Jebel al-Qal'a, Philadelphia, and the Martyr's Memorial

In about 1800 B.C., the hill known as Jebel al-Qal'a was fortified for the first time.

According to Genesis (the first book of the Old Testament, not the band fronted by Phil Collins) Jebel al-Qal'a was a hill inhabited by the near-mythical Ammonites, the descendants of the "drunken seduction" of Lot by his two daughters. By 1200 B.C., the Citadel on top of this hill was renamed Rabbath Amman, which was the capital of the region.

Later, in the year 1000 B.C., the book of Samuel reports that that the Israelite King David sent messengers to Rabbath with condolences for the death of the Ammonite king. These messengers, believed by the Ammonites to be Israelite spies, were sent back to Jerusalem minus their beards and fine clothing. Later, David would send his army to defeat the troublesome Ammonites. David himself joined the battle at its end and soon returned home to marry the widowed Bat-Sheba. Soon after this, the future King Solomon was born.

After Alexander the Great conquered the region in 332 B.C., his successor Ptolemy II Philadelphus rebuilt Rabbath and named it Philadelphia - the "City of Brotherly Love." After a series of wars and turmoil, the Romans rebuilt Philadelphia in 114 A.D.. They built impressive public buildings, among them a theater:

(click on the pictures to enlarge)



And a temple to Hercules:



In 635 A.D., Philadelphia was conquered by the Arabs and city's name was changed to Amman. The city was ruled by the Damascus-based Umayyad dynasty. Amman became the capital of the area and the Umayyads quickly expanded on the Roman-developed city by building an expansive palatial complex which was quickly destroyed by an earthquake in 749. The remains of this city remain in the same place where they fell today.

This is the partially-reconstructed Umayyad Palace:

And some additional views of the ruins:





When the Abbasids took power away from the Ummayds, the center of power in the region shifted from Amman to Baghdad. Over the next centuries Amman became desolate - it was mearly a stop-over area for pilgrims to Mecca. The town barely changed until the Ottomans settled Circassian refugees in the area in the 1870s. Still, it remained nothing more than a farming villiage with some impressive Roman/Ummayd ruins until Emir Abdullah chose Amman as his capital after the fall of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I.

Of course, the next important milestone was Robert Marcus' visit to Jebel al-Qal'a this morning.

Today I also visited the Jordanian War Martyr's Memorial.

Like the Egyptian, Israeli, and American military museums I have visited, this one contained its fair share of propaganda. Of course, Jordan has never lost a war. Much of the museum is dedicated to the Great Arab Revolt. The rest is dedicated to Jordan's wars against Israel, its current-day peace keeping missions as part of the United Nations, and the late King Hussein's military paraphernalia.






And I will leave you with another panorama of Amman taken from atop Jebel al-Qal'a (note the return to the blog of the world's tallest flagpole on the far right):