Pella in Jordan

Human occupation stretches back over half a million years

Pella is a magnificent ten-hectare site, set in beautiful surroundings beside a perennial spring in the eastern foothills of the north Jordan valley.

Excavations by the University of Sydney over the past 45 years have already unearthed many important discoveries, including:

Neolithic housing (ca. 6000 BCE)
Chalcolithic period storage complexes (ca. 4200 BCE)
Early Bronze Age stone defensive platforms (ca. 3200 BCE)
Massive Middle Bronze Age mud-brick city walls (ca. 1800 BCE)
Middle and Late Bronze Age Temples and Palaces (ca. 1800-1200 BCE)
a Late Bronze Age Egyptian Governors’ Residence with clay tablets (ca. 1350 BCE)
large areas of a Hellenistic city (destroyed by war in 80 BCE)
a theatre, bathhouse and public fountain of the Roman Imperial city (ca. 150 CE)
three Byzantine churches and a Bishop’s palace (ca. 550 CE)
an Umayyad Islamic city destroyed by an earthquake (ca. 750 CE)
an Abbasid caravanserai (ca. 950 CE)
a Mameluke mosque and administrative compound (ca. 1350 CE)
a late Ottoman village (ca. 1900 CE) that bring Pella’s history up to the present day.