Jarash Things to Do Tips by Djinn76 Top 5 Page for this destination

The North Theatre

Much smaller than the South theatre, it can 'only' contains 1600 persons!!

It was completely burried in the ground but has recently been excavated.

Churches of SS Cosmos and Damianus

Close to the temple of Artemis, there is some mess with three different churches. It's not so easy to tell which one is which!! At least SS Cosmos and Damianus is easy to spot, this is the one with the big mosaic!!

We can recognise different kinds of animals, trees... and small crosses looking like svastikas!! Nothing related to the Nazis, it is just that the svastica was a sacred symbol before it got reused!!

The Cathedral Steps

Not much left from this cathedral built in the 4th century by the first Christians...

Quite funny to know it was built with the stones from the temple of Dionysos!

The Nymphaeum

Close to the cathedral, this was a huge fountains dedicated to the Nymphs and built during the second century.

Pretty well preserved, we can also see a huge basin added later on during the Byzantine times.

The North Tetrapylon

As mentionned before, this was the junction between the Cardo Maximo and a secondary street.

Quite impressive as well is the ceiling of this building.

Temple of Artemis

The dimensions of this temple are incredibly huge. What you can see on this picture is only the "cella", the most sacred part of the building.
It was surrounded by some more columns, walls, there was a huge stair as well.
You really have to come on site to realise by yourself!

Later on, it has been used as a pottery factory and then as a fortress by the Arabs and the Crusaders.

The Temple of Zeus

To the left of the theatre, we can see what is left from this huge temple dedicated to Zeus! It was built in the 2nd century on top of a previous Greek temple.

Recent excavations have discovered half of this previous temple and there are currently discussions going on about renovating this Greek temple...

From here the view on the site is wonderful!

The Cardo Maximus

During my trip in Jordan, I've seen many "Cardo Maximo" but this one is definitely the most impressive and the better preserved!! At each side of this long street of 800meters long, stand 200 columns!!

This is the main street of a traditional Roman city. It is crossed at two points by two secondary roads, the decumanus. At each junction stands a Tetrapylon.

If you check carefully the stones, you can still see the track left by the chariots!

The South Theatre

Built in the 1st century and recently renovated, this theatre can now contain about 3000 spectators. Originally more than 5000 persons were able to sit inside!!

The Forum

This ovale-shaped square is without any doubt the main attraction of the city.
Surrounded by many Ionic columns, if we carefully check the pave stones, we can see it has been enlarged several times.