The Red Rose City As Old As Time
The Treasury is almost 40 meters high and intricately decorated with Corinthian capitals, friezes, figures and more.
Aqaba, Jordan Thursday April 2, 2015
TREK TO THE LOST CITY - PETRA JORDAN
The Monastery .
The music from the Indiana Jones -and the Last Crusade was playing behind my ears when we started to get through the Siq. Our horses clipped clopped through the narrow gorge, flanked on both sides by 80 meter high cliffs. A weak light coming from the end of the gorge is reflected on the dry whiskey colored earth. I feel like Harrison Ford discovering the Lost City of Petra.
The ancient Nabataeans carved this incredible city into the sandstone cliffs between the Red Sea and the Dead Sea. It was lost until 1812, when Swiss explorer Johann Ludwig Burkhardt rediscovered it
The Monastery and ancient city was rediscoverd by Swiss explorer Johann Burckhardt in 1812.
Only 15 percent of the site has actually been unearthed. What is seen today includes tombs, luxurious temples, churches and the Treasury- Petra's most famous monument.
The Siq is the main road that lies between the city’s rose colored mountains, which stand at a height of 80m and reach up to 1.2 Km at the end of the Siq. When sightseeing, visitors will be astounded by the sight of the Treasury, which represents the masterpiece of the ancient city with a height of up to 45m and width of 30m, all of which is carved into the mountain.
The city dates back to the first century AD and its design reflects the advance of the Nabataean civilization
Often described as the eighth wonder of the ancient world, is without a doubt Jordan’s most valuable treasure and greatest tourist attraction. It is a vast, unique city, carved into the sheer rock face by the Nabataeans, an industrious Arab people who settled here more than 2000 years ago, turning it into an important junction for the silk, spice and other trade routes that linked China, India and southern Arabia with Egypt, Syria, Greece and Rome.
The Siq is a narrow canyon that is 1.2 kilometers long, and visitors need to walk through the 80 meter high cliffs to reach the sites at Petra.
Entrance to the city is through the Siq, a narrow gorge, over 1km in length, which is flanked on either side by soaring, 80m high cliffs. Just walking through the Siq is an experience in itself. The colours and formations of the rocks are dazzling. As you reach the end of the Siq you will catch your first glimpse of Al-Khazneh (Treasury).
This is an awe-inspiring experience. A massive façade, 30m wide and 43m high, carved out of the sheer, dusky pink rock-face and dwarfing everything around it. It was carved in the early 1st century as the tomb of an important Nabataean king and represents the engineering genius of these ancient people.
The natural beauty of the place and its outstanding architecture is overwhelming . There are hundreds of elaborate rock-cut tombs with intricate carvings - unlike the houses, which were destroyed mostly by earthquakes, the tombs were carved to last throughout the afterlife and 500 have survived, empty but bewitching as you file past their dark openings.
Here also is a massive Nabataean-built, Roman-style theater, which could seat 3,000 people. There are obelisks, temples, sacrificial altars and colonnaded streets, and high above, overlooking the valley, is the impressive Ad-Deir Monastery – a flight of 800 rock cut steps takes you there.