The Capital

Yesterday a group of us visited the capital city of Jordan, Amman.  We walked around the city during the day, went out at night, stayed in a cheap hostel, and came back to Irbid this morning.  It was a fun trip.  We got to see a lot of cool sights and get to know each other a little better outside of the context of the classroom.  Here are just a few of the many pictures I took yesterday and today.

We start our tour of Amman with the Citadel - the center of Amman, sitting atop a mountain, surrounded by walls.  This was the home of many peoples, going all the way back to the neolithic period! (For those of you who don't speak history, that's a really really long time ago!)  The stones in the front of the picture have the 3 main names this location had throughout history: Rabbath-Ammon was the home of the Ammonites during the Iron Age, Philadelphia was the city's Nabatean, Roman, and Byzantine name, and Amman became the city's title with the establishment of the Umayyad Caliphate (one of the many Islamic Empires in the Middle East and North Africa) in 661 AD.  It's amazing how one site has so much history!

The remains of the Temple of Hercules (161-166 AD)

Hey, look!  It's Hercules!

Friday is the "Sunday" of Muslims.  We were up in the Citadel at midday on Friday, and right before this picture, the call to prayer began echoing around the whole city with the start of the service.  It was particularly striking because the Citadel is surrounded by a circle of 7 mountains, so the call was coming out of minarets all around us.

This is the formal entrance to the Umayyad Palace that was built around 730 AD

This is all that remains of the Umayyad mosque that was built at the highest point of the city, just next to the Palace. 

Hanging out in the Throne Room of the palace.

From the Museum - the oldest statue of a human that has ever been found anywhere.

Pottery bombs?????  Ancient grenades??

Here are some close-ups of the Roman amphitheater seen in the last picture.

King Hussein Mosque.  The area around it is a big marketplace that is really interesting to walk through. 

King Abdullah Mosque.  This is a huge mosque that fits between 3000-7000 worshippers on Fridays!

The inside of King Abdullah Mosque.

The courtyard.  I love those columns!

Some flowers from the Mosque's garden.

An Eastern Orthodox church, seen from the outer courtyard of King Abdullah Mosque.