Jarash



It is 40 km north of Amman, and is 550 metres above sea level. Among the scores of cities which flourished in the Roman era , between the 1st and 4th centuries, is the city of jarash. It is the best preserved and most complete. The ruins of jarash were rediscovered in 1908 by a German scholar. It is believed that the city probably covered an area at least twice that now exposed and had a population of about 18,000. jarash is on the eastern side of Ajloun( Gilead) hills. Within the walls of jarash , there are remains of settlements from the Bronze age, Iron Age, Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, Umayyad and Abbaside periods, from around 1600 B.C. to 900 A.D. It was a Neolithic settlement , c. 6000 B.C.. Neolithic man lived there and hunted for gazelle, oryx, wild goat and mountain sheep among the surrounding hills. Later, in c. 2500 B.C.Bronze Age and Iron Age, villages were constructed before the city itself was built. However, the earliest records call it Antioch on the Golden River, a name associated with the Seleucids of Syria. Its emergence as a major city took place c. 350-250 B.C. It developed gradually from mud-huts and primitive stone houses to a flourishing Hellenistic town by Ptolomy II Philadelphus ( 283-2460 B.C.), who was responsible for a reconstruction programme in Amman. The city's temple of Zeus was used as a safe haven by Theodosus of Philadelphia after he had been expelled from Gadara. Later, jarash became a member of the Decapolis, a defensive league of ten Greek cities that controlled the eastern trade route from Egypt and Arabia to the Levant and Persia and brought great wealth to its members. During the first and second centuries A.D. jarash boomed and was rebuilt in typical classical style: a walled city of exceptional magnificance with a large forum and colonnaded streets lined by public buildings. jarash has three theatres, two baths, a hippodrome and a water display pool as well as several temples. The Artemis Temple is a second-century architectural triumph. Economic decline started when the destruction of Palmyra in 272 B.C. by the Romans broke the power of the Decapolis and its trade monopoly. Later on, jarash became the seat of Diocesan See after Constantine's adoption of Chriatianity.



A cathedral and at least thirteen churches were built c. 500 A.D., and Jarash became a place for pilgrimage for the annual re-enactment of the miracle of Cana. During the next century jarash was invaded by the Persians and then by the Arabs in 635 A.D. A mosque was built in jarash during the early Islamic Empire. jarash was on the main communication route between Damascus and the Arabian Peninsula during the reign of the Umayyad Caliphs in 661 A.D.
Finally an earthquake in 726 A.D. destructed the city including the irrigation system that made the city self-supporting in food in the first and second centuries. Sand choked the channels and fields. The site was resettled by Circassians in 1876. Now, the annual jarash Festival of Culture and Arts revives the cities ancient role as a meeting place of culture and art from the east and the west.Thousands of people are entertained by the Festival's score of folkloric, dance theatre and ballet troups, exhibition and crafts display.