Jordan Umm Al-Jimal

The black basalt city of Umm al-Jimal (Its name means ‘mother of camels’) lies like a dark encrustation on the flat plains of north Jordan. So many buildings still stand to two or three storeys that it looks as if it was abandoned within living memory in fact it was about 1,200 years ago. 

The Nabataeans established a base here in the 1st century AD as a staging post on the trade route between Damascus and the south. With no springs or wells, the entire water supply had to be gathered in hundreds of cisterns during the rainy season.