PETRA - A RED-ROSE CİTY HALF AS OLD AS TİME *

I had first visited Petra in 1973 when I still was a student and was so mesmerised by what I had seen that I had always planned to come back. That happened in 1996. 

In 1973 there were no hotels in Wadi Moussa (where Petra is) but only small guesthouses. You would reach the entrance to the old city on horseback riding among grass and bush. Today you have a whole town built with several 5-star hotels and a profusion of tourist shops. You still go on a horse (if you so wish) but ride on asphalt. It is unbelievable how things change when the modern day invader - the tourist - arrives. 

WADİ MOUSSA

THE HORSES

TÜLİN ON THE WAY TO EXPLORE PETRA

Petra, the capital of the Nabatean Kingdom (a Semitic tribe), existed since the 6th century BC but was in its prime from the 1st century BC to the 1st century AD. The town played a vital role as a center of trade and commerce and was a major caravan center for the incense of Arabia, the silks of China and the spices of India.  Though several times under risk of invasion, the city remained under Nabatean control until Petra was absorbed into the Roman Empire in 106 AD. Sadly, in 693 AD, Petra was hit by a terrible earthquake that devastated its water management system and destroyed many of its buildings. Petra was then largely abandoned and faded from memory, thus earning its nickname of the ''Lost City''. It was ''re-discovered'' by a Swiss explorer Johann Ludwig Burckhardt  in 1812.  And it became famous after Hollywood chose Petra as a film location for ''Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade'' in 1989. 

Petra does possess one of the most spectacularly dramatic ''opening sequence'' to any such site in the world. You approach the city through the Siq which is a huge and long gorge formed in part by a massive earthquake and then by water erosion. It is simply spectacular. It is a dim and narrow gorge five meters wide at its largest and reaching 80 meters upward. The towering cliffs of rock seem to be smoothed in waves and ripples that swirl with layers of subtle color : red, rust, brown, sand, sulphur, black. 

The Siq zigzags for nearly a kilometer; what a great way to built the suspense since you know Petra is at the end somewhere. And even though it was my second visit here, I could still feel the suspense. Just when I thought it is never going to end, I turned a bend and suddenly a gap in the rock appeared giving me my first sight of the Treasury. Here I stopped and blinked twice because that is one of the most spectacular sights I have ever seen.  

I stood spellbound for some time just looking at the façade in front of me .....then started taking pictures. Those Nabateans had a flair for the dramatic ! This is an awe-inspiring experience. A massive façade 30 meter wide and 43 meter high, carved out of the pink rock and dwarfing everything around it.  

Popular belief has it that the Treasury,  known locally as al-Khazneh, was constructed in the 1st century BC. However, the true purpose of the structure remains a mystery. One thing that most scholars agree upon is that it was not a treasury. Most likely, it was a temple or a royal tomb. Carved into the canyon walls, the Treasury suggests Hellenistic as well as Middle-Eastern influences. Its sharp details have been preserved from wind and rain by the façade's indentation in the rock wall. 
The Treasury has no real interior space, just a large room with recessed areas on the side. 

İNSİDE THE TREASURY FACİNG THE SİQ

When you leave the Treasury and start walking inside Petra, you realize the whole city is surrounded by sheer cliffs. Interspersed through the rock formations are remnants of tombs, which look like caves. It seems 800 such tombs have been identified. And you realize the Treasury is not the only amazing building carved here. Entire walls of the rock mountains were carved and made into majestic façades and decorative entrances to bury the dead.  

                               

THE ENTRANCE TO A TOMB

THE COLOR OF THE ROCK İS İNCREDİBLE.

Petra also has an amphitheater carved out of solid rock and built in the 1st century AD, before the Romans came.  It is hard to believe but the theater has a seating capacity of 6.000 people. There are 45 rows of seats and to keep the sun out of the spectators' eyes, it faces north and east. The engineering genius of those ancient people is hard to grasp.   

After lunch and some rest we set out to see another highlight of Petra, the Monastery. That was easier said than done since you have to climb 800 steps (some say 1200 - I did not count) to reach it. You go up a rock staircase first carved on the hillside by the Nabateans and now half broken. The higher you go, the more you have the impression of flying. 

                            YOU SHOULD NOT BE SCARED OF HEİGHTS TO CLİMB HERE.

When I finally reached the Monastery I was totally out of breath . It was mainly because of the hour-long climb but also because I was mesmerised by what I saw.  The Monastery (which in fact is not a monastery at all but no one exactly knows the purpose of the edifice) is less ornate than the Treasury but much larger, looming over a smaller plazza to give it a more imposing look. And the whole façade is carved into the sandstone walls  of a desert canyon. 

There are a lot of special places on the face of the planet, and then there are the exceptionally amazing places like Petra that defy description. While many, if not most, of the buildings that were not directly carved into the mountains are nothing but rubble, the ancient city remains standing today, thousands of years later. Furthermore, a thousand different rock formations , textures and patterns have been created by wind, water and heat. No matter what you know of Petra, nothing quite prepares you for the experience of seeing it in person. There is no other way to say it: Petra is majestic and dazzling. 



* Title : from a poem by John William Burgon