Megalithic Jordan

Megalithic Jordan is a delightful field guide to where to find and how to get to the major megalithic monuments in Jordan, also covering other related stone constructions such as stone alignments, stone circles, cairns, cists, cup holes and rock-cut tombs.

Dolmens and standing stones from human prehistory are widely distributed in Jordan. Megalithic (Greek for large stone) architecture has been found in large areas of the Middle East. While the guide does not claim to exhaustively cover every stone monument in Jordan, it is an accessible introductory work on the subject and discusses with candour the problem of preserving the megalithic monuments from destruction resulting from urban expansion or human malfeasance. The author, Gajus Scheltema, was the Dutch Ambassador to the Kingdom of Jordan between 2003 and 2007. While living in Jordan Scheltema became interested in the dolmens and standing stones in the landscape and took on the task of reviewing existing scholarship on these stones and document as many as he could possibly find. His wish to discover these sites became a desire to help to protect them.

The book contains an important bibliography.

Gajus Scheltema spent some of his formative years in Iraq and developed an interest in arachaeology at that time. He served as the Dutch ambassador in Amman, Jordan, between 2003 and 2007, during which period he researched and wrote this book.