History

Ain Ghazal was settled around 7250 BC, in the period archaeologists call Pre-Pottery Neolithic B – a phase during which communities across the Levant were shifting from hunting and foraging toward settled agriculture, but had not yet adopted ceramic vessels. The settlement grew steadily: by approximately 6500 BC it covered some 15 hectares, making it by far the largest known human agglomeration on earth for its period. Its economy combined cultivated emmer wheat and lentils with the herding of goats and cattle, supplemented by hunting of gazelle. The scale of agricultural activity eventually exhausted the thin soils of the Jordan Valley fringe: by around 5000 BC, Ain Ghazal had been abandoned – one of the earliest documented examples of human-induced environmental degradation.

The most remarkable discovery came in two dramatic episodes. In 1983, a cache of 15 large plaster statues was found concealed beneath a house floor; in 1985, a second cache of 17 more figures was uncovered nearby. Modelled over armatures of twisted reeds, with facial features built up in white plaster, eyes inlaid with bitumen, and traces of paint preserving hair and clothing, the statues stand between 35 and 90 centimetres tall and are thought to represent venerated ancestors or supernatural beings. The practice of plastering human skulls – removing them from burials, covering them with plaster, and caching them beneath floors – is well attested at Ain Ghazal and at contemporary sites across the Levant, suggesting a cult of ancestor veneration that the statues may have served.

Excavations have continued intermittently since 1982 under Gary Rollefson (San Diego State University) and Zeidan Kafafi (Yarmouk University), revealing communal buildings interpreted as shrines, craft production evidence, and a stratigraphic sequence documenting the transition from Pre-Pottery Neolithic B through the Yarmoukian Neolithic. The site is now hemmed in by housing development on three sides and bisected by the Zerqa highway.