After seeing the famous “Treasury”, we continued with our walk through the gorge which gradually widens and open up to a vast area. I, like many people, thought that the only thing to see in Petra is the Treasury.
It is the highlight of the site but there is an entire city on the other side. Petra (then known as Raqmu) was an important trading post located strategically in the desert at the northern end of the caravan route from Arabia to the Mediterranean. The people had great wealth and power at the time of the first centuries B.C. and A.D. It was reported by the Metropolitan museum of art that the fame of the Nabataean kingdom spread as far as Han-dynasty China, where Petra was known as Li-kan.
Petra is also called the Rose City due to the color of the stone out of which it is carved. Apparently, at certain hour early in the morning, the rock faces are lit by the sun creating a spectacle. It has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1985.
During the reign of King Aretas III (r. 86–62 B.C.), the Nabataean kingdom extended its territory northward and briefly occupied Damascus. The expansion was halted by the arrival of Roman legions under Pompey in 64 B.C. Petra’s importance declined as sea trade routes emerged and many structures were destroyed by an earthquake in the 3rd century.
The Byzantine Era witnessed the construction of several Christian churches, but the city continued to decline, and by the early Islamic era became an abandoned place where only a handful of nomads lived.
It remained unknown to the world until it was “discovered” in 1812 by a Swiss traveller, Johann Ludwig Burckhardt.
The Nabataeans buried their dead in intricate tombs that were cut out of the mountain sides and the city also had temples, a theater, and following the Roman annexation and later the Byzantine influence, a colonnaded street and churches.
We walked into an amphitheater – one can easily imagine a town meeting or a performance being attended by people who live in the caves around the valley. The theatre consists of three rows of seats separated by passageways and was carved into the mountainside during the reign of King Aretas IV (4 B.C. – 27 A.D.). Jesus was born at around the same time when this was being constructed.
Under the emperor Trajan in 106 A.D., Petra fell to the Romans who annexed and renamed Nabataea to Arabia Petraea. Apart from the many incredible structures carved out of the mountain, they also built free-standing buildings.
Great Temple – remnants
Inside the settlement
Animals in Petra – donkey – a less active ride than that offered by a camel.
Notice the pattern of marks chiseled in the rock behind the donkeys !
Looking back towards all the tombs on one side from the Great Temple … one gets a sense of the human scale of this early settlement.
27 sites in Petra are now available on Google Street View. Even if you are not going to see Petra any time soon, it is worth checking it out using better tech than my photos here.