ʿAin Ghazal
عين غزال · Ain Ghazal · Ayn Ghazal · Spring of the Gazelle
PPNB → PPNC → Yarmoukian·Levantine PPNB/Yarmoukian·🇯🇴 Amman Governorate, Jordan
About
About ʿAin Ghazal
Mega-village (7250–5000 BCE) covering 15 ha, one of the largest Pre-Pottery to Pottery Neolithic sites in the Near East. Famous for the ʿAin Ghazal statues — two caches of 32 lime-plaster anthropomorphic statues (mid-7th millennium BCE), among the oldest large-scale human figures. Houses, temples, 'special buildings', plaster floors and the shift from hunting to goat domestication. Population estimated 3,000 at peak, five times larger than contemporary Jericho. Gas pipeline excavations (Rollefson, Simmons, Kafafi) revealed continuous occupation and environmental overexploitation decline.
Why it mattersLargest Neolithic settlement in Levant; earliest monumental statuary; model for Neolithic demographic collapse.
Open questions
Mysteries & theories
Mysteries
- 01Why bury statues carefully under house floors?
- 02Collapse from deforestation vs climate?
Theories
- 01Ancestor ritual burial; environmental degradation model
Theories are interpretations, not findings. The seal above tells you how much scholarly weight the place carries.
History
How it came to be
- Built
- c.7250–5000 BCE
- Period
- PPNB → PPNC → Yarmoukian
- Culture
- Levantine PPNB/Yarmoukian
- Builders
- PPNB farmers
- Purpose
- Farming mega-village and cult center (statue ritual)
- Abandoned
- c.5000 BCE (soil degradation)
- Rediscovered
- 1974 road construction; 1982–98 excavations
- Excavation
- Partially excavated
1974
Road crew finds site
c.6750 BCE
Statue cache 1 buried
On the ground
Structures & features
31.9928° N · 35.9738° E · 710 m · 3 mapped features
Statue cache 1 (PPNB temple)
ritual deposit16 plaster statues under floor
31.9930° N · 35.9740° EPPNB house quarter (Central Field)
houseMulti-room plaster-floor houses
31.9926° N · 35.9736° EShrine / temple building
templeApsidal cult building
31.9929° N · 35.9739° E
Gallery