AMMAN

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Amman is the capital of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and a modern city that is not without its old age. Spanning 19 hills/mountains, it was known as "The Lady of Ammon" in the Iron Age and then Philadelphia when it was part of the 10 cities of Decapulus, and now it still exists and embraces 4 million people. Amman - sometimes referred to as the "White City" because of its stone-built houses - contains a variety of historical sites of various ages. Numerous ongoing searches and excavations have revealed traces of the Stone, Hellenistic, and Roman ages, down to the Arab Muslim era.  

The most prominent site is "Mount Castle" which includes several buildings such as the Temple of Hercules, the Umayyad Palace, and the Byzantine Church. Below Mount Castle is a 6,000-capacity Roman theatre, a concave amphitheater carved into the hill rock that is still used today for cultural events. There is another restored theater close to it called the Odeon, with a capacity of 500 people and concerts. Three museums in the area give visitors a look at the past and its history: the Jordanian Museum of Antiquities, the Jordanian Folklore Museum, and the Folklore Museum.