Short answers, pulled from the story.
Jerash earned the nickname Pompeii of the Middle East because its ancient Greco-Roman city is one of the best preserved outside Italy. Earthquakes and centuries of abandonment buried much of it, and systematic excavation since 1925 has revealed an extensive ancient city including a colonnaded street, two theatres, temples to Artemis and Zeus, and an oval forum.
The founding of Jerash is disputed. Ancient Greek inscriptions suggest Alexander the Great and his general Perdiccas settled aged Macedonian soldiers there in the spring of 331 BC. However, the city's former name, Antioch on the Chrysorrhoas, points toward a founding by Seleucid King Antiochus IV, and other sources credit Ptolemy II of Egypt.
The 749 Galilee earthquake destroyed much of Jerash and its surroundings, and subsequent earthquakes added further damage. The city never recovered its former scale. A small Mamluk hamlet survived in the Northwest Quarter through the medieval period, and by the Ottoman census of 1596 the settlement had only twelve Muslim households.
In 2025, archaeologists uncovered a mass grave of around 230 people in Jerash who had been killed during the Plague of Justinian. Researchers described it as the first confirmed mass grave associated with that pandemic found in the eastern Mediterranean, supported by both archaeological and genetic evidence.
Approximately 330,000 visitors arrived in Jerash in 2018, making it one of the most visited sites in Jordan. It is ranked the second most popular tourist attraction in Jordan, closely behind Petra.
The Jerash Festival of Culture and Arts is an annual three-week summer program of dance, music, and theatrical performances held inside the ancient ruins of Jerash. It has been running since 1981 and attracts tens of thousands of visitors each year. When authorities replaced it with a nationwide Jordan Festival in 2008, the government eventually restored the Jerash Festival after concluding the substitute did not serve the same purpose.