The ruined city of Umm el Jimal occupies about 80 hectares of the basalt plateau, comprising roughly 150 identifiable structures that range from a 1st-century Nabataean building to 7th-century Islamic structures abandoned when the city was finally left empty. The uniformly dark stone gives the entire site an unusually atmospheric quality — walking the streets on an overcast day, with the basalt walls rising to roof height on either side, it is not difficult to imagine the place inhabited.
The town plan shows the pragmatic logic of a trading post: a central reservoir area, a barracks for the garrison, churches for the Christian population, and dense residential blocks. Greek and Nabataean inscriptions appear on many buildings. The site was occupied during the Nabataean, Roman, Byzantine, and early Islamic periods — roughly the 1st through 8th centuries CE — and the layers of construction are visible in the fabric of the walls.
There is no visitor centre and no organised tour route; the site rewards slow exploration. The main ruins are a short walk from where vehicles park near the modern village.