Petra

Petra was recognized in 1985 as a UNESCO world Heritage Site. It is a living museum of over 6,000 years of human history. Many civilizatons have lived and died here, including Nabataean, Romans, Byzantines, Crusaders and Muslims. As much as 85% of the ancient city is still buried under centuries of dust and sand, yet what is visible is stunning.

We began our tour by entering the Siq which is a 2km corridor to the Treasury that was carved by tectonic forces – earthquakes, and erosion of stone due to flooding over many thousands of years. The cliff walls are 100 meters tall and the width can narrow to 2 meters and be as wide as 50 meters. Erosion of the soft sandstone walls has revealed a palette of pink, yellow, and blue tones. Some rock walls were a swirl of colour.

As we walked along the Siq, the first glimpse of the Treasury came into view. I was quite excited to see such a beautiful monument juxtaposed by the naturally carved rock of the Siq. I couldn’t help wonder, how this monument came to be. The Treasury is the most well-known monument in Petra, immortalized in many photographs and in the Indiana Jones movie, The Last Crusade. It was carved out of the rock from the top to the bottom. The purpose of the Treasury as well as the other monuments, was to serve as tombs for the wealthy Nabatean Kings and Queens over 2,000 years ago.

The square in front of the Treasury was filled with people and camels for hire as well as several kiosks. Petra is a Unesco World Heritage Site and draws huge crowds. I prefer to keep people out of my images, but having them in my pictures, gave a sense of scale of the monuments and the scope of the carving.

Our time in Petra was short – 8 hours in total and there was a lot to see. We chose to walk up to the Monastery Monument which was about 925 steps up from the Streets of Facades. It was an interesting hike up as we had to negotiate many kiosks along the route as well as donkeys carry people up and down the trail. The Monastery is better preserved than the monuments which we had seen below.

As I edited my images, it became apparent that Petra must have been a magnificent city thousands of years ago. This is a place where the influence of many cultures is evident. Time and weather have not been kind to the monuments. Many facades have eroded by the wind and slabs of facades have fallen off. Tombs have long been emptied of their contents.