Located
amid rugged desert canyons and craggy mountains in the southwestern corner of
the Hashemite Kingdom of
Jordan,
Petra is the seventh and last of the new wonders of the world that we have
visited. It is a vast, unique city,
carved into a sheer rock face by the Nabataeans, an industrious Arab people who
settled there more than 2,000 years ago, turning it into an important junction
for the camel caravan trade routes which stretched as far as China.
The stunning first sight of the Treasury Building, as one emerges from
the narrow canyon entrance and gazes up unto the massive façade carved out of
the sheer, dusky pink rock-face, is one of the world’s most awe-inspiring travel
experiences.
This
trip was coupled with a nostalgic return to Italy, where we spent time with
our oldest and dearest Italian friends – Gina and Sandra Rossello on the Italian
Riviera, and Silvia Tavella in Rome.
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The
Siq
The First Sight of the. .
Treasury Building
The year 2012 was a special year for a visit to Petra.
The site had been discovered by a Swiss explorer exactly 200 years ago
and the epic movie “Lawrence of Arabia” was released 50 years ago.
However, the specific timing of our visit was not the most propitious,
arriving during a week of violent, anti-American riots in the Middle East
protesting a provocative anti-Muslim video originating in the U.S., which
resulted in thirty deaths in eight countries, including the death of the U.S.
ambassador to Libya. Fortunately, it was
relatively calm in Jordan, although our drive past the U.S. embassy, with the
armed U.S. marines in full battle dress manning their armored vehicles, was a
stark reminder for us of the potential seriousness of the situation.
We were met at our hotel the next morning by our guide, Murad Ali, and his
driver, Raed. Both stayed with us
throughout our stay. We departed
with them in our comfortable van for the 160 mile drive south to Petra, which
gave us a chance to see a bit of the Jordanian landscape as well as an
opportunity to learn more about Jordan from Murad, who was eager to tell us
about his country.
The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan (its official name) is a relatively small
country about the size of the state of Indiana.
It is sandwiched between Saudi Arabia in the south and east, Syria and Iraq in
the north and Israel in the west. Its
population is just over six million people, half of whom live in the capital
city of Amman.
It is a constitutional monarchy led by King Abdullah II and his
attractive, Palestinian-born wife, Queen Rania.
The Jordanian population is almost entirely Arab with close to half of its
people of Palestinian origin. It is
one of the more politically and economically stable countries in the Arab world.
By granting modest concessions like dismissing government ministers and
preserving popular subsidies, King Abdullah has managed to avoid the kind of
recent “Arab Spring” turmoil that has upended other Arab countries. Jordan
maintains good relations with both Israel and the United States.
From Amman, we took the King’s Highway south to Petra, the same road once
traveled by Moses and the Israelites in Biblical times.
The drive included stops at several fascinating
tourist sites along the way including: Madaba, known as the City of Mosaics;
Mount Nebo, from which the Bible says Moses looked down on the Promised Land;
and the village of Kerak, with its 12th century Crusader castle
overlooking the Dead Sea.
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Crusader Castle at
Kerak
Hadrian’s
Arch at Jerash
Returning north on the Desert Highway at the end of our stay, we had a chance to
visit the ancient city of Jerash,
the second most visited tourist destination in Jordan, which boasts
an unbroken chain of human occupation dating back more than 6,500 years.
Located 30 miles outside of Amman,
Jerash is
one of the best-preserved Roman provincial towns in the world and is filled with
paved and colonnaded streets, soaring hilltop temples, handsome theaters,
spacious public squares and fabulous plazas, baths, fountains and city walls
pierced by towers and gates.
Founded by the soldiers of Alexander the Great during the 4th century
BC, it was hidden for centuries under the sand before being excavated and
restored in just the past 70 years. Like the Roman ruins in the Italian city of
Rome, the ruins of Jerash include a triumphal arch, an oval-shaped forum and two
large amphitheaters. Some have
called Jerash the “Rome Away from Rome”.
Without a doubt, though, Petra is Jordan’s greatest tourist attraction and its
most valuable treasure.
Although we’d seen pictures and movies of the entrance to Petra, it was with
great anticipation that we made the long, hot, dusty walk down the mile long
gorge (called the Siq), through a narrow canyon, in places less than ten feet
wide between towering red and ochre cliffs. Suddenly, a narrow sliver of a
monument appeared in the sunlight framed by flowering oleanders.
The next moment the massive façade of the Treasury building burst into
view. It was
as tall as a twelve story building and over one hundred feet wide, chiseled out
of the sheer, dusky pink rock-face and dwarfing everything around it.
It was a magic moment.
The Treasury, the iconic symbol of Petra, looms 130 feet high, with six
Corinthian columns in its portico and a giant stone urn adorning its second
story. The sandy red walls of its single interior chamber have been worn smooth
by the winds and sands of time. As we stood in the shade of the canyon walls,
Murad told us that this second-century structure took more than 100 years to
finish. It was christened El-Khazneh or "The Pharaoh’s Treasury" by Petra's
l9th-century inhabitants, who mistakenly believed that the urn contained the
Pharaoh’s fortune and tried to break it open with gunfire, but the building's
original purpose remains an archaeological mystery.
More than 800 examples of the Nabataeans’
towering handiwork sprawl across 100 square miles of this hidden valley
in Jordan's desert, where 2,000 years ago, ancient craftsmen set upon the
hillsides and began carving deep into them, hollowing out two-story temples
propped on Corinthian columns; carving tombs bedecked with obelisks and statues
of gods; and constructing courts, reservoirs, staircases, and aqueducts, all
chiseled out of the giant, sandstone cliffs and all without the benefit of
drills, jackhammers or even picks.
We were offered the option of camels, donkeys or horse carts for our tour but we
chose to walk the six mile trek in order to be able to wander freely through the
ancient city.
Despite the 90 degree heat, we were
stunned by the natural beauty of the site with its extraordinary architectural
achievements. Some of the site
highlights included a massive 6,000 seat, Nabataean-built, Roman-style theatre;
the Royal Tombs; and the impressive Ad-Deir Monastery, high above the valley.
Archaeologists are still continuing to make major discoveries at Petra but
estimate that as much as 85 percent of the city remains hidden under debris.
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Nabataean
Tombs
Roman Colonnaded Street Leading the
Sanctuary
Petra’s excellent state of preservation can be attributed to the fact that
almost all of its hundreds of "buildings" have been hewn out of solid rock.
There are scores of elaborate, rock-cut tombs decorated with intricate carvings.
Unlike the houses, which were destroyed mostly by earthquakes, the tombs
were carved to last throughout the afterlife. Over 500 have survived, empty and
mysterious as you file past their dark openings.
Until 1984, many of these tomb-caves
were home to the local Bedouins. Out of concern for the monuments, however, the
government outlawed this and relocated the Bedouins to new housing constructed
near the adjacent town of Wadi Mousa.
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Bedouin
Girls
Ships of the Desert
Recent excavations have shown that it was the ability of the Nabataeans to
capture and channel the precious water supply that led to the rise of the desert
city by, in effect, creating an artificial oasis. The surrounding area is
subject to flash floods but archaeological evidence suggests that the Nabataeans
were able to control these floods by the ingenious use of dams, cisterns and
water conduits. Thus, stored water could be employed even during prolonged
periods of drought, and the city prospered by selling this precious commodity.
Walled in by impressive towering rocks and watered year-round by a stream, Petra
not only possessed the advantages of a fortress, but it controlled the main
commercial routes which linked China, India and Arabia with Egypt, Syria, Greece
and Rome. It continued to flourish until an earthquake in the 7th
century crippled the ingeniously planned water supply.
It was completely abandoned after the 12th century Muslim
conquest of the Middle East. Not
unlike other “lost cities” that we’ve visited, (i.e. Machu Picchu, Angkor Wat,
Tikal), Petra was lost into the mists of
legend. Its existence was a guarded
secret known only to local Bedouins.
Finally in 1812, exactly 200 years ago, a young Swiss explorer named Johann
Ludwig Burckhardt heard locals talking about a “lost city” hidden in the
mountains of Wadi Mousa (The Valley
of Moses). In order to enter the
site without arousing suspicion, Burckhardt disguised himself as a Muslim
pilgrim seeking to make a sacrifice at the tomb of Aaron.
He managed to bluff his way into the city successfully and the secret of
Petra was revealed to the modern Western world.
In 1985, the Petra Archaeological Park was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site
and in 1989 it was featured in the popular movie
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
It was named one of the new Seven Wonders of the World in 2007.
We capped our day in Petra with a late afternoon drive out into
Wadi Rum, one of the largest and most
dramatic of the Jordanian desert landscapes, where T.E. Lawrence once made camp.
Lawrence became a legend during World War I by helping Arab troops overthrow the
Ottoman Empire and thus shaping the modern Middle East.
Nearly three decades after his death, Lawrence gained another kind of
immorality when he became the subject of David Lean's classic movie “Lawrence of
Arabia”, one of the greatest epic stories ever put onto film. Having watched the
movie again just before leaving Minnesota, we could feel the presence of this
legendary figure in the mountains and valleys of
Wadi Rum.
We drove out into the dunes on an open bed, four wheel drive pickup truck driven
by a young Bedouin, circling this way and that through the giant rocky outcrops
and finally stopping to await the coming sunset at the edge of a giant sandstone
cliff, where we were joined by a score of desert travelers and their camels.
We watched as the sun set behind the distant mountains and the desert
beyond merged into the fading red skies.
The stars appeared in the evening sky and the light from the lanterns in
the Bedouin camp twinkled in the dark.
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Wadi Rum
Camel Driver at Dusk
In the blackness of night, we could sense the vastness of the desert around us
and could imagine the Bedouins of long ago watering their camels and setting up
their tents nearby as they made their way through the Arabian Desert.
And if we listened closely, we could hear the muted voices of the Arab
Legion as Lawrence prepared them for the next day’s battle with the Turks.
We could even hear the distant hoof beats Indiana Jones’ horse, as Indy
rode up the Canyon of the Crescent Moon in his search for the Holy Grail.
It was a perfect ending to a perfect day in the desert.
