Only a short drive north of Amman, Jordan is the Graeco Roman City of Jerash.  Few ancient towns are as well preserved and as complete as Jerash.  It is considered the most complete city of the Decapolis, a confederation of ten Roman cities dating from the 1st Century B.C.  Jerash, built in the 2nd century B.C, received a major boost in stature with the visit of Emperor Hadrian in 129 A.D.  To honor its guest, the citizens raised a beautiful monumental Triumphal Arch at the southern end of the city.  The arch was built outside the town, awaiting for future city walls to come out to meet it.  While the city peaked with 20,000 people it never grew outward enough to meet the arch.  It remains 2 kilometers away. 

Today, in Jerash, one can walk over the paved and colonnaded streets where there are still impressions of chariot wheels.  The city remains an archaeological paradise.