greetings yall! what i love more than my home and heritage and history is yapping about it lol so special thanks to my dearest @sporadicallyanenthusiast whos curiosity and deep desire for knowledge mirrors mine and makes my life all the more wonderful :3
anyway heres a short history of what is now my homecountry of jordan mostly translated from my first year jordan history and civics book lol bc it was presented in nice concise points :]
^^^ jordanian shemagh & national flower; black iris. in typical me fashion i sidetracked so hard and ended up going on a very long and interesting tangent where i started reading about orientalism and will probably be talking about it too after i finish edward saids book and doing some more research on my part (shout out to my super cool parents for being a big part of said research lol) so yeah stay tuned ig
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The name jordan means decending/ down flowing (there are many hypotheses about the etymology but hebrew & greek is what im going with here), which is a reference to the jordan river that runs from lake tiberias to the dead sea, and is extremely crooked lol.
In arabic its read as al urdun, a cognate to the hebrew yarden, from yarad meaning “the descender”. according to the arabic wiki page it also means severity and dominance which i find quite interesting.
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the prehistoric civilisations that lived in what is now jordan include:
canaanites (الكنعانية): circa 3000 BC, lived mostly in palestine (ariha, akka, bisan and more). around the same time several semetic peoples established themselves in syria and jordan; phoenicians centred at the coast and the amorites in the west of the euphrates river (modern day iraq)
edomites (الأدومية): circa 2000 BC, their rule extended from al aqaba (southernmost jordan) to wadi hessa in the north and their capital was basirah near al tafilah today
moabites (المؤابيون): 2000-800 BC, from wadi hessa to wadi mujib and dhiban was their capital. Their most prominent king was mesha (who iconically invented my beloved mansaf lmao) whose history was documented on the mesha stele; the longest Iron Age inscription ever found in the region, the major evidence for the Moabite language, and a unique record of military campaigns.
ammonites (العمونيون): from the northeastern moab regions since the 12th century BC, their capital was named amun which is now amman the capital of jordan.
nabteans (الأنباط): between 600-106 AD built its civilisation in the south of jordan and were proficient in agriculture, trade, and stonemasonry; the rose city, petra, is famous for its rock cut architecture. Its also one of the new 7 wonders of the world
the nabteans extended from damascus in the north and were the first to settle in the village of um al jimal near al mafraq, which served as a guard point at the borders of the badiyah/ desert to the west of palestine and reached the banks of the nile.
a famous king of theirs was al harith III/ aretas philhellen (friend of the greeks) who surrounded/ sieged jerusalem in 85 BC and his rule (and therefore the independence of the nabtean kingdom) ended when the roman emperor trajan took over syria in 106 AD
roman/ byzantine empire (الحضارة الرومانية و البيزنطية): rome conquered bilad al sham in 63 AD and ruled for 400 years, during which the decapolis was formed; union of 10 hellenistic cities across jordan syria and palestine.
In jordan: philadelphia (amman), gerasa (jerash), gadara (um qais), pella (tabqet fahl), and arabella (irbid) <- my city :3
byzantine rule was confined to the eastern roman empire, and during the era of the emperor constantine (who embraced christianity in 333 AD) the decapolis flourished noticeably with the influx of roman christians who sought refuge there.
anyway arts and architecture and irrigation projects and agriculture prospered, christianity became the official religion of the population and churches were built decorated with mosaics to the east and west of the jordan river (which is religiously significant btw to both christianity and judaism) esp during justinians rule (527-565 AD)
Ghassanids (الغساسنة): are of arab origins from yemen who migrated in the late 3rd century AD after the collapse of a great dam known as ma’rib (which I was fascinated to learn was mentioned in the quran in the chapter of saba (sheba) 34:15-17)
anyhow they settled in bilad al sham and took houran as their capital (houran is the name of the area between syria and jordan back in ye olden days when borders didn’t exist). their rule and reach grew slowly till they eventually had tadmur (palmyra) in syria to the euphrates and al aqaba under their control.
the official language was arabic but they mastered aramaic as it was the language of trade at the time, dominating the trade routes that linked yemen to bilad al sham. they embraced christianity as well, allying themselves with the byzantines, and their rule came to an end after their amirs/ princes divided among themselves around 584 AD.
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which brings us to the end of prehistoric civilisations of jordan! thank u for reading this far I appreciate it lol. hope u enjoyed :D
will update with the islamic eras of jordan post up until the ottoman empire. which ill get into someday after I read the two books I bought nearly 2 years ago lmao :')
