Amman Citadel

The Citadel of Amman sits on a hill of white limestone in the centre of the modern capital, and the hill has been occupied continuously since the Late Bronze Age, which means that every layer of civilisation here stands on top of every other layer, a geological record of state formation in the eastern Mediterranean that is as much about accumulation as about replacement, and the exposed cross-sections of wall in the archaeological trench cuts show this layering in a way that no museum exhibit can replicate.

The Temple of Hercules stands on the highest point, built in the second century CE during the Antonine period of Roman provincial culture, when Amman — then called Philadelphia — was one of the most prosperous cities in the region, a major trading hub on the incense route between Arabia and the Mediterranean. Six massive Corinthian columns remain standing, the tallest freestanding stone columns in Jordan, and they catch the light in the early morning when the rest of the hill is still in shadow, turning amber against the pale stone of the surrounding walls, so that even visitors who find Roman temple architecture abstract are stopped by the particular quality of the morning light on these columns.

The Umayyad Palace complex lies to the east of the temple, a palatial complex built in the early eighth century CE when Amman was the administrative capital of the Umayyad caliphate's northern provinces, a period of enormous wealth and architectural ambition that left behind a audience hall with a carved stone mihrab, a large pool for cooling, and mosaic floors that are currently being excavated and conserved, with new sections of floor revealed to visitors each season.

The Archaeological Museum at the foot of the hill houses a collection that spans the full chronological range of the site, from Neolithic figurines to Byzantine glass, but the most powerful exhibit on the hill itself is structural rather than objectual: standing between the Roman temple and the Umayyad palace, you occupy the same physical space that a Nabatean watchtower, a Byzantine church, and an Abbasid fortification all occupied at different times, each building on the demolition debris of the last, and the stratigraphy in the exposed sections of wall shows this layering in cross-section.

The descent from the Citadel into downtown Amman passes the Roman theatre, a steep sandstone amphitheatre of six thousand seats cut into the hillside below the Citadel, still acoustically perfect and still used in summer for performances that draw audiences from across the city — the sound engineering, based on principles of acoustic reflection that were empirical rather than mathematical, works exactly as the original builders intended. The Jordan Archaeological Museum itself, though modest in scale compared to the national museums of neighbouring countries, holds several objects of international significance including a small calcite-alabaster bottle inscribed in the name of the Egyptian pharaoh Amenhotep II, evidence of trade or diplomatic contact between the Nile Valley and this hilltop in the fifteenth century BCE. The Citadel offers panoramic views of modern Amman's concrete sprawl in all directions, and the contrast between the ancient stone structures and the modern city that surrounds the hill is itself a kind of argument about what we choose to preserve and why.

The Citadel is the single location in Amman where you can see the full chronological range of the city's history — Bronze Age to Umayyad to modern — in one visit.

The six Corinthian columns of the Temple of Hercules are the tallest freestanding stone columns in Jordan and one of the most photographed landmarks in the country.

The Umayyad palace complex, still being excavated, offers a window into the administrative culture of the early Islamic caliphate that is otherwise poorly documented in Jordan.