A visit to The Jordan Museum

At breakfast this morning (same as yesterday minus the hummus but with a jug of American coffee ☕ - hoorah!), we met a fellow passenger on our Intrepid trip. She arrived late last night. Her name is Ethna (may need to check the spelling on that 😅). She is originally from Bristol but now lives in Vienna where she works as a conference interpreter. She was planning a visit to the citadel today with another member of our group - Darren.

We were in no rush to get going this morning so I did my posts and we pottered around, eventually leaving the hotel at about 11. On the way down, we stopped at the mosaic place again. We had a lovely chat with Mohammed, the owner (what a nice man!) and I booked a mosaic class for Monday - another new craft to learn!

We continued downtown and went looking for the Duke's Dirwan, the oldest house I Amman. We found it, but unfortunately it is closed for renovation.

So, we carried on to the Jordan Museum. It is a new state-of-the-art facility which only opened in 2014. It is the largest museum in Jordan and houses the country's most important archaeological finds.

Just inside the entrance is a hall containing displays about Jordan today - its people, its resources, its economy, etc. It was all very interesting.

The museum's historical artefacts are arranged in chronological order so it's easy to get a sense of how the country and the region evolved. Highlights among all the exhibits are the Dead Sea Scrolls and the 9000 year old Ain Ghazal statues which are probably the oldest human statues ever made. Incredible!!

On the first floor at the moment is a temporary exhibition showcasing 1001 inventions by Muslims throughout history. It was fascinating and full of interactive displays which were fun for adults and children alike. It was a bit weird, though, that many of the videos were presented by Ben Kingsley dressed as a 10th century Muslim inventor but speaking with a clipped British accent 😂

We left feeling very impressed with the museum as a whole.

When we came out of the museum, it had been raining 🌧. Luckily, we had missed the downpour!Baca lagi