AlanLichty
Moderator
Amman Jordan (biblical Philadelphia) is a rather old city - dating to among the first settlements we know about. This is true for most places within the geographic area called the Levant (modern Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Israel) that have permanent water - they also have been occupied for as long as humans have lived in communities. Just outside of modern Amman is the Neolithic site of 'Ain Ghazal that dates to 7250 BC and new work between the city of Madaba and Amman is pushing that date farther back yet (http://www.madabaplains.org/).
It's interesting to see how this plays out in terms of living in such a place since we have no parallels to this kind of antiquity in most places outside of this area. Antiquities laws such as we have in the United States protecting Olde Things(TM) would absolutely paralyze urban areas within the Levant. There is almost no form of construction that can be undertaken that won't impact something from the past. As an interesting case the University of Utah was asked to do a survey on the site for a new mosque in Wadi Musa just outside of Petra. One of the items found was an acheulean hand axe characteristic of middle paleolithic age (30-40,000 years ago).
The example for here is a set of images I took on a hill known as the Citadel in Amman. This is a part of the city that occupies a high perch with a good view to the rest of Amman and shows evidence dating back to a period known as the Chalcolithic roughly 7000 years ago and that's only what we can see evidence for under the current city. In this case, the road cut in the foreground is fun to play around with since the cuts exposed ceramics showing the entire range from Chalcolithic up through Byzantine times before you run into the asphalt. There is nowhere in the city you can drop a dozer blade without encountering the same thing. When Jordan decided to build a new airport in the late 70's they exposed hundreds of bronze age tombs with the leveling task for the runways. The site of 'Ain Ghazal was found in a road cut by a bulldozer.
An unexcavated area of the Citadel:
Weed control among the ruins:
Finally a scene I decided needed to be shot as an example of new with old.
C&C always welcome.
It's interesting to see how this plays out in terms of living in such a place since we have no parallels to this kind of antiquity in most places outside of this area. Antiquities laws such as we have in the United States protecting Olde Things(TM) would absolutely paralyze urban areas within the Levant. There is almost no form of construction that can be undertaken that won't impact something from the past. As an interesting case the University of Utah was asked to do a survey on the site for a new mosque in Wadi Musa just outside of Petra. One of the items found was an acheulean hand axe characteristic of middle paleolithic age (30-40,000 years ago).
The example for here is a set of images I took on a hill known as the Citadel in Amman. This is a part of the city that occupies a high perch with a good view to the rest of Amman and shows evidence dating back to a period known as the Chalcolithic roughly 7000 years ago and that's only what we can see evidence for under the current city. In this case, the road cut in the foreground is fun to play around with since the cuts exposed ceramics showing the entire range from Chalcolithic up through Byzantine times before you run into the asphalt. There is nowhere in the city you can drop a dozer blade without encountering the same thing. When Jordan decided to build a new airport in the late 70's they exposed hundreds of bronze age tombs with the leveling task for the runways. The site of 'Ain Ghazal was found in a road cut by a bulldozer.
An unexcavated area of the Citadel:
Weed control among the ruins:
Finally a scene I decided needed to be shot as an example of new with old.
C&C always welcome.
