Petra – Jordan’s Ancient Rock City

Posted on November 1, 2018

“The ‘Rose City’ is a honeycomb of hand-hewn caves, temples, and tombs carved from blushing pink sandstone in the high desert of Jordan some 2,000 years ago” (National Geographic Magazine).

Located on the slopes of Mount Hor, the Nabataean city of Petra in south-central Jordan remained unknown to the Western world until 1812 when a Swiss explorer named Johannes Burckhardt ‘rediscovered’ Petra. Dressed as an Arab, he convinced his Bedouin guide to take him to the lost city of the rocky desert. Ever since, we all know about this lost city.

Human settlement in this area has been traced back over 10,000 years – a place where great natural, cultural, archaeological, and geological features merge.

This rock-carved city was established around the 6th century BC as the capital of the Nabataeans, a nomadic desert people.

The Nabataeans buried their dead in intricate tombs that were cut out of the rose-red rock of the mountainsides. The city also had temples and an amphitheater.

Following the Roman annexation and Byzantine influence, the city was embellished with colonnaded streets and churches.

However, Petra’s glory days declined rapidly under the Roman rule, along with changes in the frankincense, myrrh, and spices trade routes. A deadly blow to the city was when an earthquake in 363 BC destroyed its water management system. By the middle of the 7th century, Petra appears to have been largely deserted.

Petra is also known as the “Rose City”, a name it gets from the wonderful colour of the rocks from which many of the city’s structures were carved.

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Globerovers Magazine December 2018