The neolithic painted floors of Kharaysin
Within the activities organized by EUNIC Jordan and the Delegation of the European Union in the "Heritage Days" in Jordan that are taking place on the occasion of the "European Year of Cultural Heritage", the Instituto Cervantes and the Embassy of Spain are presenting a lecture about the first painted floor in the history of humanity found in the Neolithic site of Kharaysin which is located near the village of Quneya, in the province of Zarqa - Jordan. In 2014 an international team directed by the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) and including researchers from different Spanish universities, the French National Research Council (CNRS), the University of Copenhagen and the Palacký University (Check Republic) started excavating the Early Neolithic archaeological site of Kharaysin, located near the village of Quneya, in the province of Zarqa. Four occupation levels have been so far documented in the site, dating from the end of the 12th millennium to the beginning of the 10th millennium before present. During this period, local populations shifted from a mobile to a sedentary life and invented agriculture and livestock. The painted floors in Kharaysin are essential to reveal the Cultural Heritage of Jordan. The construction, "one of the first dwellings of the population who settled and began to experience agriculture and livestock," has a whitewashed and polished floor, something that had only been documented at the end of the ninth millennium. The origins of the Neolithic, between 12,000 and 8,000 were one of the most dynamic and fruitful periods of human creativity in Jordan. The nomadic hunter-gatherers settled in permanent villages and invented livestock and agriculture. These innovations were exported to the rest of the old world in the following millennia. The painted floor will be on display at the exhibition hall of the Instituto Cervantes in Amman until the 13th of October 2018.