Amman History

History

Excavations in and around Amman have turned up finds from as early as 3500 BC, when the earliest inhabitants settled on Jebel al-Qala'a (the site of the Citadel). There has been a town on this site since at least the Bronze Age; objects dated to this time show that the town was involved in trade with Greece, Syria, Cyprus and Mesopotamia.

Biblical references indicate that by 1200 BC, Rabbath Ammon (the Great City of the Ammonites mentioned in the Old Testament) was the capital of the Ammonites. King David sent the Israelite armies to besiege Rabbath, after being insulted by the Ammonite king Nahash. After taking the town, David burnt many inhabitants alive in a brick kiln. Rabbath continued to flourish and supplied David with weapons for his ongoing wars. His successor Solomon erected a shrine in Jerusalem to the Ammonite god Molech. From here on, the only biblical references to Rabbath are prophecies of its destruction at the hands of the Babylonians.

The history of Amman between then (c 585 BC) and the time of the Ptolemies of Egypt is unclear. Ptolemy Philadelphus (283-246 BC) rebuilt the city during his reign, and it was named Philadelphia after him. The Ptolemy dynasty was succeeded by the Seleucids and, briefly, by the Nabataeans, before Amman was taken by Herod around 30 BC, and fell under the sway of Rome. The city, which even before Herod's arrival had felt Rome's influence as a member of the Decapolis, was totally replanned in typically grand Roman style, with a theatre, forum and Temple to Hercules. It soon became an important centre along the trade routes between the Red Sea and Syria.

Philadelphia was the seat of Christian bishops in the early Byzantine period, but the city declined and fell to the Sassanians (from Persia) in about AD 614. At the time of the Muslim invasion in about AD 636, the town - by then named Amman - was again thriving as a staging post on the caravan trade route. From about the 10th century, however, the city declined, and was soon reduced to a place of exile.

Amman was little more than a backwater village of less than 2000 residents when a colony of Circassians resettled there in 1878. It boomed temporarily in the early 20th century when it became a stopover on the new Hejaz Railway between Damascus and Medina (Saudi Arabia). In 1921 it became the centre of Trans-Jordan when Emir Abdullah made it his headquarters. In 1948 many Palestinians settled in and around Amman and, two years later, it was officially declared the capital of the Hashemite kingdom.