Petra Jordan
Petra the world wonder, is without doubt Jordan’s most valuable treasure and greatest tourist attraction. Explore this 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.
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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).
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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. Excavations have demonstrated that it was the ability of the
Nabataeans to control the water supply that led to the rise of the desert city,
creating an artificial oasis. The area is visited by flash floods and
archaeological evidence demonstrates the Nabataeans controlled these floods by the
use of dams, cisterns and water conduits. These innovations stored water for
prolonged periods of drought, and enabled the city to prosper from its sale.
