Qusayr 'Amra
قصير عمرة
A World Heritage Site: an 8th-century Umayyad desert palace bathhouse, its vaulted ceilings covered in early Islamic paintings of hunting, bathing and the night sky.
Qusayr Amra was built around the early 8th century as a desert hunting lodge and bathhouse for an Umayyad caliph. It was inscribed as a World Heritage Site in 1985.
Its most precious feature is the abundance of secular wall paintings inside: hunting scenes, musicians and bathers, plus the zodiac star chart on the bathhouse dome, considered one of the earliest surviving domed star charts.
Admission is about 2 dinars (included in the Jordan Pass), and it is open roughly 8:00 to 16:00. It is about 85 km from Amman and is usually visited as part of a desert castles loop, together with Qasr Kharana and Qasr al-Azraq.
Opening hours
Approx. 08:00–16:00 (extended in summer)
Nearby sights
- Qasr Kharana
- Qasr al-Azraq
- Cave of the Seven Sleepers
- Roman Theatre (Amman)
- Downtown Amman (Al-Balad)
- Amman Citadel
- Royal Tank Museum
- The Jordan Museum