Stacey’s Mini-Extravaganza to the Middle East

The Treasury

The Siq

 Now that we have a little history on the origins of Petra let’s talk about the specifics of the lost city and surrounding area.  After having been recently voted to the 7 New Wonders of the World, the fortunes of locals and those in charge of Petra have increased immensely.  To be sure, the fees into Petra are exorbitant and changing on a quarterly basis throughout 2010.  The fees are designed to sting cruise ship passengers and day-trippers and to encourage people to stay (and spend more money) in the local modern village of Wadi Musa (Valley of Moses).  For my 2-day pass it was roughly 53 US$ and will increase to US$75 by the end of the year.  Still, people flock to this amazing place…the “rose-red city” named for the colored sandstone from which the buildings and monuments are carved.

After entering the Petra grounds, included in your ticket is a horse ride to the entrance of the Siq (which naturally I declined due to my aversion to riding on the backs of beasts of burden).  The Siq is a long, dramatic gorge cut into the sandstone which is the principal (and the only official) entrance into the city of Petra.  The Siq was formed when tectonic forces split the mountain in two.  As you walk, you don’t really notice the slow descent but ultimately the altitude drops roughly 500 feet from the entrance to the city center…equivalent to a 45-story skyscraper.  The Siq is cool and often dark with water gutters running alongside the original cobblestone road (see pictures of both from Part 1).  Finally, just when you think it can’t go on any longer…the Siq opens up to one of the most impressive monuments in the entire city…the Treasury.

 A close-up of the Treasury

 Another close-up of the detail

 It turns out the Treasury was built on top of ruins of old tombs

 The notches on the left are likely footholds for the carvers of the Treasury

The Treasury was designed to impress and as it is positioned opposite the main route to Petra the effect was very successful.  The Treasury enjoys a protected position from the elements so is the best preserved of the edifices in Petra.  Legend has it that the local bedouins named the monument as such because a pharaoh was believed to have been slowed down on his journey by having to carry all his treasure so he created this monument to deposit his riches in the urn at the very top.  For centuries afterwards marksman would shoot the urn trying to break and release the treasure but to no avail…they ultimately ended up only blasting chunks off the urn.  The Treasury dates to the 1st century BC and demonstrates how the Nabatean culture was an amalgam of the elements of Hellenistic (Greek) and Middle Eastern worlds.  One of the columns is obviously new, a brick-and-plaster replacement for the original which fell in antiquity.  This quite handily demonstrates an extraordinary feature of Nabatean architecture…these columns support nothing as they were sculpted in place and offered no real support to the structure.

Moving on down the road one comes to the massive theater of Petra.  It is clearly classical in design and though it was built before the Roman occupation it clearly demonstrates links between Nabatea and Rome.  As many as 8500 people could be accommodated and aside from the stage and backdrop, the entire structure was carved out of the mountainside.  Much renovation has been done here and much of the damage is attributed to the fateful earthquake of 363 AD.

 The Theater

 Some more examples of the rock’s coloring

Next up:  the Royal Tombs.  The first tomb on the cliff is the Urn Tomb which is reached by the modern steps leading from below.  The whole structure is thought to be a tomb of someone extremely important…probably a Nabatean king though who isn’t exactly known.  Set into the facade between the columns are spaces for three bodies which is a unique configuration for Petra where normally bodies were placed inside the tombs.  Later converted into a major church (perhaps a cathedral?) the large interior room features a Greek inscription in red paint recording the dedication of the church by Bishop Jason in 447 AD.  Further down the way are several other Royal Tombs of lesser importance and while we didn’t explore all of them they are all very impressive with similar features to the Urn Tomb.

 One of the Royal Tombs: the Urn Tomb

 The Silk Tomb…unremarkable except for the brilliant coloring

 A rain gutter

 More Royal Tombs

 The Urn Tomb again (note the 3 spaces for bodies between the columns)

 Inside the Urn Tomb

 The ceiling of the tomb…the black stuff is from burning fires inside

 The Greek dedication by Bishop Jason

 From the inside of Urn Tomb looking out

As you enter the city center you find yourself walking along the Colonnaded Street that stretches out ahead towards the mountains.  This area is largely ruinous although it its heyday all the land on either side would have been covered in buildings, houses, markets, temples, etc.  In fact, many archaeologists theorize that much of Petra is still hidden beneath the dusty soil and that what has been exposed so far is just the tip of the iceberg.  The road continues downhill until you end a the swanky restaurant run by the Marriot.  Beyond the restaurant one begins the uphill climb to the most impressive monument of all…the Monastery…which we will visit in the next post.

 The Colonnaded Street

 Colonnaded Street looking back at Royal Tombs

 Tenemos Gate

 The Great Temple

 Some toppled columns at the Great Temple

 The Great Temple was formerly covered in colorful stucco…this is all that remains

Another example of the colorful stucco

Caves and building from Little Petra

Next up after Egypt was Jordan to see the ruins of Petra (also known to some of my readers as the backdrop from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade).  The border crossing between Egypt and Jordan is one of great debate.  There are two ways to go: a ferry between Egypt and Jordan on the Red Sea or a land-crossing from Egypt, into Israel and then into Jordan.  Theoretically, the ferry is the best option as you avoid the dreaded Israel stamp in your passport.  Why the problem with the Israel stamp? Because if you’ve been to Israel a person is generally precluded from entering any other country in the Middle East with the exception of Egypt and Jordan with whom they have a treaty.  So…if I were planning to head to, say, Syria I couldn’t if I’d previously been to Israel.  It seems like a no-brainer…take the ferry.  Unfortunately the ferry runs on some crazy schedule where it may run 6 to 8 hours late or it may not run at all.  In my case, I didn’t care about the Israel stamp as I do not intend to return to the Middle East on this passport so I opted for the land crossing which was a smart decision as I was checked into my hotel by 6 pm on Sunday…everyone who took the ferry that day didn’t arrive until after midnight.

Ahh Petra…the incredible old city tucked into the desert of Jordan and only recently rediscovered by a Swiss adventurer in 1812.  Like many of the archaeological sights in the Middle East, Petra has been inhabited and occupied by several different groups over its centuries of existence.  In prehistory, the region of Petra saw some of the first experiments in farming and served as an important route between the great ancient powers of Mesopotamia and Egypt.  The first significant mention of Petra occurred in the Old Testament as the Israelites approached Edom after their forty years in the desert.  Contrary to geographic evidence, the local legend maintains that in the hills above Petra God ordered Moses to produce water for the Israelites by speaking to the rock.  Moses instead struck the rock and the spring that gushed is today named the Spring of Moses (which is now marked at the entrance to the modern village surrounding Petra: Wadi Musa).  Over the following centuries possession of Petra changed hands from Assyrian to Babylonian to Persian and this instability ultimately led the way for new people to claim the area of Petra as their own.

 Paintings on the ceiling in Little Petra

 More ceiling paintings

 A tomb

Example of the rock coloring in Petra

Much of the existing architecture in Petra is attributed to the Nabateans, a tribe of Bedouin nomads who previously inhabited northern Arabia.  The traditional occupation of the Nabateans was to raid the plentiful caravans that passed through the Petra valley en route to other parts of the ancient world.  Ultimately the Nabateans gave up this endeavor in favor of charging the merchants they previously plundered for safe passage and used the area as a place to do business.  For several hundred years the Nabateans successfully defended their position and became wealthier and wealthier from their profits from trade of items such as copper, iron and Dead Sea bitumen (used for embalming in Egypt) as well as spices and other commodities.  During the 1st centuries BC and AD, Petra was at its zenith with a population of 30,000 and was a thriving, cosmopolitan city.  Of course, things were not to last…with the discovery of other trade routes by sea, Petra began its slow decline and ultimately fell into the hands of the Romans.

Under the Romans, Petra became a principal center of the new Providincia Arabia and  underwent something of a cultural renaissance with the theater and the Colonnaded Street both renovated.  During the 2nd and 3rd centuries things started to fall apart though and by 300 Petra was in serious disrepair.  A massive earthquake in 363 sealed the deal and flattened about half of Petra.  Still there were a few hangers-on until another massive earthquake in 749 destroyed the rest of the city and nearly everyone remaining were forced out.  The Crusaders occupied a few small forts in the area but these were inconsequential and as far as records go,  the last person other than local Bedouins, to see Petra was in 1276.  It would be more 500 years before anyone else would see the city of Petra.

In 1812 under Arab disguise, the Swiss explorer Jean Louis Burckhardt entered the Siq (the long canyon entrance to the city) with a local guide.  From that moment forward, Petra was no longer a secret and tourism was launched in Petra.  Still, Petra was far off the beaten track and difficult to get to until the 1980s when a regular bus service was launched from Amman.  It was in the 80s that the Jordanian government realized what a cash cow they had in Petra and they ordered the relocation of the local Bedouins who occupied the caves and buildings within the city to a concrete block village about 4 km away where they were provided with free housing, education, electricity, etc.  I have much more interesting information on the local Bedouins to come but will save that for another post.  The pictures here are largely from Little Petra which is a smaller settlement I went to see the first night as well as a few random shots of the sandstone and various artifacts around the site.  The bulk of the buildings and descriptions in the main sections of Petra show up in the next several posts.

Some caves

Some camels

A jinn-block (likely for protection of the water supply)

Some of the original cobblestone through the Siq (more on the Siq in Part 2)

A gutter along the road through the Siq

Sunset