Umm Al-Jimāl

I visited Umm Al-Jimāl during my trip to Jordan and Egypt in the winter of 2025. Since I decided not to rent a car in Jordan, I had to find an alternative solution to reach the sites on the outskirts of Amman. So I hired a driver from the Black Iris Hotel in Madaba. Recommended by Lonely Planet, it was the place where I got the best price, and I can confirm that the service was excellent. We therefore left Madaba early and my driver took me to Qasr Kharana, Qusayr 'Amra, Azraq Wetland Reserve, Qasr al-Azraq, and Umm Al-Jimāl, before finally dropping me off in Amman.

The archaeological sites in Jordan are generally very well laid out and very easy to visit. Umm Al-Jimāl is no exception. The receptionists looked at my Jordan Pass (although entry is free) and then handed me a magnificent map of the site detailing some thirty points of interest and an itinerary to follow (available in this reference). I began my visit in the small museum. It explains the history of the site and displays a few artifacts in reconstructed traditional houses. Umm Al-Jimāl is not a grandiose site having been of capital importance in the region's history. The monuments are not stunning. However, it is a provincial town with traditional black basalt stone architecture whose ruins have survived the passage of time well.

The best thing about Umm Al-Jimāl is that you can walk around it like an archaeologist. …

Despite its relative obscurity, Umm Al-Jimāl has been praised as “an archaeologist’s dream”. It’s not hard to take pictures here that would make it look like a Roman-Byzantine site, and the even earlier Nabataeans passed here too, but 90% of the site consists of vernacular architecture based on locally available and finely cut basalt stones. The site museum glorifies the “indigenous people [probably Arab nomads who settled down].. who continued their traditions and were no puppets of the various rulers”; the OUV is also solely based on the rural lifestyle of these Hauranian people. At the time, around 500-800 AD, Umm Al-Jimāl was a prosperous town based on agriculture and serving the next major city of Bosra (nowadays 80km away by car since you have to find a border post into Syria, but as the crow flies or the camel walks it is only 25km).

The archaeological site still requires no entrance fee and can be entered both via the south (where a friendly tourist police station is) and the northwest (adjacent to the central street of the modern town). The south is the main entrance, and the first stop here is the small site museum. It occupies a restored house typical for the area, built with sturdy black basalt stones to withstand the heat and with the horse stables inside. In the museum collection, the multilingual inscriptions stand out, such as the Dushara inscription on a cult stone with text in both Greek and Nabataean.

The …

I visited Umm al-Jimal by rental car from Amman on a trip in May 2019, that covered the northern WHS of Jordan. Access was easy, even though it is close to the Syrian boarder and neighboured by a Military Air Base and a huge refugee camp.
Even though not as spectacular as nearby Jerash, the place has its charm. There is so much left from the Byzantine/Umayyad city, that it rather looks like a town recently destroyed by an earthquake than an archaeological site from the 6th century. On the other side I had a hard time finding something from the Nabatean and Roman periods. The real beauty of the city lies in the building material. The region was formed by volcanic activity and everything was built with local black basalt stones.
 
The site can easily be combined with Quasir Amra, As-Salt and even a few TWHS. There is not a lot of traffic outside of Amman, so a lot can be achieved during a productive day.

Umm el-Jimal are the ruins of Nabataean, Roman and early Byzantine town from the beginning of our era. It is located in one hour driving distance from one of the biggest Jordanian tourist attractions – Jerash. Although Syrian border is only 10 km away, access to the site is not limited or especially checked (which is the case of Umm Qays, another TWHS close to the Syrian border, where everybody has to be checked on the military checkpoint).

Although Jordan is famous from its ruined towns, Umm el-Jimal is probably the biggest of them. It is really huge and if you want to see all of it, reserve at least two or three hours. It is literally the sea of ruins of former streets, houses and churches. Some of the buildings remained less destroyed and now attract the biggest attention - one of the most impressive views is the lonely arch facade of former West Church. I suspect that Jordanian government wants to reconstruct some of the buildings before attempting inscription as a WHS (aimed for 2020), as I saw a crane on the site.

Based on what I saw, Umm el-Jimal was an interesting site worth visiting. Comparing to already inscribed ruined town of Umm ar-Rasas, Umm el-Jimal is even more interesting (although without so impressive mosaics), so I would be happy to see the place as a WHS.