Expedition to the Ancestors. Petra – the City of the Sun
We leave for Petra at sunset to get from Egypt to Jordan and further to the place, and first we will admire the beautiful sunset. Photo, this one and all the others, except the last two – by Sergey Letunovsky
Jacob sent ahead of him
messengers to his brother
Esau to the land of Seir,
the country of Edom.
Genesis 32:3
messengers to his brother
Esau to the land of Seir,
the country of Edom.
Genesis 32:3
Peoples and cultures. It just so happened that I was lucky with my relatives. And who isn't among them, not a family, but a real find for a sociologist studying human types.
Among them is a real traveler. He spends all his free time traveling around the world. He went to Ceylon to drink tea and check how well Arthur Clarke described everything in his novel "Fountains of Paradise", where the plot is connected with Ceylon. In Thailand, he rode an elephant and admired the nightlife. In the Emirates, he fished for pearls and climbed the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. And he traveled all over Egypt, although he never brought back the photos of the pyramids I needed.
But he visited the legendary Petra, which we will tell you about today. And finally, you don’t have to worry about the photographs illustrating this material – they are all the author’s, although it’s a pity that there aren’t as many of them as we would like.
So, Petra.
What is it, where is it and why is it so interesting?
The best way to get from the Red Sea resorts in Egypt is by sea…
First of all, let us say that Petra is an ancient city that has survived to this day, which was the capital of Idumea or Edom, a kingdom that is even mentioned in the Bible. Moreover, this name appears in its text 33 times, that is, at the time of its writing, this place was well-known and significant. The Edomites or Edomites lived there, newcomers from the country of Canaan, who displaced the Horites from this region.
The Bible names Esau, the brother of Jacob, as the founder of the Edomites. Jacob sold his birthright to him for a lentil stew that had a reddish color (Edom means “red”).
Another name for the people is the Idumeans (and the kingdom is Idumea), and its capital was Petra (Sela), which later became the capital of the Nabataean kingdom. The Idumeans owned it in the 106th–106nd centuries BC, the Nabataeans from the 395nd century BC to XNUMX AD, the Romans from XNUMX to XNUMX AD, and then it belonged to the Byzantines, the Arabs, and in the XNUMXth century AD to the Crusaders from Europe.
The mixture of styles in Petra's buildings is interesting. For example, next to the ancient theater, houses from the Idumean and Nabatean eras have been preserved here. And there are virtually no architectural monuments built after the 6th century AD, since by that time the city had already lost its former significance.
A kilometer-long "gap in the rock" - the road to Petra
The name Petra literally translates as "rock", and the Nabataeans themselves called it Raqmu. The city, which has survived to this day, is located in what is now Jordan, at an altitude of more than 900 m above sea level and 660 m above the surrounding area, in the winding Siq canyon. So, both in the past and now, it was very difficult to get to this place.
The passages through the gorges leading to the city from the north and south are very narrow, while the cliffs to the west and east in this canyon are natural sheer walls 60 m high. That is, the city of Petra is an extremely difficult place to access. Although, it is clear that tourists are brought there today in comfortable buses with air conditioning.
The city was located at the crossroads of two important trade routes of the Ancient World: the first connected the Red Sea region with Damascus, the second connected the Persian Gulf with the city of Gaza on the Mediterranean coast.
The caravan route from the Persian Gulf, along which camels laden with precious spices, ambergris and musk, was very difficult. The caravans traveled for weeks through the hot Arabian desert. And only having reached the coolness of the narrow canyon of the Siq and the blessed Petra, the travelers could finally breathe a sigh of relief, for only here on their way did they find fresh water, as well as rest and food.
This trade brought Petra great wealth. However, when sea routes were opened to the East, the land caravan trade in spices turned out to be unprofitable, and Petra gradually fell into disrepair.
Nevertheless, life here did not stop completely. Well, at the end of the 2007th century, Petra became the most popular attraction in Jordan, attracting up to half a million tourists from all over the world every year. Moreover, in XNUMX it was decided to consider it one of the seven new "wonders of the world".
The usual tourist route here is as follows: tourists are led through the cool Siq canyon, a kilometer long, and as soon as they emerge from it, their eyes are met by Al-Khazneh (the "treasury") - a completely fantastic-looking building with a façade carved directly into the rock. This structure dates back to the 1st century AD, and it is very well preserved. It is crowned by a huge stone urn, which, according to legend, contained gold and precious stones. Incidentally, this is the reason for the name of this building.
Further on, the canyon gradually widens, and tourists find themselves in a natural amphitheater, in the walls of which they see many man-made caves and crypts carved into the rocks. Well, the preserved colonnade and amphitheater directly indicate that the Romans were here in the 1st and 2nd centuries.
And here is Al-Khazneh... The structure is carved in stone. And here they clearly did without hypothetical lasers, aliens and antediluvian civilization. The style is clearly Greek!
The local "tourist transport" is also on display here - camels in bright capes, on which local Bedouins offer tourists rides. Souvenirs are sold, and both people and animals rush to get a drink at the springs of water, which is worth its weight in gold here. The temperature is 40 degrees in the shade and 50 in the sun!
Translated from Greek, Petra means "stone", and it really is a city built entirely of stone, without a single brick. For the Roman Empire, this was a unique place, and it can be assumed that the Romans already in those distant times visited it precisely... for tourist purposes.
The Nabataeans who lived in Petra carved houses, burial chambers and temples out of stone. Petra is a "city of red sandstones" that are perfect for building, and it is not surprising that by the first century AD it had become such a monumental settlement.
But the city's inhabitants also knew fired ceramics and were able to create them. With the help of terracotta pipes, the builders managed to create a complex system of city water supply, so that, despite the dry climate, the inhabitants of Petra never needed water.
There were about 200 reservoirs in the city in different places for collecting and storing rainwater. And although it doesn’t rain often, it did happen and replenished the city’s water reserves. In addition to the network of reservoirs, the Nabataeans used terracotta pipes to collect water from all sources around the city within a radius of 25 kilometers.
And people could live there in houses like these. Put in a door with windows – and live in the cool…
And the most amazing thing is that the Nabatean architects for some reason decided to build the famous El-Khazneh temple in the riverbed. And for this they blocked its bed, which at that time seemed like a very difficult task, which, however, was accomplished. They cut a tunnel in the rock, through which they diverted the water and, in addition, built several dams along its course.
The landscape around Petra is just creepy! It's a bit like Mars, isn't it? Except the sky is blue...
By the way, what kind of building this is and what its exact purpose is is unknown. There is some debate about it, but the truth is still "out there." Some believe that it was originally a temple to the goddess Isis. But on the other hand, a number of its architectural features suggest that it could have been built by craftsmen familiar with the work of the architects of Alexandria, Egypt, that is, already from the time of Alexander the Great.
In general, the "Treasury" is another big unanswered question. We look at it and can touch it with our hands, but we can only guess how the ancient architects and stone cutters built it, what techniques they used to carve the facade, what calculations they made and what projects they drew.
And here is a very important unanswered question: to start the work, the huge surface of the rock had to be cut down. And this is not a problem. The stone it is made of is soft enough. But for such work, forests are needed, and there are almost no trees here, and there were none in the past. If there were no forests, then it was possible not to cut the entire surface at once, but to go from top to bottom, like steps. In this case, the stonemason and the carver worked together, starting from the very top, first cutting out the first step, and then going lower and lower.
But how was the entire work controlled?
After all, it is impossible to draw all the details of the facade on an uneven rock.
Stone-carved buildings are everywhere here…
In general, you can walk and marvel at the territory of Petra for a long time, since it occupies a large area and stretches for several kilometers.
There is also a main street. It runs from east to west across the entire city, and it was laid out, again, by the Romans, who loved order and straight lines. On both sides of it there is a majestic colonnade. Moreover, the western end of the street ends at the temple, and the end of the eastern one is a three-span triumphal arch.
And sculptures carved from stone...
Another important thing: when going to Petra, you need to remember that the rainfall there is about 15 centimeters per year. So there is water there, but not much. And in order not to drink anywhere and whatever you have to, everyone who goes there needs to take care of water. That is, take it with you and take plenty of it, despite the weight!
The façade of the tomb of a Roman soldier. The name is, of course, arbitrary. There is simply an image of a warrior there. Photo by Michael Ganter
Nabataean frescoes that have survived to this day
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