Petra – A day to remember.

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The site of Petra is certainly one of the 7 wonders of the world. When you first enter the site, you soon find yourself among carved caves with beautiful facades chiselled out of the sandstone cliffs surrounding you. The age of the site is immediately apparent and the vistas just get better as you move forward. Take a look at our video to see what the full site looks like:

The next stop you see is the Siq, a massive canyon cut into the mountain from annual flood waters over thousands of years. Within the Siq, there are shrines and sculptures cut into the rock walls depicting animals, people and deities.

The Siq ends with a spectacular finish as the Treasury opens before you. The Treasury, or Al Khazneh, is the most photographed structure within the site of Petra. Featured in the movie, Indianna Jones and the Last Crusade, this historic site lives up to the notoriety. Cut into the mountain during the 1st century BC (or 1st century AD), it was a key stop on the trade route that connects Africa to Europe and the Middle East. The Treasury was actually not for keeping wealth, rather, it was a tomb for a Nabatean man and his wife. At this point, we hired a local Bedouin (named Mohammed Ali – with the gold tooth) to take is around the rest of the site on mules – certainly worth that $75 JDs, considering many of the other sites are on top of the mountain.

After you pass the Treasury, the volume of carved structures increases as the valley before you hold hundreds of caves and carvings. The massive Roman Amphitheatre is the next stop on the walk, a site for old games, performances and the political centre of the historic area. Heading up the mountain, we continued along to the High-Place of Sacrifice at the summit, with a breathtaking view of the valley below. The High-Place was used for Nabatean rituals where blood and fire sacrifices were made as part of their beliefs. From the blood alter, a channel was carved into the mountain that runs to a huge sculpture of a lion. During the ritual, blood would flow down the mountain into the lions mouth, completing the worship.

After the High-Place, the next site is the Roman Soldiers Tomb, considered a tomb but may have been a home for Roman rulers at the time. Walking inside of the tomb, platforms for bodies and black stillness are all that is inside. Worth a quick trip in to see it.

We then moved down the mountain to the old Roman city and the temple ruins. A lot of local Bedouins still live in this area and have a lot of shops and services for sale. Overall, they were all quite pleasant and a little bartering will get you some good prices for some interesting crafts from the area.

Heading up the second mountain, we went to the Monestary, or Ad Deir. This is the largest of the carved structures and the most impressive in my opinion. It is 50 meters tall by 50 meters wide and towers above the area around it.

After the Monestary, we continued to the third mountain to see the Treasury from above. Took a fair bit of time but worth it since seeing it from above adds a new dimension to the sight and is the best opportunity for photos. It is also a fairly quiet area with very few visitors. We took our time and the views along this trip were the best of all (as most of Petra is visible from the third mountain).

All in all, one full day with our Bedioun guide got us across most of the site but you can certainly spend many days there to see more in detail. Absolutely worthy of Wonder of the World status, Petra provides a rich glimpse into a key part of man’s cultural and historic heritage.

Other fun facts:

Petra was “lost” for almost a thousand years, kept secret by the local Bedouins who lived in the area.

“Rediscovered” by a Swiss explorer, who posed as a Bedouin, went to the site and then wrote about it back in Europe.

The height of the ground is not the same as in antiquity, the ground back then was 10-20m lower, meaning most of the site is still buried and more will be discovered in the future.

The site of Petra is one of the best examples of ancient water management, where short periods of annual rainfall were able to be stored and used over the course of the year, turning this desert area into an oasis.

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