Amman Area

Amman is the capital and largest city in Jordan and even though its been inhabited since the Neolithic era about 9000 years ago, its really a modern city with little ancient grandeur but since this is your entry point into Jordan there are some sites in the city and it makes a good base of operations for visiting nearby sites. The growth in Amman is very much influenced by events beyond its borders, floods of Palestinians refugees in 1948, 1967, and 1991 and Lebanese civil war in 1975 caused influxes of people and money. Amman had about 10,000 people in 1945, today its around 2 million in the city and its sprawling suburbs. Amman is a very Western city and the hospitality of its citizens seems genuine.

The area might have been inhabited for about 9000 years but you have to visit Cairo or Damascus to see a grand Islamic city of antiquity, Amman's main ancient sites can easily be visited in half a day. Amman is a city build on hills, distance might look close on a map but roads often wind around the hills. The sites are downtown where you will meet the only real hazard in Jordan, trying to cross the street. We arrived in Amman on the last day of Ramadan and the downtown area was crowded with shoppers preparing for the Eid al-Fitr which marks the end of fasting.

The Roman Theatre is the main tourist site downtown, if you look lost locals will point you in the direction. Its cut into the hillside and seats about 6,000 people with wonderful acoustics. A Roman forum, a smaller theatre called Odean and several small museums are nearby. Guides are available for a small fee. We meet Steve here who was also our guide the following day. You will run into many taxi drivers who will want to act as a guide, while I'm sure most of them are genuine its probably best to get your hotel to make arrangements. Steve was an excellent guide with great stories.

From the Theatre you can see pillars of the Temple of Hercules on top of Jebel al-Qal'a (Citadel Hill). This area is the other main ancient area of Amman. The site contains not only the Temple of Hercules but the National Archaeological Museum, a ruined Byzantine church, and the Umayyad Palace complex which dates from around 720. The Hercules temple stands at the head of a staircase which originally started at the Roman Forum. The National museum has a huge collection but the museum itself is small and badly organized, too bad considering the collection dates back to the Neolithic period which included the earliest human figure ever discovered over 8000 years old. Some of the Dead Sea scrolls are here as are materials from the Bronze Age, Iron Age, Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, Nabatean, and Islamic. A new larger more modern museum is badly needed and supposedly the Japanese government is investing money in building a new museum and restoring the monumental staircase that connected the Roman Forum to the Temple of Hercules in the past. Although it is suppose to be finished in 2005 it looked far from finished when we were there in late 2004.

Downtown is the life of Amman with bazaars, souqs and cheap hotels and the heart of downtown is probably the lively King Husseini Mosque. Although the site of a mosque since 640 and before that a Byzantine church the entire site was razed to the ground in 1932 to build the present mosque. Near the mosques is a Roman Nymphaeum or public fountain still being restored.

Desert Castles

East of Amman is the Eastern Desert which extends to the Iraqi border and is the harshest and less populated part of the country. There are dozens of archaeological sites here, palaces, forts, bathhouses, inns and farmhouses which collective were called the Desert Castles even thou not many sites are actually castles but the term stuck. When many were originally builted over 1200 years ago the area was semi-fertile with many oasis but changes in climate and man induced changes has made the area desert.

With so few people living here there is a lack of local transportation, most tourists see the desert castles as part of a tour but the lack of local transportation will make a tour here one of the more expensive in the country about 40 JD a car load, your hotel can make arrangements. Most tours are done as a circular route from Amman with Azraq as the furthest point.

Qasr Hraneh is the place that probably gave the east desert structures the name "Desert Castles" since it looks very much like a defensive building with rounded corner towers, arrow slits and a single well defendable entrance. The corner towers are actually solid rock and the arrow slits were more likely used for lighting purposes unless the defenders stood 3 metres tall with triple length arms. The generally accepted use for this building was an inn since it is close to several trade routes.

If you are coming from Amman this is probably your first "desert castle" and you would have passed by the training facility used to train the new Iraq police force at the point were the highway widens for use as an emergency runway for the Queen Alia Airport.

Continuing from Qasr Hraneh the next site is the World Heritage site of Qusayr Amra, a squat shape building resting in the Wadi Butm, a former bathhouse probably used by the caliph. There is nothing special about the building, inside is where the real treasure is located with frescoes covering almost the entire inside of the building.

Let your eyes adjust to the darkness for a few minutes when you first enter the bath house. The information board in the interpretation centre assures visitors that the frescoes "Do not portray scenes of unbridled loose-living or carryings-on". Sure, whatever you say. Considering that the bathhouse was build in the same period as when Islam started it prohibition against any depiction of a living creature, which continues to this day, it is kind of surprising that the frescoes survived until you realized that all civilizations have different rules for the elite and the common person. Qusayr Amra is were the elite of Amman, Jerusalem, and Damascus came to let their hair down away from the prying eyes of their subjects. If the frescoes are any indication a good time was had by all with frescoes depicting hunting scenes, nude women, musicians, drinking and eating. Excellent party!

The bathhouse is divided into the main hall and the actual baths which also includes the domed steam room which contains what is probably the first depiction of the zodiac on a spherical surface. This place is well worth the visit, the frescoes are a great indication that religious people and the ruling elite, often the same people, have always been hypocrites. The religious and political leaders of today who talk of the pain of poverty while driving Mercedes and drinking 12 year old scotch can trace their attitude to the caliphs who bathing in Qusayr Amra while ordering the destruction of the mosaics in Madaba.

The town of Azraq is the furthest point from Amman on the desert castle route. The only permanent oasis in the desert and an important stopover on both trade routes and migrating birds, the tapping of the underground aquifers to supply water for Amman has caused the near collapse of this wetland. The focus of the settlement is Qasr Azraq which was originally build by the Romans and even used by Lawrence of Arabia in 1917. The Arab revolt of Lawrence on Damascus was launched from here. Nearby is the Azraq Wetlands Reserve and the Shaumari Wildlife Reserve.

Qasr Hallabat will either be the first or last site you visit depending on your route. With so few travellers visiting Jordan because of conflicts in the area the available guidebooks can be several years out of date. Our guidebook (Rough Guide) listed Qasr Hallabat as an elaborate but mostly ruinous with crumbling walls and fallen stones. When we visited in late 2004 there was major restoration work being done, it was a chance to see archaeology in action although it was a holiday on the day we visited. The site is slowly being restored with stone work carefully laid out for reconstruction and other types of evacuations being done. The building for the site museum was completed but the exhibits were not yet finished. About 3 kilometres away is a small bathhouse called Hammam as-Srah. Although some restoration work has been done the plaster walls are long gone but if you know anything about bathhouse design the bare bones look of the site allows you to see the channels that heated the bathhouse.