Petra

Background

Petra was first established sometime around the 6th century BC, by the Nabataean Arabs, a nomadic tribe who settled in the area and laid the foundations of a commercial empire that extended into Syria. Despite successive attempts by the Seleucid king Antigonus, the Roman emperor Pompey and Herod the Great to bring Petra under the control of their respective empires, Petra remained largely in Nabataean hands until around 100AD, when the Romans took over. It was still inhabited during the Byzantine period, when the former Roman empire moved its focus east to Constantinople, but declined in importance thereafter. The Crusaders constructed a fort there in the 12th century, but soon withdrew, leaving Petra to the local people until the early 19th century, when it was visited by the Swiss explorer Johann Ludwig Burckhardt.

Location

Petra lies about 3-5 hours south of modern Amman, about 2 hours north of Aqaba, on the edges of the mountainous desert of the Wadi Araba. The city is surrounded by towering hills of rust-coloured sandstone which gave the city some natural protection against invaders.

The site is semi-arid, the friable sandstone which allowed the Nabataeans to carve their temples and tombs into the rock crumbling easily to sand. The colour of the rock ranges from pale yellow or white through rich reds to the darker brown of more resistant rocks. The contorted strata of different-coloured rock form whorls and waves of colour in the rock face, which the Nabataeans exploited in their architecture
The Khazneh

The best-known of the monuments at Petra, the Khazneh is also the first to greet the visitor arriving via the Siq. The facade, carved out from the sandstone cliff wall, is 40m high, and is remarkably well-preserved, probably because the confined space in which it was built has protected it somewhat from the effects of erosion. The name Khazneh, which means 'treasury' comes from the legend that it was used as a hiding place for treasure. In practice, it seems to have been something between a temple and a tomb, possibly both at once

Behind the impressive facade, a large square room has been carved out of the rock of the cliff. The corners and walls have been squared off meticulously, but no attempt has been made to extend the excavations further or to reproduce the kind of ornate carving of the exterior. This is typical of the tombs in Petra; the interiors are as plain as the exteriors are intricate. From inside, you can look out through the doorway towards the Siq.

The Khazneh faces onto a large open space, floored with soft sand and surrounded by high walls. It is possible, without too much difficulty, to scramble up to a point on the facing wall about fifty metres or so above the ground, and look down on the facade from above

Surrounding the open space dominated by the Khazneh are other tombs and halls mostly little more than man-made caves carved out from the rock. To the right, the path continues between more widely-spaced rock walls studded with smaller tombs, which are visible as black holes in the rock. A little further on, on the left is the giant semicircle of the amphitheatre, which had seats for eight thousand people. Behind it, the rock wall is pitted with tombs


, while continuing towards the right, the wadi widens out. Ahead lies the centre of the city, while following the cliff face further to the right takes you to the Royal Tombs.


The Royal Tombs

North from the Khazneh lies the massif of Jebel Khubtha. Three large structures, known as the Royal Tombs have been carved into the rock face, which is known as the King's Wall. It is unclear which kings are referred to, or whether this is simply another popular name with no basis in historical fact.

The first tomb in line is the Urn Tomb , a well-preserved monument that faces out over an open terrace fronted by a double row of vaults. A colonnaded cloister runs along the northern side of the terrace. The elaborate facade fronts a single, unadorned room, this one measuring nearly 20 metres on each side. The walls of the room are smooth, the interior corners exact. The only decoration to be seen at present comes from the beautiful whorls of different-coloured sandstone in the walls, ceiling and floor of the chamber

After some smaller tombs, the next major structure is the badly-weathered Corinthian Tomb, which resembles a smaller version of the Khazneh, followed by the Palace Tomb , which was built in imitation of a Roman palace. The facade of this tomb is also badly weathered, and the rooms behind are small and undecorated.

Some distance away from the Royal Tombs, to the north, there is one more tomb, which was built in AD 130 for the Roman governor of the city under Hadrian, Sextius Florentinus . This is a much more modest affair, a 6 metre facade in front of a small chamber in which the administrator was presumably buried. The facade is badly weathered, but the patterns in the exposed sandstone are striking.

Further north still, the rock walls of the Jebel Khubtha rise above the sandy scrub of the Wadi al-Mataha. During the Byzantine occupation of the city, defensive walls were built across the valley, and some excavation and reconstruction work is currently taking place, but little can be seen of the walls themselves. To the south-east lies the centre of the city

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