Darat al Funun currently on

So we come to know that Ammonites, Edomites, Nabataeans, Greeks, Romans, Christians and Muslims alike, lived, coveted, passed by this territory, leaving their imprint and vestiges of their civilizations.

Trying to tell the story of "why we, Europeans, are in Jordan", of the European-Jordanian cooperation in the field of archaeology in the Kingdom, Gajus Scheltema, ambassador of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, representing the EU presidency in Jordan, and The Khalid Shoman Foundation-Darat Al Funun opened the exhibition "Meeting with the past: treasures for the future", a novel way of presenting the work involved in archaeology and its outcome.

A live, dynamic presentation, on display are not only precious finds dug out in different parts of the country and lent for presentation by the Department of Antiquities, but also posters detailing the work involved, the historical/civilisational context and its authors, photographs, film screening, Power Point presentations of items at the exhibition and beyond, tools used for digging and painstakingly restored archaeological finds that can only give a hint at the mammoth task entailed.

Preparation for this rare exhibition that illustrates 50 years of hard discovery work took a year and a half, said Scheltema, who stressed that "it's not about objects; objects illustrate the story we have to tell, the story of European archaeologists in Jordan, how Jordanians met Europeans in the field".

The exhibition wouldn't have been made possible if it weren't for its many contributors, organizers said: 71 European institutions, Dr Fawaz Khreisheh from the Department of Antiquities that helped bring the finds to light, and Darat Al Funun, itself an interesting archaeological site.