphia part of the Decapolis League – an alliance of ten free city states with overall allegiance to Rome. The Romans rebuilt the city with colonnaded streets, baths, a theatre and impressive public buildings. Philadelphia found itself at the centre of the new Roman province of Arabia and of lucrative trade routes running between the Mediterranean and an interior that stretched to India and China as well as routes north and south. The city flourished.

During the Byzantine period, when Christianity became the official religion of the Eastern Roman Empire, the city was the seat of a Christian Bishop and two churches were constructed. By the early 7th century, Islam was already spreading northwards from the Arabian Peninsula and, by 635 AD, had embraced the land as part of its domain. The city returned to its original Semitic name of Ammon or, as it is known today, Amman.

With various shifts in political power over the following centuries, Amman’s fortunes declined. During the Crusades and under the Mameluks of Egypt, Amman’s importance was overtaken by the rise of Karak in the south. By 1321 AD, it was reported that Amman was “a very ancient town and was ruined before the days of Islam” there are great ruins here and the river al-Zarqa flows through them.”

Under the Ottoman Empire, Amman remained a small backwater with As-Salt being the main town of the area. By 1806, the city was reported to be uninhabited except for the Bedouins.

The departure of the Ottomans from the region coincided with the exodus of a large number of Circassian and other persecuted Muslims from the Caucasus. They found refuge in the area and established a settlement on the east bank of the Jordan River. Although they were mostly farmers, amongst these early settlers there were also gold and silversmiths and other craftsmen, and it wasn’t long before they built rough roads linking their settlement to Amman. Commerce, once again, began to flourish.

ADVENTURE

Amman is a good base for action-packed activities in the surrounding area. The Jordan Valley is just a short drive away and easily accessible for day excursions for walking, hiking, riding, sports and much more.

 Within Amman there is plenty of fun to be found including water parks with lots of thrilling rides to keep the children entertained. There is a wide range of health clubs and fitness centres, as well as facilities for paintballing and other action-packed sports.

RELIGION & FAITH

Amman is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world and there are many Biblical references to the city, which was then known as Rabbath-Ammon. Later renamed Philadelphia (after the Ptolemaic ruler Philadelphus), the city also became part of the Decapolis League, an alliance of ten Roman-ruled cities including Jerash, Gadara (present-day Umm Qays), Pella, Arbila (Irbid) and others. During the Byzantine period, Philadelphia was the seat of a Christian bishop, and a number of impressive churches were built here.

The Citadel, which towers above the city from Jabal Al-Qala’a, is the site of ancient Rabbath-Ammon, and excavations here have uncovered Roman, Byzantine and early Islamic remains. The most impressive of which, known simply as Al-Qasr (“the Palace”), dates back to the Islamic Umayyad period. Nearby are the ruins of Umayyad palace grounds.

Close by are the remains of a small Byzantine basilica while roughly 100m south of the church is what is thought to have been a temple of Hercules – also known as the Great Temple of Amman – which was built during the reign of Emperor Marcus Aurelius.

The King Hussein Bin Talal Mosque, also known as Al-Husseini Mosque, is an Ottoman-style mosque rebuilt in 1924 on the site of an ancient mosque. Amman’s famous gold souq is just a short distance away. 

The Mosque was inaugurated in 2006 and became the country’s national mosque. It is also the largest mosque in the country and was built to reflect the Umayyad architecture prevalent in many historic sites around Jordan.

MUSEUMS

Jordan Archaeological Museum was built in 1951 on the Citadel Hill in Amman. It houses artefacts from all the archaeological sites in the country. The collection is arranged in chronological order and represents ancient items of daily life such as pottery, glass, flint and metal tools, as well as monumental materials such as inscriptions and statuaries. The museum also houses several jewellery inscription statuary and coin collections.

The archaeological periods represented in the museum are:

1. The Paleolithic (1000,000 – 10,000 years ago).
2. The Pre-pottery Neolithic (8300-5500 BC).
3. The Pottery Neolithic (5500-4300 BC).
4. The Chalcolithic (4300-3300 BC).
5. The Early Bronze Age (3300-1900 BC).
6. The Middle Bronze Age (1900-1550 BC).
7. The Late Bronze Age (1550-1200 BC).
8. The Iron Age (1200-550 BC).
9. The Persian Period/Iron III (550-350 BC).
10. The Hellenistic Period (332-63 BC).
11. The Nabataean Period (312 BC-AD 106).
12. The Roman Period (63 BC – AD 324).
13. The Byzantine Period (AD 324 – 636).
14. The Islamic Era (AD 636 – the present).

    a- The Umayyad Period (AD 661 – 750).

    b- The Abbasid Period (AD 661 –750).

    c- The Ayyubid/Mamluk Period (AD 1173 –1516). 

 Among the most important exhibits in the museum are the plaster statues from ‘Ain Ghazal, dating back to around 6000 BC, and the Dead Sea bronze scroll written in Aramaic characters.

The Jordan Folklore Museum is located within the western section of the Roman Theatre in Amman. This museum was founded by the Department of Antiquities and officially opened in 1975. The museum houses items representing the following Jordanian cultures: 

• The culture of the desert (Bedu).
• The culture of the villages (Reef).
• The culture of the towns and cities (Madineh).
   The collection of the museum represents items of daily life from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, such as:

1. Costumes of the various areas in Jordan.
2. Utensils used for food preparation, making bread, coffee, and tea.

The Jordanian Museum of Popular Traditions was established in 1971. The museum is located within the eastern section of the Roman Theatre in Amman. Its aims are to collect Jordanian and Palestinian folk heritage from all over Jordan, to protect and conserve this heritage and to present it for future generations. The museum is also concerned with introducing our popular heritage to the world.

The museum has five exhibition halls. The first hall is dedicated to the traditional costumes of the East Bank. In the second hall, the traditional jewellery and cosmetic items of the various regions in the East and West Banks are on display.

The third hall contains a collection of Palestinian costumes and heard-dresses. In the fourth hall there is a collection of pottery and wooden cooking pots and food preparation vessels, as well as a collection of silver jewellery and bridal dresses from the West Bank. The fifth hall, which is in a vault of the Roman Theatre, houses a collection of mosaics from Byzantine churches in Jerash and Madaba.

The Archaeological Museum / University of Jordan

A small archaeological museum was initially established at the University of Jordan in 1962. The museum was later expanded and transferred to its present location; the new building was officially opened in1986.

The museum has exhibition halls, research workshops, photography and draughting rooms, and a conservation laboratory. The objectives of the museum are as follows:  

• To intensify knowledge of Jordan’s cultural heritage throughout the ages.
• To organize traveling and temporary exhibits in Jordan and abroad.
• To continually develop the museum in accordance with the scientific status of the university.
• To establish cooperation with national and international scientific departments and institutions.
• Documentation of the museum processes, starting with obtaining the cultural material up to labeling, conserving, displaying and properly storing the objects.
• Preparation of accurate and comprehensive lists of the objects on display and in storage.
• Teaching of the applied courses in archaeology.
• The museum is an academic centre striving to develop and research archaeology by offering facilities to the teaching staff at the Department of Archaeology at the University

The Anthropological Museum / University of Jordan

The idea of establishing an anthropological museum at the University of Jordan started in 1977, to serve as an application grounds for theoretical courses taught at the Department of Sociology concerning social life in Jordanian society.

Originally, students of anthropology classes gathered elements of Jordanian heritage from their own homes and donated them to the university, and an exhibition of Jordanian folk heritage took place in 1981. Consequently the exhibition developed into the present museum through the concern of the president of the university.

The museum houses collections of modern Jordanian heritage, tools made by Jordanian people from their natural environment to meet their needs and demand. The collections of the museum are displayed according to their material and functions. They include agricultural tools, costumes, cosmetic items, and furniture, drinking and eating vessels, tents, and equipment for animals.

The objective of the establishment of the museum is to preserve modern Jordanian heritage as a testimony to the accomplishments of Jordanian society and its interaction with the environment. The museum also aims at offering means to study Jordanian society during a specific period of its history through the material cultural objects, especially those concerned with eating, drinking, costume and agriculture.

The Royal Society for Fine Arts established the Jordan National Gallery for Fine Arts at Jabal Al Weibdeh in Amman. A special wing for temporary exhibits was opened in 1984. The main aims of the Gallery are:

1. The patronage of contemporary art in Jordan, the Arab countries, and the developing world.
2. Exchange of exhibitions between the gallery and other museums and cultural organizations outside Jordan.
3. Organizing and participating in seminars, conferences, and symposia pertaining to art and culture within and outside Jordan. 

 Since its establishment, the Gallery has greatly expanded. Its collection, which started with around 50 works of art, amounts now to almost 2000, consisting of works by 520 artists from 43 Arab and Islamic countries, ranging from Brunei in the Pacific to Morocco on the Atlantic, and from Turkey and Iran on the Caspian Sea to Pakistan on the Indian Ocean. The Society has organized more than fifty exhibitions drawn from major sources in Europe and America, such as the Center Pompidou in Paris, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Geneva Museum of History and Art and the Harvard Semitic Museum, for display in Amman. Turkish museums, the Museum of Modern Art in Cairo, as well as other collections in the Arab World have sent special exhibitions on loan to the Jordan National Gallery.

From its own collection, the Royal Society of Fine Arts has sent major exhibitions abroad to France, Turkey, Poland, and Great Britain.

The Numismatics Museum Central Bank of Jordan-RARE COINS

The area of the Central Bank of Jordan Museum exceeds 400 sq m, and its collections include over 2200 coins. The museum was officially opened in 1988.

Jordan is an important part of the Arab region and the world. The political and historical situations affecting it were reflected on the coins circulated in the country since the introduction of coinage to the Near East in the 4th century BC.

Special emphasis on:

1. Jordanian coinage throughout the ages, such as Nabataean coins, of the Decapolis and the early Islamic Arabiszd coins.
2. Coinage of the Islamic periods and of the ruling dynasties in the Muslim world, where inscription replaced the earlier personifications and portraits on the Greek, Roman, Byzantine and Sassanid coins. The inscriptions were originally verses from the Holy Qur’an, and within a century they documented the name of the caliph and date and place of issue.
3. Hashemite coinage and notes, starting with the issues of Sherif Hussein Bin Ali in Hijaz, through the Syrian issues of His Majesty Faysal I in 1920, then the Iraqi issues of their Majesties Faysal I, Ghazi I and Faysal II. Lastly the Jordanian issues from 1949 onwards.

The Exhibition of Arab Heritage and Recent Discoveries

The Exhibition of Arab Heritage and Recent Discoveries was opened in 1992, at the Department of Antiquities in Amman. This exhibition aims at introducing Jordan to the Arab cultural heritages throughout the ages, as well as exhibiting recent archaeological discoveries. On display in the exhibition presently are precious artefacts, pottery, glass and weapons dating to the Bronze Age and Nabataean and Roman periods, as well as inscriptions, gold Islamic coins and the silver Ptolemaic hoard recently discovered at Iraq Al-Amir. The exhibition also has some Byzantine and early Islamic mosaics from different regions of the kingdom on display, as well as replicas of architectural elements from the temples of the Winged Lions and Qasr Al-Bint in Petra, and the limestone heads of the water nymphs recently discovered at the Nymphaeum in Amman.

This exhibition is devoted to recent archaeological discoveries from the excavations carried out by the Department of Antiquities of Jordan. The exhibits will be transferred to the various Jordanian museums after the conclusion of their study and publication. The displays are therefore changed annually.

In addition to the exhibits mentioned above, the present exhibition includes a collection of Safaitic and Kufic inscriptions from the area of Mafraq. It is expected that a special exhibition of ancient Arabic inscriptions be opened featuring Nabataean, Kufic and other Islamic inscriptions found in the areas of Shbeikah and Safawi.

The Royal Automobile Museum depicts the history of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, from the early 1920s until the present day.

The featured cars highlight the life of His Majesty the late King Hussein and his reign, as well as the many aspects of his leadership.

The museum affords the visitor an insight into the history of the Kingdom through the exhibited cars from the era of King Abdullah I, the founder of the Kingdom, to the current era of His Majesty King Abdullah II. These exhibits recap the development of the Kingdom in pace with the automotive advancement in the country and its transformation since the Great Arab Revolt during World War I.

Rare photo archives and video footage are used throughout the museum. A multimedia room, a library, as well as a souvenir shop are available to provide the visitor with a comprehensive and stimulating historical experience.

The museum is the first in Jordan equipped with a personal electronic narration in five languages. Our EasyGuide system allows you to enjoy an in-depth and comprehensive visit of the museum at your own pace. The narration is available in Arabic, English, Spanish, French, and German. A children’s version in Arabic is also available.

THE CHILDREN’S MUSEUM

Designed for children aged 14 and under, the facilities provided by the museum include: an exhibit hall, a multi-purpose hall, a children’s library and IT center, an activity room, an outdoor exhibit area, an outdoor theatre, a museum shop, a birthday room, a cafe and a planetarium – a must see for all visitors coming to Jordan with their families.

The Jordan Museum

The Jordan Museum is in the dynamic new downtown area of Ras al-‘Ayn. Presenting the history and cultural heritage of Jordan in a series of beautifully designed galleries, The Jordan Museum serves as a comprehensive national centre for learning and knowledge that reflects Jordan’s history and culture, and presents in an engaging yet educational way the Kingdom’s historic, antique and heritage property as part of the ongoing story of Jordan’s past, present, and future.