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Micha Zilberman
Your tour guide in Israel and Jordan |
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| The
History of Petra
The ancient capital of the nabatians is located among red sand stone mountains alongside the old incense/perfumes way. The site is huge and several days are needed to visit the main sites. Petra is a unique combination between the nature's and human creation . The Nabatians carved huge tombs and temples in the colorful rocks with the red, blue, black and yellow ,rocks that are creating the mountains and canyons. The semite name of the city was Rekem and according to some scholars this is "Sela Edom", a major city in the Edomite Kingdom that the Jewish king Amazia captured. Petra is mentioned as such for the first time by the greek commander Hieronimos from Cardia who accompanied the General Antigonos Monoftalmos in an attempt to conquer the nabatian territory, in the year 312 B.C.E. In his records Hironimus mentions the nabatian trade and their nomadic way of life which was characterized by living in tents, not sowing any seed or planting trees, not build a house and not drinking wine. The book of Maccabees tells us about the first nabatian king --Aretas I who gave refuge to the high priest from Jerusalem. This period is the golden era of Petra led by great Kings like Aretas III and IV .In those days most of the big monuments of Petra were built, this was finished in the year 106 C.E. after the last King Rav'el II died and the Nabatian Kingdom was annexed by the Romans and was called the"Province of Arabia". Under the Byzantines Churches were built but later the place as a city was abandoned and lost its importance. In the year 1812 the Swiss traveler John Ludvig Burkhardt rediscovered it to the European world. Location Petra lies about 3-5 hours south of modern Amman, about 2 hours north of Aqaba, on the edges of the mountainous desert of the Wadi Araba. The city is surrounded by towering hills of rust colored sandstone which gave the city some protection against invaders. The site is semi-arid, the friable sandstone which allowed the Nabataeans to carve their temples and tombs into the rock crumbling easily to sand. The color of the rock ranges from pale yellow or white through rich reds to the darker brown of more resistant rocks. The contorted strata of different colored rock form whorls and waves of color in the rock face, which the Nabatians exploited in their architecture. The Siq From the official entrance to the site, a dusty trail leads gently downwards along the Wadi Musa (The Valley of Moses). Situated in small rock outcrops to the left and right of the path are some small Nabatian tombs, carved into the dry rock Beyond these, walls of sandstone rise steeply on the left, and a narrow cleft reveals the entrance to the Siq, the principal route into Petra itself. The Nabatians were expert hydraulic engineers. The walls of the Siq are lined with channels (originally fitted with chamfered clay pipes of efficient design) to carry drinking water to the city, while a dam to the right of the entrance diverted an adjoining stream through a tunnel to prevent it flooding the Siq. Once inside, the Siq narrows to little more than five meters in width, while the walls tower up hundreds of meters on either side. The floor, originally paved, is now largely covered with soft sand, although evidence of Nabatian construction can still be seen in some places. |
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| Micha Zilberman 9 H'arava st. Gan
Hayim 44910 Israel
Tel: +972-9-7447880 +972-52-958543 Fax:+ 972-9-7409846 |