Amman (redirected from Rabbath Ammon)

Amman (ämän`), city (1997 est. pop. 1,415,000), capital of Jordan, N central Jordan, on the Jabbok (Wadi Zerka) River. Jordan's largest city and industrial and commercial heart, it is also a transportation hub, especially for pilgrims en route to Mecca. Amman, which is built on a series of hills and valleys, is noted for its locally quarried colored marble. Industries include the manufacture of textiles, leather and leather goods, cement, marble, tiles, flour, and tobacco products. Nearly half of Jordan's industry is based in Amman. On a site occupied since prehistoric times, Amman is the biblical Rabbah, or Rabbath-Ammon, capital of the Ammonites. It was conquered by King David in the 11th cent. B.C. but regained independence under Solomon. The city was taken by Assyria in the 8th cent. B.C. and by Antiochus III c.218 B.C. Ptolemy II Philadelphus named it Philadelphia, by which it was known throughout the Roman and Byzantine periods. It belonged to the Decapolis, a commercial league of free cities organized in the 1st cent. B.C. It was also a leading city of Rome's Arabian provinces. After the Arab conquest of 635, the city, which then became known as Amman, experienced a steady decline; it was only a small village when Emir Abdullah (later King Abdullah I) made it the capital of newly created Transjordan in 1921. Growth was particularly rapid after World War II, when Amman absorbed Arab refugees from Palestine. The city's growth was further boosted by Lebanese refugees and capital in the 1970s, and by remittances from Jordanian and Palestinian workers in the Persian Gulf in the 1970s and 80s. The city is the site of the Univ. of Jordan (est. 1962) and a Muslim college. Historical monuments include a Roman amphitheater (1st cent. B.C.), remains of a temple that was probably built by Hercules, and some tombs and a section of wall that date to the 9th or 8th cent. B.C.

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Amman

City (pop., 2000 est.: 1,147,447), capital of Jordan. It lies 25 mi (40 km) northeast of the Dead Sea. Amman is by far the largest city of Jordan. Fortified settlements have existed in the area from remote antiquity; the earliest date from the Chalcolithic Period (c. 4000–3000 BC). As Rabbah, it became the capital of the Ammonites. It was conquered by Egypt's Ptolemy II (Ptolemy Philadelphus), who renamed it Philadelphia, a name it retained through Roman times. Taken by the Arabs in AD 635, it later went into decline and subsequently disappeared. In 1878 the Ottoman Empire resettled it. When the British established the country of Transjordan in 1921, Amman became its capital. Its modern development was furthered by the independence of Transjordan in 1946. Along with the rest of Jordan (the country's name from 1949), Amman has had to absorb a large number of Arab refugees that fled Palestine during the Arab-Israeli wars.