AMMAN — “Amman the 28 country I have visted, Jordan is the best so far thanks to the hospitality of Jordanians,” Moroccan traveller Yasin Allam said on Monday. Allam, 33, who arrived in Jordan on September 21, said that he visited 27 African countries before Jordan during a trip that took him three years on his bicycle.

 AMMAN — Official statistics issued by the Airport International Group revealed that Queen Alia International Airport (QAIA) received 1,053,225 passengers (PAX) during August 2019, indicating a 5.1 per cent surge set against the same month last year.

 AMMAN — Even in ancient times, people already had an effect on the environment by cutting wood for fires and by letting goats and sheep graze around the villages, which caused erosion of the landscape, said an archaeologist specialising in the topic.

 AMMAN — Petra is expected to celebrate 1 million visitors this year to its captivating attractions in early December, Petra Development and Tourism Region Authority (PDTRA) said on Wednesday.

 AMMAN — Sales of a unified ticket designated for tourist areas in Jordan have increased during the first eight months of this year, according to Tourism Ministry official figures.

 AMMAN — Marble statues found in 2017 probably decorated the Great Eastern Baths in Jerash, said a German scholar.

 AMMAN — World War I marks the beginning of using aerial photography in archaeology, as cameras and airplanes improved rapidly during the war, according to a British researcher.

 AMMAN — European interest in cartography of the Levant dates back to at least the 16th century, according to a Swiss researcher.

 AMMAN — International agreements to protect and promote intangible cultural heritage (ICH) have only recently become an incentive for Jordan, according to a Jordanian expert.

 AMMAN — During the fourth millennium BC, a new culture appeared in the southern Levant, with a “pronounced” attitude towards adapting the so-called “Mediterranean diet” based on grapes and olive tree cultivation to different ecological niches, said an Italian archaeologist.

 AMMAN — The settlement in Jerash (Gerasa) during the Middle Islamic period was much more extensive and complex than hitherto thought, said a Danish archaeologist.

 AMMAN — Ancient inscriptions found in the Eastern Desert reveal relations between Nabateans and bedouin tribes and depict daily life as well as major political events, wars and revolts, said a Jordanian scholar.

 AMMAN — The irrigation system in the terraced gardens of the Black Desert, according to scholars, was probably the outcome of an indigenous (basalt desert) technology, which was also discovered at the earlier sites like Tulul Al Ghusayn, Khirbet Al Jabariya and Khirbet Abu Al Husayn, said a German archaeologist.

 AMMAN — Middle Islamic pottery is an understudied subject and until recently no comprehensive typology existed for pottery from this period, according to an American archaeologist.

 AMMAN — In the Mamluk period, some of the most politically dangerous persons went to Karak Castle, said an American scholar.

 AMMAN — Scholars were unsure about the exact foundation date of the four-kilometre-long city wall in Jerash (ancient Gerasa), noted an Australian archaeology professor.

 AMMAN — Khirbet Al Umari is an archaeological site, located 25km southeast of Azraq. It was already in a sadly ruined state when famous archaeologist Nelson Glueck visited it in the 1940s, and was severely disturbed in more recent years by looting and vandalism, noted a Dutch archaeologist.

 AMMAN — The Azraq region appears to have been a magnet for human settlement in the Epipalaeolithic period, which dates back 20,000 to 10,000 years.

 AMMAN — Tucked away in a hidden corner of Jabal Amman, the Amman Design Week’s Crafts District offered its visitors design installations, exhibitions, shops, and a cultural programme in the Kabariti Village.

 AMMAN — Excavations at a Late Neolithic site in north-western Jordan revealed the existence of an agrarian society in which pottery held a key role, a Canadian archaeologist has said.

 AMMAN — A total of 657,918 tourists of various nationalities have visited Petra in the first eight months of 2019, compared with 507,299 visitors during the same period of 2018, marking a 30 per cent increase.