The ancient town of As-Salt was once the capital of Jordan. A half-hour drive northwest from Amman transports you back in time to a town of picturesque streets and dazing houses from the late Ottoman period, with their characteristic long-arched windows.

The town was known as Saltus in Byzantine times and was the seat of a bishopric; it was later destroyed by the Mongols and then was rebuilt by the Mamluk sultan Baybars I (reigned 1260–77). In the early 1830’s, As-Salt was again destroyed by the Egyptian viceroy Ibrahim Pasha during his campaigns against Palestine. After World War I it was at As-Salt that Sir Herbert Samuel, British high commissioner for Palestine and Transjordan, announced to the Transjordanian sheikhs and notables that the British favoured self-government for the country (August 1920).