Um Al-Jimal

Um Al-Jimal is the seventh historical site in Jordan to be added to UNESCO’s World Heritage List, If Petra is the “rose-red” city, Um Al Jimal is a city of “all black”, constructed exclusively with dark, volcanic basalt rock. Located 70km northeast of the capital, the site was established by the Nabataeans and continued under the Romans, later being revived by thriving Byzantine and Umayyad communities. 

After destruction by an earthquake, it was sporadically inhabited until it was resettled by Druze and Masaeid in the 20th Century.

Um Al Jimal was a frontier town on the edge of the badia, likely first inhabited by Nabataean traders caravanning between Petra and Damascus ; With the arrival of Rome in the second century AD, the village eventually became part of the Limes Arabicus — the line of garrisoned forts that protected the Roman province of Arabia.

Um Al Jimal’s black building material lent itself to typical frontier architecture, as basalt is durable and provides good insulation, cooling the summer heat and shielding from the winter cold. The black volcanic stone — today often mottled in appearance from lichen, dust, and age — was so sturdy that many homes were built up to three-storey tall, with the tower of the so-called Barracks (or later castellum) six stories above the ground. The results lasted a long time; Not only were buildings maintained and reused over centuries of continuous occupation, but many were reoccupied in the early 20th century and over 150 are still at least partially standing today.

The town had a population of several thousand and enjoyed relative autonomy during the Byzantine and early Islamic empires, after the Roman military’s hold on the region had diminished. The site sits on the edge of a lava plain that stretches in all directions from Jabal Al Arab in Syria. This huge deposit was created by a series of eruptions from the mountain and various fissures on its slopes..