The Jordan Museum

The Jordan Museum, built in 2014, is the biggest museum in Jordan The building itself combines the old and the new rough stones representing the past, smooth stones the present, and glass showing a view to the future.

The museum, laid out in chronological order, ranges from prehistoric times through to the modern day. Start with pre-history, and history, then move on to the Islamic Period, the Classical Period, and end at the modern day with a vision to the future.

There is a 9,500-year-old plaster statue from Ain Ghazal. Another important item is the Mesha stele, from 840 BC with Canaanite writing describing the victory of the king of Moab (now Al-Karak) over the Israelites. Other interesting exhibits include archaeological items from Petra, and Jordan’s Dead Sea Scrolls made of copper. These were on display, but photos not allowed inside the room.

I enjoyed this museum, although it had a lot of overlap with the Archaeological Museum, it had the same advantage of the clear and educational layout. I would say the artefacts are fewer in number, but perhaps more high quality and, of course, more impressively present and I would suggest this is the better choice of the two. It was very educational -- this is the place to come to learn about all the ages in prehistory ass well as get the more recent history and culture of Jordan and the Bedu.Read more