The Greeter at the Gate
INSET: JOEL S. BURNETT
The “Theatre Statue” from Amman, Jordan, is larger than life. Standing nearly 7 feet tall and weighing almost 2 tons, it is the largest and most monumental Ammonite statue ever discovered. Archaeologists found it in secondary context in front of the Roman Theater in downtown Amman in 2010.1 The statue depicts a king wearing a diadem, dressed in an Ammonite robe, and holding a lotus flower. Although such monumental royal statues are otherwise unknown in the southern Levant, they have been found in Assyrian royal cities (e.g., Nimrud) and in the Syro-Anatolian city of Carchemish, where a monumental statue of a king stood inside the city gate. As such, the Amman theater statue may have originally stood near or inside one of the gates of Rabbat-Ammon, where it would have greeted all who entered the city.
The author thanks the Department of Antiquities of Jordan for providing access to this statue.