a rose-red city half as old as time

To pick up where I left off in my posts about Jordan, Bear and I awoke on Thanksgiving day to a spectacular view and ate breakfast in the room while getting ready to go to Petra.

We took the hotel shuttle early in the morning, and met a family of Americans from New Jersey who apparently shared our view that Petra was the perfect place to celebrate Thanksgiving.  When we got to the park, we all went in together on a guide to show us around.  His name was Khaled (I actually don't remember his name, but we're going to just pretend it's Khaled).

Before you get into the main part of the park, there is already lots to see.  One of the things that Khaled pointed out to us were what he called "Jin blocks".  They are representations of the Nabataeans' (the pre-Islamic Arabs who built Petra) god, which they placed around the outskirts of their city to ward off spirits, or "Jin".  Khaled has an interesting theory about the Jin blocks.  He thinks they are precursors to the Kaaba.  They are hollow cubes with space for walking around the outside, which is basically what the Kaaba is.  This is interesting to me because the Jin blocks are not Islamic, and it sort of reminds me of the way Christianity took a lot of things from pre-Christian rituals (Christmas trees, Easter traditions, etc.)

There are a few scattered tombs as well.  Khaled explained to us that the buildings carved into the cliffs and rocks were mostly tombs, and people lived in free-standing buildings.  Most have been destroyed in various earthquakes and floods over the years.

We made our way to the Siq, which is the name for the long, narrow passageway through the rocks that leads to the main part of the city. The Siq is full of tombs and carvings, and an ingenious water collection and diversion system.  The Nabataeans also built a sort of a moat near the entrance to the Siq to divert flood water away from it.  Apparently that area of Jordan is prone to flooding, and the Siq in particular is a dangerous place to be when floods occur.

The Nabataeans carved a sort of pipeline all along the walls of the Siq to collect and store water.  They did some stuff that is too complicated for me to understand or explain, but in short, they are known for being clever with water collection, diversion, and storage.



So anyway, you get to the end of the Siq, and you get this dramatic glimpse of the most majestic building in Petra - Al Khazneh, or the Treasury:

The Siq dumps you out into this open area with Al Khazneh in all its glory right in front of you:

It is beautiful, but sadly not as beautiful as it once was.  Erosion has taken its toll on the structure, but so has humanity.  The reason it's called the Treasury is because there is a spherical carving at the top, which was once believed to hold treasure.  Explorers used to come and shoot at it with their rifles to see if they could break it open and find the gold.  Nothing was inside, but the entire monument is riddled with bullet holes as a testament to Man's destructiveness.  Many of the statues were also defaced because of Islam's prohibition of likenesses of humans and animals.

On a lighter note, there were some kittehs:

I asked Khaled if the Nabataens have any descendants, or if they just disappeared.  He suspects that the Bedouins in the area are descendants of the Nabataens.  When the place was found by a European in 1812, Bedouins were living in the tombs that were carved into the cliffs.  They were still living there when UNESCO designated it as a World Heritage Site in 1985.  However, the powers that be thought that Bedouins living in the park would not be good for tourism, and so permanent dwellings were built for them not far away.  The Bedouins sleep in their new homes at night, and come back to the park every day to sell trinkets and offer donkey rides to tourists.

I am not sure if they really are descendents of Nabataens, but they have a sort of unique look.  They're really beautiful people, sort of small, with very fine facial features and small bones.  

And, Bear said their Arabic was grammatically perfect (which is funny because whenever he tries to speak casually or use slang with Saudis, they accuse him of talking like a Bedouin), and I noticed that they spoke English without any accent at all.  Except for one guy, who spoke English with a perfect Scottish accent. 

Anyway, unfortunately we didn't have as much time as we wanted to explore Petra because for some reason we felt compelled to follow the agenda of our driver, who wanted to take us to Aqaba that afternoon.  We didn't get to go the High Place of Sacrifice or to the Monastery, but we hiked around in the hills and explored various ruins of tombs and churches. 

The place is already beautiful, but then you sometimes find these crazy colored rocks that are just amazing and add a whole other dimension to the beauty.

Most places in the park, as far as I know, are open for exploration (except the inside of Al Khazneh).  If you can get to it, you can explore it.  We got to poke around inside some of the tombs that are high up in the cliffs.  The Bedouins are there too, selling their wares.  This is the one where we met the man who sounded Scottish:

We also saw the only free-standing building left in the park, which they believe survived earthquakes and floods because the builders inserted wooden beams into the walls to give it some flexibility.  This was the main temple in the complex, and was only accessible to priests.

There were several church ruins - one of them only had columns left.  We visited a Byzantine church, which still had semi-intact mosaic floors, and bleachers set up where a congregation was watching a ceremony.  I don't know what the ceremony was about, as it was not in English, but it was nice to stand and listen to the Monks sing.

I loved Petra - it was awe-inspiring and beautiful, and the people there were so friendly and good natured.  I wish we could have stayed longer, but since we couldn't, I hope to go again someday.

Dr. Seuss-ish, no?

One year ago: in the meantime