Editing Amman (section)

===Neolithic period===
{{Main|Ayn Ghazal (archaeological site)}}
[[File:20100923 amman37.JPG|thumb|left|The [[ʿAin Ghazal statues]] on display at the [[Jordan Archaeological Museum]], which are considered to be the oldest large-scale human statues ever found.<ref>{{cite web| url=https://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/me/l/lime_plaster_statues.aspx|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150912010835/https://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/me/l/lime_plaster_statues.aspx|archive-date=12 September 2015 | title=Lime Plaster statues| work=British Museum| publisher=Trustees of the British Museum| access-date=1 June 2016}}</ref>]]

The [[Neolithic]] site of [[Ayn Ghazal (archaeological site)|ʿAin Ghazal]] today lies in the outskirts of Amman. At its height, around 7000 BC (9000 years ago), it had an area of {{convert|15|ha|abbr=off|sp=us}} and was inhabited by ca. 3000 people (four to five times the population of contemporary [[Tell es-Sultan|Jericho]]). At that time, the site was a typical [[aceramic]] [[Neolithic]] village. Its houses were rectangular mud-bricked buildings that included a main square living room, whose walls were made up of lime plaster.<ref>{{cite web|title=Prehistoric Settlements of the Middle East|url=http://docslide.us/documents/prehistoric-settlements-of-the-middle-east.html|access-date=22 September 2015|work=bhavika1990|date=8 November 2014|archive-date=25 September 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150925132728/http://docslide.us/documents/prehistoric-settlements-of-the-middle-east.html|url-status=live}}</ref> The site was discovered in 1974 as construction workers were working on a road crossing the area. By 1982, when the excavations started, around {{convert|600|m|ft|abbr=off|sp=us}} of road ran through the site. Despite the damage brought by urban expansion, the remains of ʿAin Ghazal provided a wealth of information.<ref name=gard/>

ʿAin Ghazal is well known for a set of small human statues found in 1983, when local archeologists stumbled upon the edge of a large pit containing them.<ref>{{cite book| editor1-first = Chris | editor1-last = Scarre | title = The Human Past | publisher = Thames & Hudson | year = 2005 | page = 222}}</ref> These statues are human figures made with white plaster, with painted eyes. Thirty-two figures were found in two caches, fifteen of them full figures, fifteen busts, and two fragmentary heads. Three of the busts depicted two-headed characters, the significance of which is not clear.<ref name=gard>{{cite book | first1=Fred S. | last1=Kleiner | last2=Mamiya | first2=Christin J. | year=2006 | title=Gardner's Art Through the Ages: The Western Perspective: Volume 1 | edition=Twelfth | publisher=Wadsworth Publishing | location=[[Belmont, California]] | isbn=0-495-00479-0 | pages=11–2
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