![\"\"](\"http:\/\/192.163.207.100\/~timesku1\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/Ad-Deir-from-Jebel-Haroun.jpg\")
<\/p>\nVast stacks of sandstone loom over the arid valley of Wadi Musa like giant handfuls of sun-baked clay. But even in this parched landscape, there are places where the sun casts no light. Walls 200m high keep the Siq permanently cast in shadow \u2013 it\u2019s as though the long, narrow canyon passes through the dark heart of the mountain itself. Utterly silent at dawn, there is not even a bird\u2019s chirrup to accompany solitary footsteps along its patchwork floor of rock and sand.<\/p>\n
Through a lightning-bolt shaped opening,\u00a0Petra\u00a0announces itself with deliberate drama. The vast fa\u00e7ade of the Treasury, precisely carved into the soft sandstone, towers over the young Bedouin men, camels and stray cats that congregate at its base.<\/p>\n
The rediscovery of Petra<\/b><\/p>\n
\u2018It is one of the most elegant remains of antiquity existing,\u2019 the Swiss explorer Jean Louis Burckhardt wrote in his diary in 1812. When Burckhardt crossed Petra\u2019s threshold, he was the first outsider to do so for over 600 years \u2013 hidden by its natural fortifications, the city had remained obscure to the West since the time of the Crusades. Though known to local Bedouin tribes, they were reluctant to reveal its existence, justifiably fearing an influx of treasure hunters.<\/p>\n
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In Petra\u2019s heyday, around the time of Christ, the city had been anything but anonymous. Home to some 30,000 people, whose survival in this desert landscape was maintained by a complex system of water management, it was the centre of a kingdom four times the size of modern\u00a0Jordan. At its helm were the Nabataeans, a once-nomadic Arab tribe who had used their knowledge of the desert to amass vast wealth in the caravan trade, most lucratively that of frankincense and myrrh. The Treasury\u2019s grand edifice was a statement of their wealth, sending a powerful message to weary traders emerging through the Siq, but was essentially an empty shell. Built as a tomb for a Nabataean king, its misnomer \u2018the Treasury\u2019 came from the belief that the urn carved into the centre of the second tier contained hidden gold. The vessel is pockmarked with bullet holes, evidence of past attempts to uncover the mythical bounty.<\/p>\n
Away from Petra\u2019s tourist trail<\/b><\/p>\n
Few tourists venture beyond Petra\u2019s main sites, and with every camel hoof-step away from the city we are more alone \u2013 until there isn\u2019t a single other person in sight. If the stretch from the Treasury to Qasr al-Bint is Petra\u2019s high street, these outlying hills are the city\u2019s suburbs.<\/p>\n
Though the weather-worn rockface is still peppered with ancient dwellings and sepulchres, many are more modest. Some grander efforts lie unfinished \u2013 vestiges of an urban sprawl that came to an abrupt halt \u2013 and with these edifices it is possible to see the Nabataean technique of carving from top to bottom. Ascending further into the hills, we come across what must be one of the last tombs still used as a Bedouin family home. Small but ornate, its dark entrance-way has been filled with a solid door, and there\u2019s a garden of plants and fruit trees. With the sun directly above us in the sky, we reach Haroun\u2019s Terrace. From here, a small white mosque is visible. This is Jebel Haroun, thought to be biblical Mount Hor, where Moses\u2019 brother Aaron (Haroun to Muslims) is buried \u2013 a sacred place for both Christians and Muslims.<\/p>\n
![\"Petra:](\"http:\/\/192.163.207.100\/~timesku1\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/Petra_Jordan_BW_36.jpg\")
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Cultural melting-pot<\/b><\/p>\n
The style displayed in Petra was a hodgepodge of influences absorbed along their trading routes: Egyptian, Assyrian, Hellenistic, Mesopotamian and Roman imagery injected with their own creative flourishes. Nowhere is the scale of their ambition more apparent than at Petra\u2019s biggest monument, the Monastery, carved deep into the mountainside. It is easy to imagine the hours of chiselling and carving that went into its creation. Even reaching the Monastery requires work \u2013 it sits at the top of an 800-step rock-cut path, following the route trod by the faithful when this was a place of worship.<\/p>\n
The Monastery\u2019s name is misleading \u2013 built in the 3rd century BC as a tomb, it was probably later used as a temple. Crosses etched into the internal walls show that the Byzantines used it as a church \u2013 Petra is a place that has borne witness to the rise and fall of one civilization after another. In\u00a0\u2018Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade\u2019, the fictional doctor\u2019s quest for the Holy Grail led him to Petra.<\/p>\n
Burckhardt didn\u2019t even make it as far as the Monastery. Though a letter back to his colleagues reporting his discovery caused wild excitement, he never got to enjoy a moment of his fame. He lived out the rest of his life travelling the Middle East and Africa as Sheikh Ibrahim bin Abdullah, before dying from dysentery in 1817, at the age of just 32. In the two centuries that followed, countless others \u2013 explorers, scholars and the simply curious \u2013 have followed in his wake, but still Petra remains a place full of untold secrets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Vast stacks of sandstone loom over the arid valley of Wadi Musa like giant handfuls of sun-baked clay. But even in this parched landscape, there are places where the sun casts no light. Walls 200m high keep the Siq permanently cast in shadow \u2013 it\u2019s as though the long, narrow canyon passes through the dark […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17428,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[749,744,743,748,745,746,747],"class_list":["post-17427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-travel","tag-cultural-melting-pot","tag-jordans-lost-city","tag-petra","tag-petras-tourist-trail","tag-secrets-of-jordans-lost-city","tag-secrets-of-petra","tag-the-rediscovery-of-petra"],"yoast_head":"\n