Dthree fingers of one hand lie in the grass of the citadel high above Amman and make us shudder twice: because they are shaped so lifelike that for a second we imagine they are not made of marble but of flesh and blood, and ask ourselves, which poor sinner they were cut off; and because the sinner must have been a giant seven times the size of a man. Each of the fingers, which once belonged to the semi-divine son of Zeus and Alcmene, is as long as a human arm. Archaeologists have calculated that Hercules is 13 meters high, one of the mightiest statues of antiquity, soaring into the sky and watching over the city like the Colossus of Rhodes over his. Not more than three fingers and a handful of foundations are left of Hercules and his temple, which is no warning. Because all the historical wealth of that country, which we call Jordan today, is so concentrated and interwoven on the hill of the citadel that three steles at the entrance have to provide a first rough orientation. They stand for the three names of the city that the Persians and Hellenists called Rabbath-Ammon, Romans and Byzantines called Philadelphia, Fatimids and Mamelukes called Amman. And not only they, but also the Nabataeans and Moses, the Seljuks and Lawrence of Arabia left their traces in the land of the Jordan.
Blood relationship with the Prophet
Every minute we stroll through the centuries on the citadel, passing mosques, hammams and cisterns on our paths lined with rosemary bushes, the remains of Byzantine basilicas and burial caves from the Bronze Age, marveling at over 10,000 in the archaeological museum on the hill Years-old figurines with twin heads from the Neolithic period, and are then dismissed by portraits of the three Hashemite rulers whose lineage claims blood ties to the Prophet Mohammed: the late King Hussein I, his reigning son Abdullah II, and the future monarch Hussein II ., which have been continuing Jordan’s history since 1946.
One of the most colossal statues of antiquity once adorned the Temple of Hercules in the Amman Citadel. Only ruins remain.
:
Bild: Science Photo Library
Their capital was once built on seven hills, like Rome, which have become at least seventy, spreading out before us in a daring ups and downs. Because Amman has now swollen to five million inhabitants, mainly because of the Palestinian refugee waves that swept over Jordan like a biblical flood after every war between Israel and the Arab world. Sixty percent of Jordanians today have Palestinian roots, and their refugee camps, which sprawl over the hills at our feet, have long since become neighborhoods that can only be distinguished from their neighbors at second glance, a little poorer, a little more crowded, but nowhere groaning under the misery of homelessness. Behind them, the new high-rise district with its shopping malls and luxury hotels rivals the clouds and makes the boomtown Amman the third most expensive place in the Middle East after Dubai and Tel Aviv. And above it all flies a monumental national flag of Jordan in green, red, white and black, the colors of the four main dynasties, adorned with the seven-pointed star, a homage to the seven hills and the seven opening verses of the Koran – lest we forget that we find ourselves in the heart of Hashemite rule, regardless of all foreign influences.