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An unfinished brick palace, far out in the desert
The most remote of the desert castles, and for many the most romantic.
Qasr Tuba is one of the most captivating desert castles you can visit, and the hardest to reach. To find it you need a four-wheel drive and a guide who knows the tracks, but the journey across the desert is part of the reward for anyone seeking the romance of history in the open expanse of the Jordanian desert.
Its name comes from tub, Arabic for brick: the walls are built of fired brick on limestone footings, like Qasr Al-Mushatta. It was planned as two square palaces side by side, attributed to Caliph al-Walid II, but only part of the western half was built before work stopped in AD 744.
Brick vaults, a carved gate and wells deep in the wadi
Fired brick is very rare in stone-rich Jordan, and Tuba and Mushatta are the two Umayyad palaces in Jordan built with it. The walls were never plastered, so you can still see how the masons worked.
01 / 05Each half was entered through a gate in the middle of its north side, flanked by two small square rooms. The main gate was restored in the 1970s.
The brick arch over the stone door frame.
Five stops: the north gate, the courtyard of the western half, the brick-vaulted rooms, the unfinished eastern half and the wadi beyond. Pick a stop to see what to look for.
1 / 6Each half of the palace was entered through a gate in the middle of its north side, flanked by two small square rooms. From the gate, a long hall led into a courtyard ringed by suites of rooms (bayts).
The main gate was restored by the Department of Antiquities in the 1970s. Its carved stone lintel, still in place when Alois Musil arrived in 1898, is now in The Jordan Museum in Amman.
The doorways of Tuba were framed with carved stone: panels of fleurons and a central medallion with alternating fleurons and pine cones, very close to the work at Mushatta. Most of these stones had already been taken before 1898.
The best lintel is in The Jordan Museum in Amman, and two fragments are in the Museum für Islamische Kunst in Berlin. Seeing them before or after your visit completes the picture.
1 / 8Only the western half was partly built: 28 rooms around a central courtyard, with four smaller courtyards. The plan called for two identical squares of about 70 m, side by side and sharing a wall, with a gate passage between them.
Look at the walls around you. They are about 1.4 m thick: limestone courses below and fired brick above, never plastered.
Planned as an oblong of about 140 × 72 m, Tuba was to have 14 semicircular towers: four at the outer corners, two where the halves join and the rest at intervals. Some tower rooms held latrines, as at Mushatta.
The attribution to al-Walid II rests on the shared plan, materials and carving with Mushatta, and on pottery from the 2009 excavation pointing to the late Umayyad period. No dated inscription has been found.
1 / 6Step into the rooms that still have their vaults. Some are about 8 × 4.5 m, with pointed brick vaults rising to about 9 m. Because the walls were never plastered, the masons’ finger grooves are still visible in the mortar.
Stay out of rooms with cracked or leaning vaults, and don’t climb on the walls.
1 / 7Walk east across the line of the shared wall. The eastern half was never built above its foundations, and scattered brick fragments and stumps of wall show where work stopped.
This is one of the best places in Jordan to see a building frozen mid-construction. When al-Walid II was killed in AD 744, the builders simply left.
Erosion, flash floods and treasure hunters all threaten Tuba. In 2007 the Department of Antiquities cleared the site, collected loose bricks, re-covered exposed foundations and built an earth bank against floods. In 2009 it surveyed and excavated the palace and about 21 km² around it.
Please don’t take bricks or pottery, and keep vehicles off the ruins.
1 / 5The palace sits low in the valley of Wadi al-Ghadaf, so it is hard to spot until you are close. North of it, near the dry wadi bed, are three wells more than 30 m deep, some lined with stone, with plastered troughs and pools and round platforms for animal-powered lifting. Two stone dams cross the wadi about 100 m and 250 m from the palace.
The water probably served the building work above all, for mixing clay for the bricks and mortar.
Tuba is attributed to Caliph al-Walid II and dated to about AD 743–744. When he was killed in 744, work stopped and never resumed. Alois Musil heard about it from the Bedouin in 1896 and reached it in 1898, the first modern visit.
ProfileQasr Tuba: the full storyHistory, architecture, the timeline and the Mushatta connection. About 3 min read.Read the profile →Tuba is the most remote of the desert castles, about 120 km south-east of Amman in a straight line. The usual way in is by desert track from Qasr Amra, so plan a full day with an experienced driver.
Opening hours and prices checked October 2026. Spotted a change? Let us know
What you’ll find at Qasr Tuba
Not on site: visitor centre, ticket office, toilets, museum, guide available, food & drinks, hotels, market / shop · Access: 4x4 needed
Go in spring or autumn. Summer heat on the open tracks is extreme, and after winter rain the tracks can be muddy.
Services are limited out in the desert.
Quick answers before you set off.
Yes. The last part of the journey is on unpaved desert tracks, and a driver who knows them is essential.
No. The site is unstaffed and there is no ticket office.
Probably not. It was never finished, so it never worked as anything. Scholars mostly see it as a planned residence or hunting retreat; a halt on routes to the Hijaz has also been suggested.
The finest carved lintel from the gate is in The Jordan Museum in Amman, and two fragments are in Berlin. Very few carved stones remain on site.
Plan a full day: about 3 hours each way from Amman via Qasr Amra, plus an hour at the site.
Comfortable, closed shoes for uneven ground, and light clothing that covers your shoulders and knees, which is respectful in rural Jordan and protects you from the sun.
Tuba is a day out on its own. The track starts at Qasr Amra, so combine it with Amra and Kharana on the way. Drive times are from Qasr Tuba.
Panoramas, walk-throughs, photos and stories about this site.
360°360° panoramaQasr Tuba: 360° PanoramaPhoto albumQasr Tuba: The Brick Palace in the Desert in PhotosProfileQasr Tuba: history & architectureTuba isn’t part of our regular tours, but we can arrange a private 4x4 day with an experienced driver. Tell us when you’d like to go.
