I visited Jordan on a trip from Cairo to İstanbul overland. And, I spent too much time in Dahab and didn't have time to do very much in Jordan.
But I did make sure to visit Petra, near Wadi Rum in south-western Jordan. It's a fantastic set of ruins, about 2000 years old.
And yes, it's the storage place of the Holy Grail.
This is the Khazneh, or The Treasury, the iconic structure in Petra.
The Nabateans moved into the area from western Arabia around 700 BC and began carving all sorts of buildings into the soft red sandstone wadis.
After the death of Alexander the Great in Babylon in 323 BC, his empire was divided. The Selucid ruler Antigonus had been given part of Alexander's empire — he rode against the Nabateans in 312 BC, but was driven back. The Nabatean empire become a major power in the region.
Around 1 AD Rome controlled Palestine between the Mediterranean and (for the most part) the Rift Valley. The land east of the Dead Sea and Jordan River was controlled by the Nabateans, from deep Arabia in the south to Damascus in the north. The empire based at Palmyra in east Syria, eventually under the control of Zenobia, the Warrior Queen, formed a northern buffer against further Nabatean expansion. Rome had influence over the Nabateans, and uneasy co-existence with the Palmyrans, until Rome's defeat of Zenobia in 271 AD.
Rome took effective control of Petra in 106 AD and the Nabateans began a long decline.
By the Muslim invasion of the 600's Petra was largely abandoned.
The Crusaders had a fort there briefly in the 1100's, but otherwise Petra was lost and forgotten until the 1800's. Swiss explorer Johann Ludwig Burckhardt re-discovered it in 1812.
U.S. Government map of Jordan.
Visiting Petra
The nearby town is Wadi Musa (yes, "Valley of Moses"). There is bus service to there from Amman and Aqaba, and minibus service from smaller towns. Wadi Musa is not down in the wadi but up on its rim, spreading down the road to the entrance.
You pay an entrance fee and walk into Petra through the Siq, a very narrow and tall passage through the rock.
About a kilometer from the entrance, you see that you are approaching an opening.
The Siq opens into a wider canyon, and the Khazneh is carved into its opposite face.
All the detail is created by carving into the soft sandstone. It wasn't constructed by putting blocks together.
Treasury? Not really, that was just a guess by more recent re-discoverers.
The Khazneh is just the most famous structure in Petra. With the help of Steven Speilberg, of course.
There are plenty of other large and dramatic structures, like this one.
It was a very large city for its time, so there are many public buildings, private homes, temples, and so on.
The sandstone is generally red or pink, hence the "rose-red city half as old as time" reference to Petra in John William Burgon's sonnet.
In places it's multi-colored, formed by many layers of sediment of different material.
The Urn Tomb.
Maybe a temple?
Below is another larger structure.
Here you see some of the local transport.
Local Bedouins lived in the ruins until fairly recently. That brought the expected damage to the site.
The Jordanian government built them a new village and moved them out. It was unpopular initially, but now those families have become much more prosperous by working at the park and also taking in visitors for multi-day stays.
There is a huge area to explore.
Petra can get a lot of visitors. But at least when I was there, it is big enough that have the area pretty much to yourself once you get out of the Siq and away from the Khazneh.
There are plenty of high places to explore. Just don't be setting up altars to Baal, that's frowned on now.
I stayed at the Sun Set Hotel, right outside the gate to the ruins. It's far superior to staying way up on the rim of the wadi in Wadi Musa, as many people do. 10 Dinar (US$ 17) for a double room. And they have a mysterious slogan: "We Just Add A Trask!"
In Amman, the Cliff Hotel (+962-06-624273) is pretty good. Good luck finding it in Amman's twisting hilly streets. It's right in the downtown area, between King Faisal Street and Basman Street, not too far from the central post office. 5 Dinar for a single room with a fan plus 500 quirsh for a shower (US$ 7.75 total). There are daily buses between Amman and Damascus, Syria, leaving very early in the morning and arriving about mid-day.
In Aqaba, the Petra Hotel (+962-03-313746) has plush double rooms for 6 Dinar (US$ 8.50). It's on the main street, just south of the park and the minibus lot, There is allegedly a daily ferry between Aqaba and Nuweiba, Egypt. Ask around for details, and don't expect the schedule to be followed precisely.
Here is a fruit market in Aqaba.
I continued on from Amman to Damascus. Click here to see pictures from Syria.
If you like mysterious structures carved into soft stone, check out my pictures of Cappadocia, in Turkey.
Are you interested in using any of my pictures? I have high-resolution versions of all of these. Contact me if you are interested in using any. The answer is generally "yes" as long as I get credit and a copy of the result.
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| © Bob Cromwell Sep 2010. Created with /bin/vi and ImageMagick, hosted on OpenBSD with Apache. Root password available here, privacy policy here. |
