THE" ROSE RED CITY HALF AS OLD AS TIME"

In 1978 shortly after the Egyptian-Israel peace, Helen and I had the great good fortune of being able to take a Smithsonian sponsored trip to both Egypt and also to Petra in Jordan.

I found the site so fascinating that I must have taken well over 150 slides. Most have suffered from color and in some cases image degeneration over the past 30 years. However I have been able to save quite a few and will blog some over the next few days.

Although some have seen Petra’s so called “Treasury” building in an Indiana Jones movie, very few have ever heard of the city. I have extracted from the Encyclopedia Britanica the following so perhaps the slides will be more interesting.

"The city was built on a terrace, pierced from east to west by the Wadi Mūsā (the Valley of Moses)—one of the places where, according to tradition, the Israelite leader Moses struck a rock and water gushed forth. The valley is enclosed by sandstone cliffs veined with shades of red and purple varying to pale yellow, and for this reason Petra was called by the 19th-century English biblical scholar John William Burgon a “rose-red city half as old as Time.”

Remains from the Paleolithic and the Neolithic periods have been discovered at Petra, and Edomites are known to have occupied the area about 1200 BC. Centuries later the Nabataeans, an Arab tribe, occupied it and made it the capital of their kingdom. In 312 BC the region was attacked by Seleucid forces, who failed to seize the city. Under Nabataean rule, Petra prospered as a centre of the spice trade that involved such disparate realms as China, Egypt, Greece, and India, and the city's population swelled to between 10,000 and 30,000.

When the Nabataeans were defeated by the Romans in AD 106, Petra became part of the Roman province of Arabia but continued to flourish until changing trade routes caused its gradual commercial decline. After an earthquake (not the first) damaged the city in 551, significant habitation seems to have ceased. The Islamic invasion occurred in the 7th century, and a Crusader outpost is evidence of activity there in the 12th century. After the Crusades, the city was unknown to the Western world until it was rediscovered by the Swiss traveler Johann Ludwig Burckhardt in 1812."

To reach Petra you travel on a road that goes from Aquaba through the dessert where Lawrence fought the Turks. The destination is a motley group of cement huts where horses and guides are available. The entrance to Petra is through a long narrow canyon , "The Siq" which was one of the reasons the city was able to defend its self from invaders, and why it became "lost".

The exit of the city leads the traveler facing the Treasury. Today I have pictures leading to the city.

The dessert, a horse not a camel!
The village outside the Siq through the hills behind.The village's only reason to exist is for the tourist trade.
A view in the Siq. Only by looking straight up could you see the sky. This was a wide part of the canyon.

Nearing the exit. Light at the end of the "tunnel"