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Visiting the Lost
City of Petra Valley
For those
who’ve been keeping up with the news lately, you might have heard the recent
discussion about the new Seven Wonders of The World list compiled by the
private, non-profit New Open World Corporation, in which over 100 million votes
were cast by telephone to select the historical sites which should be featured
on the list. After all the voting – and inevitable hype, controversy and
bickering – the list was finally announced and one of the sites to have made it
onto the list is the ancient city of Petra.
Most people know Petra best from the movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade,
where the intrepid hero dashes madly across the world in pursuit of the Holy
Grail in order to save his father from the clutches of the evil Nazis (and
having some bizarre adventures along the way). The climax of the movie takes
place deep in the deserts of Jordan, inside ancient and wonderfully preserved
palaces cut right into the red sandstone face of a deeply-shadowed canyon. The
canyon is the Petra Valley and its history is even more fantastic than the movie
in which it was featured.
That’s not to say that getting to Petra Valley is easy. For one thing, when we
say deep in the deserts of Lebanon, we mean deep in the desert of Lebanon. At
one time, visitors would have been able to reach the valley along a trail from
the south, or more precariously from the plateau to the north, but today,
visitors must approach the valley from the east. From Amman or Aqaba, visitors
can take a minibus or taxi to Petra Valley, about 2 hours drive away. On
reaching the Petra Valley area, visitors must then choose to either go the rest
of the way on foot, or camel- horse- or donkey-back. The fee to ride rather than
walk is not fixed, so be prepare to bargain with the animal owners. Before
entering, visitors also have to purchase a ticket from the Visitors Center,
which runs from 21 JD for a one day pass to 30JD for a three day pass.
Arriving at Petra Valley itself however makes all the trouble worthwhile. After
a long trek through an eerily quiet side canyon, visitors erupt from the dim
gloom of gorge into the sunlit cleft of the valley and behold a wonderland of
delicately carved facades and imposing buildings. If the timing is right, and
the sun obliges by shining down at just the right angle (late afternoon would be
a good time) the reddish sandstone of the canyon walls takes on its famously
rosy hue and the whole valley appears as nothing less than a desert dream, a
tiny piece of heaven hidden in the heart of the scorching desert.
The very first sight a visitor will see in Petra Valley is one of the most
spectacular buildings of the site, the Al Khazneh, or the Treasury, made famous
in the Indiana Jones movie. Further away is the Street of Facades, where
elaborately carved tombs line a large canyon, or for the more energetic, there
is the Monastery, the largest carved monument in Petra and reachable only via a
staggering 800 steps (a donkey ride up is recommended!).
Geographically speaking, Petra Valley is really just a basin tucked into a deep,
narrow valley which runs from the Dead Sea to the Gulf of Aqaba. Today, the only
real entrance to it is through the al-Siq, a dark, narrow gorge (barely 3 metres
wide in some places) which cuts through the rocks of the mountain for over a
mile before opening suddenly into the valley. Given how easily defensible this
entrance was, it’s probably no surprise Petra Valley was never conquered by
raiding forces. Instead, the Al Siq served peacefully as the entrance through
which the great trading caravans of Arabia brought precious trade goods to the
Nabateans, though one can only imagine the amount of swearing and maneuvering it
took to get the animals through the narrowest parts of the gorge!
 Petra
Valley was built by the mysterious Nabatean civilization, which was able to
parlay the excellent location and an ingenious and sophisticated water
management technology into creating an attractive oasis in the desert, where
many trade caravans came to trade goods. Like all cities dependent on passing
trade however, Petra’s fortunes faded as other cities and trade routes became
more popular, and the valley slowly declined over the centuries, until a
devastating earthquake destroyed much of its buildings in AD 663. The city was
abandoned soon after and for centuries, the city stood silent and slowly
crumbling, while knowledge of its existence was slowly lost until even the city
itself became a myth to everyone but the local nomads, another ‘lost city in the
dunes’.
It was only when the Swiss explorer Johann Ludwig Burckhardt stumbled across it
again in 1812 that the old tales were discovered to have a grain of truth to
them. More remarkable still was the state of preservation of the city, for
despite the inevitable ravages of the centuries, many of the most spectacular
original buildings were remarkably intact. As archaeologists dug deeper into the
history and culture of the ancient Nabateans, the technological achievements of
the ancient dwellers in harnessing and controlling water in this harsh desert
environment became even more evident, so that now the city of Petra has come to
be regarded as one of the most precious legacies of the Middle Eastern ancient
culture. It was for its beauty and technological achievements that Petra was
named as one of the New Seven Wonders of the World, and many who’ve seen the
rose-red city for themselves would probably agree in thinking once-lost city in
the sands deserves every bit of the honour it receives.
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