Jordan News

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

 “The first map which I detected as showing the exact location of Petra, including an abbreviated view of the city surrounded by mountains, was the one in Palazzo Colonna in Rome,” noted Ulrich Bellwald in a recent e-mail interview with The Jordan Times, adding that the map was drawn by Bartolomeo Bonomi in 1572.

 The map is called “Portolano del Mediterraneo” (“Mediterranean ports”) and the commissioner of the work was Marcantonio Colonna (1534-84), an Italian aristocrat serving the Spanish Crown, Bellwald said.

 As Bartolomeo Bonomi was an illustrator and engraver, rather than a surveyor or an engineer, the scholar said he wondered which models Bonomi would have used for creating the map.

 Colonna was an admiral in the battle of Lepanto, a naval engagement that took place in 1571, in which a coalition of European Catholic states arranged by Pope Pius V inflicted a major defeat on the fleet of the Ottoman Empire. Thus, Bellwald thinks these models “would most probably have come from the Ottoman side”.

 The scholar referenced “Kitab-i-Bahriye” (The Book of Navigation) by Hadji Ahmed Muhiddin Piri, saying that its first edition was printed in 1521, and its second shortly after, in 1525.

 After finding the original cartographic drawings in an archive in Istanbul, he said he was sure that Bonomi used Piri’s maps as models for his own Portolano at the Palazzo Colonna, not only copying the size and shape of the maps, but also the surveying lines, locations and names of the port and other cities.

 Piri’s work did not only show the most important ports, but also depicted cities in the hinterland, such as Petra and Damascus, Bellwald said, adding that it must have been rather easy for either Bonomi or Colonna to get a copy of Piri’s book as “there were numerous copies in the great libraries all over Europe”.

 When the Swiss orientalist Johann Ludwig Burckhardt famously rediscovered Petra in 1812, the name and location of the ancient Nabatean city was already known to a large group of well-educated people in Europe, he stressed.

 The third edition of Piri’s book, which gained even more popularity, included newer maps from Italian geographers Battista Agnese and Jacopo Gastaldi, and Dutch geographer Abraham Ortelius, Bellwald said, adding that this shows that there was a well-organised cooperation between Ottoman and Western scholars.

 The scholar also said that the findings infer that “the rediscovery of Petra by Burckhardt in 1812 was not purely occasional, but he went to the area of Wadi Musa with the knowledge that Petra must be located there”.

 Source: www.jordantimes.com

 AMMAN — Chief Commissioner of the Petra Development and Tourism Region Authority Suleiman Farajat on Thursday said that 7,720 tourists of various nationalities visited Petra today, thus breaking the record number of visits to the site in one day.

 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 — Deputising for His Majesty King Abdullah, Minister of State for Investment Affairs Muhannad Shehadeh on Tuesday inaugurated the annual MENA sales and marketing conference.

 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 — The Kingdom’s tourism revenue climbed 5.2 per cent and reached $1.3 billion during the first quarter of this year, in comparison to the same period of 2018.

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

 AMMAN — The Aqaba Special Economic Zone Authority (ASEZA) on Saturday released the world’s first diving app offering personal GPS-based navigation technology underwater.

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

 AMMAN — The Children’s Museum Jordan on Monday launched a special temporary exhibit titled, “Outbreak: Epidemics in a Connected World”, which will run until the end of the year, according to a statement sent to The Jordan Times.

 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.

 AMMAN — Displayed at the World Economic Forum is an interactive map of Jordan, one comprised of three different digital layers highlighting Jordan’s tourist attractions, innovation hubs and investment opportunities.

 AMMAN — Khirbet Jazzir, some four kilometres southwest from Salt, was mentioned in scholarly literature as biblical site Jazer, according to a German archaeologist.

 AMMAN — According to Jordanian filmmaker Widad Shafakoj, there are other more influential means to exercise activism and press for change than taking to the streets and forming unions — the camera.

 AMMAN — Time has always preoccupied humans, and in order to organise daily life, ancient civilisations constructed different devices to measure time, said a Jordanian scholar.

 AMMAN — More than half-a-million passengers went through Queen Alia International Airport (QAIA) in February, according to statistics released by the Airport International Group (AIG) on Monday.

 AMMAN — The Kingdom’s tourism revenue in the first seven months of 2019 went up by 8.6 per cent to $3.2 billion, compared with the January-July period of 2018 that registered $2.95 billion, the Central Bank of Jordan (CBJ) announced on Wednesday.

 AMMAN — The number of foreign visitors to Petra in the first three months of 2019 increased by 53 per cent to 219,503 guests, compared with the same period of 2018, when the ancient city welcomed 143,345 visitors, the Petra Development and Tourism Regional Authority (PDTRA) announced on Monday.

 AMMAN — An intricate mosaic medallion and marble capitals unearthed in a building in Shuqayra Al Gharbiyya, near Karak, speak to the wealth of the building’s original inhabitants, a Jordanian scholar recently told The Jordan Times.

 JERASH — The Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities on Tuesday launched the Jerash Centre for the Restoration of Ancient Artefacts project during a ceremony at the Jerash Department of Tourism.

 AMMAN — Jordan has an abundance of sites filled with Roman wall paintings adorning temples and necropolises, but paintings from later periods are often only found in fragments, according to a Polish conservator.

 Amman — The Al Hussein Cultural Centre in Amman on Thursday played host to a concert by The Italian Cello Trio to celebrate the twinning of stone cities Petra and Matera, the latter of which is the 2019 cultural capital city of Europe.

 AMMAN — Deputising for Her Majesty Queen Rania, Minister of Social Development Basma Ishaqat on Wednesday inaugurated the Bint Bladi Expo in support of productive Jordanian women.

 AMMAN — Under the patronage of Social Development Minister Basma Ishaqat, the Drosos Foundation and UNESCO Amman on Thursday launched the Safi Crafts line of handmade, eco-friendly textiles and accessories, which were made by women from the Ghor Safi village and will be sold in 20 stores across Jordan.

 AMMAN — Tourism revenues have increased by 8.3 per cent during the first half of this year, reaching $2.6 billion (some JD1.9 billion) compared with $2.4 billion registered in the same period last year, according to preliminary data released by the Central Bank of Jordan (CBJ) on Monday.

 AMMAN — The Kingdom’s national income from tourism increased by 10 per cent in January and February 2019, to JD573.9 million, compared with figures from the same period last year, according to the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities’ monthly statistical report issued on Sunday.

 AMMAN — Jordan’s award-winning vocal ensemble Mosaica Singers put on a thrilling performance Thursday night at the Terra Santa College Theatre. It was the opening event in the series of three performances held over the weekend.

 AMMAN — A Jordanian scholar on Wednesday gave a lecture outlining the ancient Nabataeans’ water-harvesting prowess, exemplified by the Qantara-Hremeyyeh catchment area located 3km southwest of Wadi Musa.

 AMMAN — In spite of the widespread destruction of cultural heritage, a team of experts and interns recently finished digitising a private photo archive as part of a bid to save Jordan’s records and provide people with a resource to study the country’s history.

 AMMAN — Jordan’s ecology is being celebrated through Algerian artist Hakim Jamain’s “Cultivating the Soul” exhibition; in a reawakening for the historical role of the artist as a scientist and a researcher driven by curiosity.

 AMMAN — Denouncing the misrepresentation of Jordanian life and culture in films, many aspiring local directors and actors are striving to break the mould by zooming in on an accurate display of daily life in the Kingdom.

 AMMAN — Tucked inside the University of Jordan, a 33-year-old museum aims to preserve different aspects of local heritage for the Jordanian public and college students for “generations to come”.

 AMMAN — Visitors to the rose-red city of Petra rose by 44 per cent, or some 128,000 people, when comparing the first five months of 2019 with 2018, Jordan Tourism Board (JTB) Managing Director Abed Al Razzaq Arabiyat said on Tuesday.

 AMMAN — The King Hussein Cancer Foundation (KHCF) on Wednesday announced that they plan on launching the “Steps for Life” initiative for the fourth year in a row.

 AMMAN — The Kingdom welcomed 615,955 foreign visitors by the end of May, 76 per cent of which were overnight visitors, the Jordan Tourism Board (JTB) said on Sunday.

 AMMAN — The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) on Monday inaugurated the Amman Green City Action Plan (GCAP), making the city one of 20 worldwide now taking part in the greening project.

 AMMAN — The latest excavations of ancient Pella (modern Tabaqat Fahl) in the Jordan Valley uncovered beautiful art tools from a large stone building that archaeologists believe was the ruler’s palace, according to an Australian scholar.

 AMMAN — Tourism revenues in January went up by 9.1 per cent to JD458 million, compared with JD420 million in the same month last year, the Central Bank of Jordan (CBJ) announced on Tuesday.

 AMMAN — During an excavation work carried out by the German-Danish team in Jerash, remains of a building constructed on the bedrock and destroyed by the earthquake in 749AD were found.

 AMMAN — Brig. Gen. Awni Mohammed Khasawneh, director general of the Royal Jordanian Geographical Centre (RJGC) and director of the Regional Centre for Space Science and Technology Education for Western Asia, has chaired the meetings of the Space 2030 Working Group, which extended from February 11-15.

 AMMAN — A new wave of luxurious camps have been spreading across Wadi Rum, contributing to attracting more tourists to the protected area, also known as the “valley of the moon”.

 AMMAN — The UN announced on Thursday that Olivier  Adam, executive coordinator of the UN Volunteers (UNV) programme will visit Amman on Sunday to promote volunteerism.

 AMMAN — During the Umayyad period, a freed slave would become a “mawla” (client) of their former master, and non-Arab converts would become the client of the person who witnessed their conversion, said a British historian.

 AMMAN — A team of 19 Jordanian teenagers will climb Tanzania’s Mount Meruto to raise funds for supporting the treatment of underprivileged cancer patients at King Hussein Cancer Centre (KHCC).

 AMMAN — Some 1.9 million passengers travelled through Queen Alia International Airport (QAIA) during the first three months of the year (Q1-2019), according to a statement sent to The Jordan Times on Thursday.

 AMMAN — The allegorical journey of the soul into unity and transcendentalism in the mystical epic “Conference of the Birds” by Persian Sufi poet Farid ud-Din Attar is now to be experienced in the duo exhibition by digital artists Zaina El Said and Mo Awwad.

 AMMAN — A team of scholars involved in the North-Eastern Petra Project (NEPP) investigated for the first time a whole quarter of the ancient city and not merely a single building.

 AMMAN — Queen Alia International Airport (QAIA) welcomed 8,425,026 passengers in 2018, a 6.5 per cent increase from 2017, the Airport International Group (AIG) said.

 AMMAN — The operational revenues of Royal Jordanian (RJ) in 2018 reached JD653.3 million compared to JD605.8 million in 2017, marking an increase of 8 per cent of JD47.5 million, Chairman of RJ’s Board of Directors Said Darwazah announced on Sunday.

 AMMAN — The Jordan Valley and the Transjordanian Highlands are two distinctive regions, however material culture found in the two areas point to a close cultural connection, according to a German archaeologist.