Amman Citadel Excavation

Our excavations on the Amman Citadel began in spring 2024 and focus on the Lower Terrace, an area that preserves important remains from the Iron Age and Hellenistic periods. While the citadel is known for its impressive Roman, Byzantine, and Umayyad monuments, these earlier phases of occupation have received far less attention in previous research. By revisiting this part of the site, our project aims to uncover new evidence for the earliest urban and political history of Amman and to understand the citadel's role during the Ammonite kingdom and the later Hellenistic city of Philadelphia.

Earlier excavations at the site have already produced important results on its Iron Age and Hellenistic occupation. Between 1968 and 1973, excavations revealed four double-faced female stone heads that had been reused in a later water channel but originally belonged to an Iron Age sculptural tradition. Further excavations carried out between 1987 and 1991 revealed parts of a large monumental building dating to the 7th century BCE. This only partially excavated structure included a paved central courtyard, adjacent rooms with plastered walls, and even a stone toilet seat—an architectural feature otherwise known only from elite residences. Luxury objects such as glass vessels, ivory and glass inlays, and fine ceramics further point to the presence of a high-status building.

Since spring 2024, the Amman Archaeological Project has expanded excavations in the southeastern part of the Lower Terrace, close to the earlier excavation areas. A key question guides the current work of the international research team: Was this monumental structure simply an elite residence, or could it represent the palace of the Ammonite kings? By continuing excavation in this area, the project seeks to clarify the building’s function, refine its chronology, and understand how it fits within the Iron Age urban landscape of the citadel. More broadly, the research investigates how political developments shaped architecture, governance, and elite representation in the kingdom of Ammon.

The project also investigates the Hellenistic fortification on the very eastern end of Lower Terrace. During the Hellenistic period, Amman was known as Philadelphia, a city founded by Ptolemy II Philadelphus in the 3rd century BCE. As an important Ptolemaic settlement in the region, the city likely played a strategic role in the struggles between the Ptolemaic and Seleucid kingdoms. By studying the fortifications on the Lower Terrace, the project aims to better understand the defensive strategies employed to safeguard the city and to illuminate Amman’s role within the political and military landscape of the Hellenistic Levant.

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  Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) Survey 2021

  In December 2021, a Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) survey was carried out on the lower terrace of the Amman Citadel. Led by Katharina Schmidt (at this time German Protestant Institute of Archaeology) and Zeidan Kafafi, and funded by the GPIA Amman, the survey was conducted by Eastern Atlas, Berlin. The results revealed potential archaeological features and areas of modern disturbance. These findings guided our excavation plans, identifying promising areas to explore and areas with significant modern intrusions to avoid.

• The 2024 Excavation Campaign

  

  The 2024 excavation season focused on expanding our understanding of the southern edge of the Citadel’s lower terrace. We selected the excavation site based on the previous research and completed it by an architectural study with photogrammetry and structural analysis in the easternmost terrace. This research aimed to document previously uncovered structures in new detail.

  Four areas, designated A, B, C, and D, were excavated in the south. The core excavation site, centered within and around the former trenches, provided opportunities to establish a comprehensive archaeological sequence. In Area A, we aimed to establish a completely new sequence from surface to depth. We focused in Area B on verifying stratigraphy and creating detailed profiles, extracting short-lived C14 samples, and collecting block samples for micromorphology analysis. Areas C and D to the west and north extended the excavation area to explore the potential northern expansion of the palace and investigate storage rooms to recover additional artifacts and inventories.

  Three major findings marked this season:

  Chronology: Excavations revealed that the monumental building had at least two primary phases, with evidence of remodeling retaining its spatial organization. Numerous short-lived C14 samples, carefully extracted and analyzed, will allow precise dating of these phases.

  Preceding Structure: In the western area, an older, monumental structure emerged, featuring a massive north-south wall exceeding 10 meters in length, suggesting sustained monumental construction activity.

  Finds: Key finds included a burnt ivory volute fragment, a bone spoon, Tridacna shell pieces, and a horse head from a rider figurine, all dating to the late Iron Age and hinting at an elite context. The season’s highlight was the discovery of two more exemplars of the double-faced female head. This extraordinary discovery, captured on-site by a National Geographic team, will soon feature in an upcoming documentary. The two heads were immediately restored by the ammap team with the help of conservation specialist Franco Scorillo and will soon be exhibited in the Amman Citadel Museum.

  The Team of the ammap 2024 campaign: Amany al Dabouki, Sereen al Shoubaki, Maria Bernatzki, Henriette Hentschel-Kilthau, Tim Heye, Brita Jansen, Zeidan Kafafi, Katharina Schmidt, Trixi Steil, Eva Strothenke-Koch, Kim Thommes, Vincent Wagner, Lyndelle Webster, Felix Wolter

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  Media and Documentary Coverage

  

  Our excavations have also attracted media attention. A film crew from National Geographic accompanied the fieldwork in 2024 and captured the discovery of the two female statue heads during excavation. These remarkable moments are featured in the documentary series Lost Treasures of the Bible.

  Watch the documentaries:
  Lost Treasures of the Bible (National Geographic)
  Myths of the Bible: King Solomon (ZDF)
   

• The 2025 Excavation Campaign

  

  Following a successful first season in 2024, the Amman Archaeological Project continued with its second excavation campaign in 2025. The campaign focused on the Iron Age residence on the Lower Terrace of the Amman Citadel and initiated the first targeted investigations of the Hellenistic period fortification.

  In Areas A and D, additional parts of the monumental Iron Age residence were uncovered, including sections of the central courtyard and massive surrounding walls. High-quality small finds—including burnt ivory inlays, decorated Tridacna shell fragments, alabaster vessels, and another fragment of a double-faced female head—confirm the elite character of the complex. Radiocarbon and pottery analyses have, for the first time, precisely dated the earliest construction phase of this monumental building to the 10th century BCE, demonstrating that a planned, large-scale structure existed much earlier than previously assumed by earlier examinations. The building remained in use over an extended period and was later renovated with a new layout. During this renovation, a sophisticated water channel system was installed, and several of the sculptural fragments were reused as secondary building material. These changes occurred towards the end of the Iron Age, rather than in the Hellenistic period as had been thought before.

  The team also discovered a previously unknown cistern, which is expected to provide important insights into the residence's water supply. Finally, initial soundings in Area E produced evidence for early Hellenistic fortifications, including carefully worked ashlar facades that may be connected to the refoundation of the city as Philadelphia in the 3rd century BCE.

  The Team of the ammap 2025 campaign: Sara Abdulla, Amany al Dabouki, Sereen al Shoubaki, Maria Bernatzki, Tim Taylan Çakıroğlu, Brita Jansen, Zeidan Kafafi, Neeltje Krebs, Tom Maltas, Christiane Riese, Paula Rothmund, Katharina Schmidt, Trixi Steil, Eva Strothenke-Koch, Shayma Vermeersch, Vincent Wagner, Felix Wolter, Katrin Züfle

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Previous Excavations on the Lower terrace

Prior research played an important role in selecting the excavation site and shaping the research questions for our resumed excavations in the framework of the Amman Archaeological Project. Key contributions came from the Department of Antiquities of Jordan’s (DoA) excavations, directed by Fawzi Zayadine in 1968 and again in 1972-1973, as well as from the collaborative expedition between the DoA and the École Biblique et Archéologique Française of Jerusalem from 1987 to 1991. Both projects concentrated on the lower terrace of the Citadel, which is also the focus of our excavations.

1968, 1972–1973 Department of Antiquities of Jordan excavations

The first scientific excavations on the lower terrace of the Amman Citadel were carried out by the Department of Antiquities of Jordan (DoA) under the direction of Fawzi Zayadine in the years 1968 and also between 1972 and 1973. The excavations concentrated on the Citadel’s lower terrace on two main areas designated as Area A, along the southern edge of the terrace, and Area B, at its southeastern corner. The goal was to examine the city wall and the surrounding intramural spaces. Five occupation layers were identified in Area A, with Stratum V dating to Iron Age II. This stratum included two walls and associated floors, yet no complete building structure could be identified. Of particular interest was a Hellenistic drainage channel in which four double-sided female heads (J.11688, J.11689, J.11690, 11691) were reused as paving material. The heads must have originally belonged to an Iron Age monumental building.

1987–1991 Department of Antiquities - École Biblique joint excavations

In 1987, a joint expedition of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan and the École Biblique et Archaéologique Française of Jerusalem revisited this area, expanding on the earlier findings. The scholars involved were for the DoA Fawzi Zayadine and Mohammad Najjar and for the École Biblique Jean-Baptiste Humbert, and Jean-Michelle de Tarragon, among others. Their work focused on Area A, where the sondages from the 1968 and 1972-1973 excavations were reopened. The Iron Age II structures uncovered in Area A comprise a large plastered courtyard (N-S 10 m; W-E 15 m, not entirely exposed) bound by two large parallel walls in the north and south with adjoining rooms. The flanking rooms to the north most likely carried one or two upper floors filled with large quantities of material that had fallen from an upper storage. The objects found in this debris comprised a life-size terracotta mask and a glass drinking cup, which is a unique piece only finding parallels in the Neo-Assyrian capitals, in particular in Nimrud. Also, pieces of ivory and glass inlays, as well as fine table wares, were found here. To the south of the courtyard, one of the rooms contained a stone toilet seat. Given the building’s size, architectural features like the large courtyard and toilet, and the exceptional finds, this structure must have served as a residence. One of the main goals of our current excavations is to test this hypothesis and determine whether this may have been a royal residence.

References:

Humbert, Jean-Babtiste, and Fawzi Zayadine. 1992. Trois Campagnes De Fouilles a Amman (1988-1991) Troisième Terrasse de la Citadelle (Mission Franco-Jordanienne). Revue Biblique (99): 214–60.

Schmidt, Katharina 2023. History of research on the Iron Age of the Amman Citadel جبل القلعة‎ (Jabal Al-Qal´a), in: S. Kerner/ H. Hayajneh/ O. al-Ghul (Hg.) Excavations, Surveys, Heritage. Essays on southwest Asian archaeology. In honour of Zeidan Kafafi, 249–271.

Zayadine, Fawzi. 1973. Recent Excavations on the Citadel of Amman. Annual of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan (18): 17–35.

Zayadine, Fawzi, Jean-Babtiste Humbert, and Mohammad Najjar. 1989. The 1988 Excavations on the Citadel of Amman: Lower Terrace, Area A. Annual of the Department of Antiquities (33): 357–63.