UNESCO WORLD HERITAGE SITES | 7 SEVEN WONDERS OF MAN
Petra, Jordan: A city carved in stone
Sculpted tombs and temples in Petra fill an ancient metropolis with mystery
First, one should understand that Wadi means valley and Musa means Moses and Petra means rock. To grasp those little bits helps us weather the frustration. So much of Petra is shrouded in mystery and perhaps unknowable, lost to the memory-erosion of centuries, obscured by conflicting theories and volumes of scholarly footnotes. We do know, at least, that this is part of the Holy Land and that Moses was certainly around.
And Wadi Musa is the modern municipality that lies just outside Petra, a town where people stop on their way to see Petra's collection of incredible tombs carved into the rocks of southern Jordan hundreds of years ago.
So the next thing after the first things is the experience of coming upon Petra and feeling its hidden magnificence suddenly overwhelm you. That's the draw attracting people from all over the world to witness Jordan's most dramatic site.
Ibrahim Abdelhaq, our Jordanian guide, led the way. We took a short walk from the Movenpick Hotel in Wadi Musa through a small bazaar with souvenirs for sale, then past a gate and a stop at the ticket window. We took a longer walk along a road, while next to us horsemen on a separate bridle path offered us a ride to the entrance of the Siq.
We hiked instead. The Siq has a meaning too. It's another kind of valley, narrow and dark with sandstone walls rising more than 30 stories on either side. Before we got there, Ibrahim pointed out monuments called the Djinn Blocks and a giant tomb marked by four massive obelisks--they were hewn from the very cliffs that lined our path. "You can spend more time with those on the way back, if you want," he said.
I didn't want to examine the structures just then, because I knew that Petra, the magnificent remains of an ancient city, would be appreciated best without foreshadowing of any kind.
Just let it hit.
The Siq closed in, too small for any beasts of burden, except the ponies pulling an occasional cart reserved for those physically unable to make the trek. During the 3/4-mile of passageway, Ibrahim and I occasionally had to walk single-file. My wife, Juju, fell far behind, taking pictures and exposing videotape.
She caught up just in time to see a remarkable fragment of bas-relief on the pale-yellow wall--a man's boots standing in front of a set of camel's hooves, slightly larger than life-size. Also, a curve of camel hump, a portion of camel belly. All quite realistic, even though the rest of the picture had eroded away. Ibrahim said that particular artistic effort had been covered by water until after a major flood in 1996 forced officials to reconfigure part of the passageway. "Before that, nobody knew it was here."
We heard voices as we rounded a bend. Ibrahim walked ahead and yelled back to us, "Get ready!"
Just as the rocky, rough Siq closed in, narrower than ever, we could see an expanse of daylight and then part of a totally anomalous entity--an elaborate facade, orange/pink in the late-morning sun, with two tiers of Corinthian columns, exquisite ornamentation, plus sculptures depicting gods, goddesses and figures from mythology.
It was an exquisite Hellenistic edifice somehow dropped from a distant Acropolis onto a Near Eastern valley cut through a vast, rough and barren desert plateau.
Except it wasn't dropped. The temple face and the shallow room behind it had been carved directly into the side of a massive sandstone formation, nestled within a nearly perfect rectangular frame, also chipped from rock. People who posed for pictures in front of the columns looked tiny in comparison. I learned later that the structure was 98 feet wide and 131 feet high.
A small crowd clustered at the end of the Siq, and all of us took turns shooting the classic picture of that facade--known as the Treasury: Half of its highly decorated, almost delicate face framed by the jagged, shadowy near-tunnel from whence we came.
"This is called the Treasury, but it never was a treasury," Ibrahim said. "The locals in the old times, more than 100 years ago, they used to shoot at it because they thought there was gold or treasure in that urn near the roof. There's nothing in the urn. It is a solid piece."
 This is a city known for great old architecture. And it's a desert spot and has a long-standing tradition of hospitality. |
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