Amman’s oldest statues predate the Ammonite capital
Jordan’s capital counts about five million people as of 2024—the Levant’s largest city and a primate hub. Neolithic ʿAin Ghazal on today’s outskirts held the world’s oldest human statues. Iron Age Rabat Aman ruled Ammon; Greeks later called the place Philadelphia before modern Amman exploded after 1921.
ʿAin Ghazal, on today's outskirts, peaked around 7000 BC at about 15 hectares and some 3,000 residents, roughly four or five times as many as lived in Jericho then, living in rectangular mud-brick houses with lime-plastered walls. Road builders stumbled on it in 1974, and by the time digging began in 1982 about 600 metres of road already cut through the site.
From the thirteenth century BC it was the Ammonite capital, Rabat ʿAmmān, the king's quarters; the Hebrew Bible calls it Rabbah. Ptolemy II Philadelphus, who ruled from 283 to 246 BC, renamed it Philadelphia after himself, and it passed through Nabataean and Roman hands before the Rashidun Caliphate restored the Semitic name in the seventh century. Largely abandoned under the Ottomans from the fifteenth century, it revived in 1878 when Circassians were resettled there, then grew with the Hejaz Railway and a first municipal council in 1909.
Named capital of Transjordan in 1921, it absorbed migrants from across Jordan and the Levant and then refugees: Palestinians after 1948 and again after 1967, Iraqis following 1990 and 2003, and Syrians from 2011 onward. Once spread over seven hills, it now covers more than nineteen, with districts named for their jabal or wadi. Historic East Amman hosts much cultural life, while newer West Amman is the business centre.
About five million people live there, making it the Levant's largest city and seventh in the Arab world. Around a million visitors came in 2018, and multinationals favour it for regional offices, alongside Doha and behind only Dubai. A bus rapid transit line links it with Zarqa, and two airports serve the city.
Source: Amman
