Jordan

The plateau east of the Jordan was never empty land. From around 1200 BCE, as the Iron Age opened, three organised kingdoms took shape along its highlands: Ammon in the north around modern Amman, Moab in the centre east of the Dead Sea, and Edom in the rugged south. Each developed its own dialect, script and national deity, and each controlled stretches of the great caravan road, later called the King's Highway, that carried trade between Arabia and Syria.

Ammon, with its capital at Rabbath Ammon on the site of present-day Amman, was the most northerly of the three. According to the account preserved in the Hebrew scriptures, Ammon and its neighbours rose and fell with the fortunes of the Israelite monarchies, regaining independence after the death of King David around 960 BCE. The Mesha Stele, a 9th-century BCE inscription set up by a king of Moab, records that kingdom's wars and stands as one of the earliest royal inscriptions from the region.

Edom, holding the harsh country between the Dead Sea and the Gulf of Aqaba, grew wealthy from copper mining and from taxing the caravans that crossed its territory. All three kingdoms were eventually absorbed by the great empires of the age, the Assyrians and then the Babylonians, who deported and resettled populations across the Near East. By the time the Persian Empire fell to Alexander the Great in 332 BCE, the old kingdoms had faded, but their cities and roads would shape everything that followed.

Turning points

1. c. 1200 BCEFormation

   Ammon, Moab and Edom emerge

   As the Iron Age began, three settled kingdoms took shape on the plateau east of the Jordan, each with its own capital, language and national god, controlling the caravan trade of the King's Highway.

   [1] [12]

2. c. 960 BCEPolitics & Power

   Ammon regains its independence

   According to the biblical account, the kingdom of Ammon, centred on Rabbath Ammon (modern Amman), reasserted its independence after the death of the Israelite king David.

   [1]

3. c. 9th century BCECulture & Ideas

   The Mesha Stele of Moab

   King Mesha of Moab erected a stone inscription recording his wars and building works, one of the earliest royal inscriptions from the lands east of the Jordan.

   [1] [12]

4. 332 BCEWar & Rupture

   Alexander the Great and the end of Persian rule

   The conquests of Alexander brought the region into the Hellenistic world, hastening the eclipse of the old Iron Age kingdoms and opening the way to Greek and later Roman cities.

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   [1]

Into the vacuum left by the old kingdoms came the Nabataeans, an Arab people who settled the deserts south of the Dead Sea and made the hidden valley of Petra their capital. Master traders and hydraulic engineers, they grew rich controlling the caravan routes that carried frankincense, myrrh and spices from southern Arabia to the Mediterranean. Petra, half-built and half-carved into the rose-coloured rock and threaded by a narrow gorge, the Siq, became a crossroads between Arabia, Egypt and Syria-Phoenicia.

The Nabataeans were among antiquity's most ingenious water engineers. In a near-rainless land they cut channels, tunnels, dams and a vast network of cisterns and reservoirs that captured and stored seasonal floods, allowing tens of thousands to live in the desert. Their wealth funded monumental architecture that fused Hellenistic facades with native rock-cut tradition, the great tomb-temples of the Khazneh and the Deir among them, an artistic achievement UNESCO would later call outstanding.

Nabataean influence extended well beyond Petra, north toward Damascus and south into Arabia, and the kingdom reached its height in the first century BCE and first century CE. But it stood astride routes that Rome coveted. In 106 CE the emperor Trajan annexed the Nabataean realm, which became the Roman province of Arabia Petraea. Petra survived for a time as a provincial centre before trade shifted and the desert slowly reclaimed it, leaving the archaeological wonder that was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1985.

Turning points

1. 312 BCEFormation

   The Nabataeans resist the Greeks at Petra

   The Nabataean Arabs, established around Petra, repelled campaigns by the Hellenistic successors of Alexander, marking their emergence as a distinct desert power controlling the caravan trade.

   [7] [1]

2. c. 1st century BCECulture & Ideas

   Petra reaches its golden age

   At the height of the incense trade the Nabataeans carved Petra's monumental tomb-temples and engineered an elaborate system of dams, channels and cisterns to sustain a great city in the desert.

   [7]

3. 106 CEWar & Rupture

   Rome annexes the Nabataean kingdom

   The emperor Trajan absorbed the Nabataean realm as the province of Arabia Petraea, ending Nabataean independence as Roman power extended across the region.

   ↗See the data

   [7] [1]

4. 1985Culture & Ideas

   Petra inscribed as a World Heritage Site

   UNESCO inscribed Petra on the World Heritage List as a unique artistic achievement and an outstanding architectural ensemble of the early centuries BCE and CE.

   [7]

When the Roman general Pompey reorganised the East in 63 BCE, several Greek-style cities east of the Jordan were grouped into the Decapolis, a loose league of self-governing towns in the province of Syria. Chief among them was Gerasa, modern Jerash, settled since the Neolithic but rebuilt as a wealthy provincial city. Its colonnaded streets, oval forum, temples to Zeus and Artemis, theatres and triumphal arch survive today as some of the best-preserved Roman urban ruins anywhere in the world.

Roman roads, aqueducts and trade brought prosperity to the region for centuries. After the empire divided, the eastern lands passed to the Byzantine Empire, and Christianity spread widely across the plateau. Churches multiplied, and their floors were laid with intricate mosaics, the finest preserved at Um er-Rasas, a site that grew from a Roman military camp into a Byzantine and early-Islamic town and was inscribed by UNESCO in 2004 for its sixteen churches and remarkable mosaic floors.

Byzantine rule was not unbroken. The plateau lay on a contested frontier, exposed to Persian invasions and to the pressures of the desert tribes. In the early 7th century the Byzantine and Persian empires exhausted themselves in a long war, and into that weakened world swept the armies of a new faith. At the Battle of the Yarmuk in 636 CE, fought on a tributary of the Jordan, the Muslim Arabs decisively defeated Byzantium and opened Syria and the lands east of the Jordan to Islam.

Turning points

1. 63 BCEPolitics & Power

   Pompey creates the Decapolis

   Rome's reorganisation of the East grouped Gerasa (Jerash) and neighbouring Greek-style cities into the Decapolis, a league of self-governing towns that prospered under Roman rule.

   [1] [12]

2. 1st - 2nd century CECulture & Ideas

   Jerash flourishes as a Roman city

   Gerasa was rebuilt with colonnaded streets, an oval forum, temples and theatres, becoming one of the wealthiest cities of the Roman Near East and leaving ruins still visible today.

   [1]

3. 5th - 6th century CEReligion

   Christian Byzantium and the mosaics of Um er-Rasas

   Under Byzantine rule Christianity spread across the plateau and church floors were laid with elaborate mosaics, preserved most fully at Um er-Rasas, later a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

   [9]

4. 636 CEWar & Rupture

   The Battle of the Yarmuk

   Muslim Arab armies decisively defeated the Byzantines near the Yarmuk River, ending Roman rule over the region and bringing the lands east of the Jordan into the new Islamic world.

   ↗See the data

   [1] [12]

After the Muslim conquest the lands east of the Jordan came under the Umayyad caliphate, ruled from nearby Damascus. The Umayyads left a striking mark on the eastern deserts in the form of the so-called desert castles, fortified residences and bath-houses where the caliphs and princes hunted and held court. The finest is Quseir Amra, built in the early 8th century and famous for the figurative frescoes covering its reception hall and bath, a rare survival of early Islamic secular art; it was inscribed by UNESCO in 1985.

Power moved away as the centuries passed. The Abbasid caliphs governed from distant Baghdad, and the region became a backwater crossed by pilgrims on the road to Mecca and Medina. Crusaders raised castles such as Karak and Shawbak in the 12th century before being driven out, and the Mamluk sultans of Egypt then held the territory. Through all these changes the plateau remained a land of villages, tribes and the great pilgrim and caravan routes rather than a centre of power in its own right.

In 1516-1517 the Ottoman Turks defeated the Mamluks and absorbed the region into their empire, where it would remain for four centuries as part of the province of Syria. Ottoman authority was often light in the interior, leaving real power to local tribes and notables, but the empire's grip tightened in the 19th century, and the building of the Hejaz Railway through the territory in the early 1900s tied it more closely to Damascus and the holy cities. That railway would soon become a target in the great revolt that ended Ottoman rule.

Turning points

1. 661 - 750 CEReligion

   Umayyad rule and the desert castles

   Governing from Damascus, the Umayyad caliphs built fortified desert residences across the eastern plateau, including Quseir Amra with its celebrated frescoes of early Islamic secular art.

   [8] [1]

2. early 8th century CECulture & Ideas

   Quseir Amra is built

   An Umayyad prince raised the bath-house and pleasure palace of Quseir Amra, whose figurative murals make it one of the most important survivals of early Islamic art; UNESCO inscribed it in 1985.

   [8]

3. 1516 - 1517War & Rupture

   The Ottomans conquer the region

   After defeating the Mamluks, the Ottoman Turks absorbed the lands east of the Jordan into their empire as part of the province of Syria, ruling for four centuries.

   ↗See the data

   [1] [12]

4. 1908Economy & Trade

   The Hejaz Railway crosses the plateau

   The Ottomans completed the Hejaz Railway through the territory, linking Damascus toward the holy cities and binding the region more tightly to the empire on the eve of the Arab Revolt.

   ↗See the data

   [12] [14]

In June 1916, with the encouragement and support of Britain, Sharif Hussein ibn Ali of Mecca proclaimed the Great Arab Revolt against Ottoman rule, aiming to create a single independent Arab state. His sons Faisal and Abdullah led the revolt's armies north, aided by the British officer T. E. Lawrence, attacking the Hejaz Railway and capturing Aqaba in 1917. The Ottoman Empire collapsed at the end of the First World War, but the post-war settlement disappointed Arab hopes, as Britain and France divided the former Ottoman provinces between them.

In late 1920 Abdullah ibn Hussein marched north into the territory east of the Jordan, then a fragment of the British mandate over Palestine. At the Cairo Conference of March 1921 the British recognised his authority, and on 11 April 1921 he formed a government, founding the Emirate of Transjordan. The new emirate was excluded from the provisions for a Jewish national home that applied west of the river. Over the following years Abdullah, with British backing and the disciplined Arab Legion, built a functioning state out of a sparsely settled land of tribes.

Independence came in stages. By the Treaty of London, signed on 22 March 1946, Britain recognised Transjordan as a sovereign state; on 25 May 1946 the parliament re-designated Abdullah as king, and the country became the Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan, soon renamed Jordan. In the 1948 war that followed the end of the British mandate over Palestine, Abdullah's Arab Legion occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which he formally annexed in 1950. On 20 July 1951 the king was assassinated at the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.

Turning points

1. June 1916War & Rupture

   The Great Arab Revolt begins

   Sharif Hussein of Mecca, supported by Britain, launched the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire; his sons Faisal and Abdullah led its forces toward Syria, aided by T. E. Lawrence.

   ↗See the data

   [14] [3]

2. 11 April 1921Formation

   Abdullah founds the Emirate of Transjordan

   After the Cairo Conference, Abdullah ibn Hussein formed a government east of the Jordan under British mandate, establishing Hashemite rule and the Emirate of Transjordan.

   [3] [2]

3. 25 May 1946Independence

   Independence of the Hashemite Kingdom

   Following the Treaty of London, the British mandate ended and Transjordan became a fully independent kingdom, with Abdullah re-designated as king; 25 May is celebrated as Independence Day.

   ↗See the data

   [10] [2]

4. 1950Politics & Power

   Annexation of the West Bank

   After his Arab Legion occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem in the 1948 war, King Abdullah formally annexed the territory and renamed the enlarged state the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

   [3] [2]

5. 20 July 1951Politics & Power

   Assassination of King Abdullah I

   Abdullah I was shot dead on the steps of the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem by a Palestinian gunman, opening a brief succession crisis before his grandson Hussein came to the throne.

   [3]

Figures of the era

Hussein bin Talal came to the throne in 1953, after his father Talal abdicated on grounds of illness, and reigned for nearly half a century. His early years were dominated by the Arab-Israeli conflict and the Palestinian question. In the Six-Day War of June 1967 Jordan lost the West Bank and East Jerusalem to Israel, and a new wave of Palestinian refugees crossed into the East Bank, swelling a population already transformed by the exodus of 1948. By the late 1960s Palestinian guerrilla organisations had built what amounted to a state within the state.

The crisis broke in September 1970, remembered as Black September, when the army moved against the armed Palestinian factions and Syria briefly intervened. After heavy fighting the government prevailed, and by July 1971 the guerrilla forces had been expelled to Lebanon. Hussein spent the following decades as a careful regional diplomat, surviving repeated threats. In 1988 he renounced Jordan's claim to the West Bank in favour of the Palestinians, and in 1994 he signed a full peace treaty with Israel at Wadi Araba, making Jordan only the second Arab state, after Egypt, to do so.

Hussein died in February 1999 and was succeeded by his son Abdullah II. The new king promoted economic liberalisation and cautious modernisation while keeping the throne's central role. His reign has been shaped by external shocks, the Iraq War, the regional uprisings of 2011, the rise and fall of the Islamic State, and the strain of hosting hundreds of thousands of refugees from the Syrian war. Through it all Jordan, poor in oil and water but rich in stability, has remained a quiet pivot of the Middle East and a steady partner of the West into the present day.

Turning points

1. 2 May 1953Politics & Power

   King Hussein assumes power

   After his father Talal was declared unfit to rule, the young Hussein bin Talal took full constitutional powers, beginning a reign of nearly half a century that shaped the modern kingdom.

   [4] [13]

2. June 1967War & Rupture

   The Six-Day War and loss of the West Bank

   In the war with Israel, Jordan lost the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and a fresh wave of Palestinian refugees fled into the East Bank, deepening the kingdom's demographic transformation.

   ↗See the data

   [2] [11]

3. September 1970War & Rupture

   Black September

   King Hussein's army moved against armed Palestinian factions that had built a state within the state; after intense fighting and a brief Syrian incursion, the guerrillas were expelled by July 1971.

   ↗See the data

   [6] [4]

4. 26 October 1994Politics & Power

   Peace treaty with Israel

   King Hussein signed the Wadi Araba treaty with Israel, ending the state of war and making Jordan the second Arab country, after Egypt, to conclude a formal peace with Israel.

   [4] [13]

5. 7 February 1999Politics & Power

   Abdullah II succeeds his father

   On the death of King Hussein, his son Abdullah II ascended the throne, going on to promote economic reform while steering Jordan through war in Iraq, the Arab Spring and a vast refugee influx.

   [5] [15]

6. 2011Peoples & Migration

   The Arab Spring and Syrian refugees

   Protests during the regional uprisings of 2011 prompted reforms from Abdullah II, while the Syrian civil war soon drove hundreds of thousands of refugees into Jordan, straining its economy.

   ↗See the data

   [5] [15]

Figures of the era