Umm el-Jimal
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How it came to be
Umm el-Jimal, 'mother of camels', is a village in the Hauran region of northern Jordan, about 17 km east of Mafraq, where the basalt ruins of an ancient settlement still stand above ground. According to UNESCO its earliest structures date from the 1st century CE, when the area belonged to the Nabataean Kingdom.
In 106 the Nabataean kingdom passed to the Roman emperor Trajan and became the Province of Arabia, and a garrison and fort were later placed here. From around the 5th century a village grew organically over the Roman settlement, and about 150 houses built in the 5th and 6th centuries still stand. A wave of church building followed in the 6th century, and 15 churches can still be seen.
Islamic rule began in 640, and buildings were adapted as dwellings and mosques. An earthquake around 749 destroyed many of them, and UNESCO records that the settlement functioned until the end of the 8th century. Inscriptions in Greek, Nabataean, Safaitic, Latin and Arabic have been found at the site. In the early 20th century the Druze and then the Bedouin Msa'eid settled here, and the site was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 2024.
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