Museum Idea

Pella Museum introduces the public to the wealth of the geology and paleontology of Jordan. It aims to become a regional center that addresses ways of understanding the natural heritage of the Jordanian landscape within the wider Middle Eastern context. 

 

 

 

 

The museum promotes the history of Jordan prior to archeology, from 500 million to 250 thousand years, by bridging the gap between the academic/scientific works and the wider public.

 

 

Museum Location

 

The museum is located on a hillside overlooking the archeological site of Pella in the northern part of the Jordan Valley, one of the ten Roman cities (the Decapolis).  The building is located at zero sea elevation, with the rest of Jordan rift valley to the west descending to -150 meters below sea level.

 

In addition to the archeology of Pella, Jordan's longest and most complete record of human activity with almost uninterrupted settlement history for more than 10,000 years, the museum is surrounded by many geological and natural history attractions.

 

A few kilometers to the northeast is a hot spring (Himmet Abu-Thableh) with one of the two known natural bridges in Jordan, the other being the famous natural bridge of Wadi Rum. The building site itself has many fossil layers that are rich in ammonites - baculites, and the village of Tabaket Fahel below sits on a thick layer of Travertine and Tufa created by prehistoric springsand caves. This

location has some of Jordan's best specimens of pisoliths.