The Umayyad mosque
Cut-stone arches and windows.
Mohammad hajeer — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Mohammad hajeer — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Mohammad hajeer — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Mohammad hajeer — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Mohammad hajeer — CC BY-SA 4.0
A palace of golden limestone on a hill in the northern steppe, with a long history of reinvention: it began as a Roman fort on the desert frontier in the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD, became a monastery in Byzantine times, and was rebuilt by the Umayyads in the first half of the 8th century as a grand residence with mosaic floors and walls finished in painted plaster. The finest thing left today is the small Umayyad mosque outside the palace wall: a square hall of cut stone with windows and arches on slender columns and a mihrab in the south wall. The palace itself is a wide courtyard inside tall walls, with some arches still standing and a restored two-storey tower in one corner. Around it the plain is strewn with tumbled stones and the remains of cisterns that caught the winter rain, and a small museum in the visitor centre shows mosaic fragments and carved inscriptions found on the site. About three and a half kilometres east is Hammam as-Sarah, a small restored Umayyad bathhouse that is usually visited with the palace.
Cut-stone arches and windows.
Roman fort, monastery, Umayyad palace.
A nearby Umayyad bath.
Hallabat, north-east of Zarqa, about 60 km from Amman
Yes, and one of the oldest in origin, since it stands on a Roman fort; it lies in the northern steppe, off the Azraq road that passes Kharana and Amra.
About an hour by car via Zarqa; it fits a loop with Qasr Azraq.