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Public Beach
Packed at the weekend and on public holidays, this stretch of rather minimal, scruffy sand beneath the palm trees offers a great way to engage with Jordanians at play. During eids , the family parties extend well into the night.
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Lion Monument
Water here was channelled to pour out of the lion’s mouth from the rock face above – an example of Nabataean engineering at its most sophisticated. A stone altar diagonally opposite suggests the fountain had some religious function.
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Visitor Centre
At the entrance to the reserve is a modest visitor centre where you’ll find a small restaurant offering traditional Jordanian dishes and some local Ajloun specialities, as well as a nature shop selling locally produced handicrafts.
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Glacis
Beyond the parapet is the glacis, the dizzyingly steep rocky slope that prevented invaders from climbing up to the castle and prisoners from climbing down. This is where Renauld de Chatillon delighted in expelling his enemies.
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Carved Figure
On the north wall of the Crusaders Gallery is a (now headless) carved figure that local legend claims to be Saladin, but which actually dates from the 2nd century AD and is believed by scholars to be a Nabataean funerary carving.
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Corinthian Tomb
The badly damaged Corinthian Tomb is something of a hybrid, with Hellenistic decorative features on the upper level and a Nabataean portico on the lower level. The tomb gets its name from the Corinthian capitals adorned with floral motifs.
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Royal Automobile Museum
Car enthusiasts will like this display of over 70 classic cars and motorbikes from the personal collection of King Hussein. It’s in the northwestern suburbs, north of 8th Circle. The best way to reach the museum from downtown is to take a taxi.
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Eagle Monument
Carved into a niche in a cliff near the entrance to the Siq is a beautiful eagle with outstretched wings. This bird is often depicted in ancient times as a symbol of a male deity and the niche was likely to have been intended as a shrine.
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The Soap House
Ever wondered what pomegranate soap smells like? Local women demonstrate the art of making all kinds of health-promoting soaps using natural local ingredients and comprising 90% pure olive oil. Pomegranate is one of a dozen exotic fragrances.
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Garden Triclinium
This hall was used for annual feasts to honour the dead placed in the Soldier’s Tomb . The hall is unique in Petra because it has carved decoration on the interior walls. The tomb and triclinium were once linked by a colonnaded courtyard.
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Beit Arar
Set up to host cultural events, Beit Arar is located in a superb old Damascene-style house. The rooms are set around a courtyard paved with volcanic black stones and there are manuscripts and photo displays of Arar, one of Jordan’s finest poets.
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Dorotheos House
Referring to a complex of ruined houses, rather than just one, this set of ruins earned its name from the Greek inscription on the triclinium. The triclinium, a vast building intended for feasting, is easily identified by the three doors and windows.
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Thamudic & Kufic Rock Art
Adorning the west-facing vertical rock face of Jebel Umm al-Ishrin, this wonderful set of petroglyphs is worth the detour on a 4WD excursion. While the animal forms are easy to interpret, a guide is helpful to make sense of the ancient kufic inscriptions.
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Museum of Popular Traditions
This small museum, immediately to the left as you enter the Roman Theatre, has well-presented displays of traditional costumes, jewellery and face masks. A separate gallery displays mosaics from Jerash – your best chance to get up close, as little remains on site.
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Jordan Natural History Museum
Encompassing a range of stuffed animals, birds and insects, as well as rocks from the region, this may not be to everybody’s taste but it is at least a good place to identify some of Jordan’s most elusive species. The museum is in the huge green hangar No 23.
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Baths
West along the decumanus maximus are the overgrown public baths. Built in the 4th century, this would once have been an impressive complex of fountains (like the nearby nymphaeum ), statues and baths, though little remains today after various earthquakes.
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Civic Complex Church (Middle Church)
Pellas main structure, and indeed one of the better preserved of the ruins here, is the Byzantine civic complex church (or middle church), which was built atop an earlier Roman civic complex in the 5th century AD, and modified several times in the subsequent two centuries.
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Statue of Saladin
This fine statue of the helmeted Muslim hero, Saladin, sits in the middle of a roundabout at the bottom of the towns main shopping street. Astride a rearing horse, sword in hand, this bronze figure is beloved by locals who use the plinth as a popular meeting place.
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Southern Tetrapylon
Marking the intersection of the cardo maximus with the south decumanus at Jerash, this four-pillared structure is in good repair. Nearby on the western side of the cardo maximus is the agora or macellum, where people gathered for public meetings around the central fountain.
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Barrah Canyon
One of the most visited of numerous canyons that riddle Wadi Rum, this 5km-long corridor of rock through the mountains offers opportunities for hiking, camel trekking, climbing or simply napping in the shade and absorbing the special atmosphere of Wadi Rum’s hidden heartland.
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