Amman, March 26 (Petra) – The third Franco-Jordanian steering committee on the Temple of Zeus project in Jerash convened Thursday in Amman, marking a key step in the partial reconstitution of the temple’s monumental staircase.

The meeting brought together Minister of Tourism and Antiquities Imad Hijazeen, the French Ambassador to Jordan, Franck Gellet, representatives of the French Institute for the Near East (Ifpo) and the Department of Antiquities of Jordan, and international heritage specialists.

The committee approved a partial reconstitution of the staircase in stone atop a compacted gravel base, while the uppermost flight, located at the edge of the temple, will be realized in an alternative material. The initiative aims to restore the architectural coherence of the sanctuary, allowing visitors to visualize the original form and monumentality of the staircase and to move from the lower to the upper terrace.

French archaeological teams have been active in Jerash since 1982, particularly through the French Archaeological Mission in Jerash, which has excavated and restored the Sanctuary of Zeus, one of the site’s two main temples. The sanctuary, a monumental structure in one of the best-preserved ancient cities of the Near East, evolved over more than three centuries, from the 1st century BC to the 2nd century AD.

Following a visit by French President Emmanuel Macron to the site in December 2022, the project to partially reconstitute the staircase was proposed. An intergovernmental agreement between France and Jordan was signed on November 18, 2024, formalizing the collaboration.

The approved design reflects extensive collaboration among architects, scientists, and heritage experts, drawing on unpublished documents from the archives of the French Mission in Jerash as well as recent archaeological findings. Two excavation campaigns conducted by the Ifpo, first from May 17 to 31, 2025, and a second from March 5 to April 7, 2026, provided critical insights into the staircase’s architecture and underlying remains predating its construction.

The project not only completes over four decades of French-Jordanian cooperation at the site but also contributes to the training of Jordanian heritage professionals, architects, and archaeologists in the implementation of large-scale heritage restoration projects.

//Petra// AJ