One Of The Wonders of the Ancient World: Petra

[PoliticalChic]

A few weeks ago I visited the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, and had the pleasure of seeing what is truly a wonder of the ancient world....the rock carvings known as Petra.
Jordan is the Middle East nation ruled by the Hashemites originally from Mecca, Saudi Arabia. They were the first rulers of Jordan, the Emirate of Transjordan, British-controlled territory 1921–46.

Petra Nights Tours Jordan: July 2011






Three quarters of Jordan is rock-strewn desert, and much of the rest is mountainous.

The miracle of Petra is found in those mountains, not far from Jordan's only port, at the Gulf of Aqaba.

A night in the Jordanian desert of Wadi Rum | Atlas & Boots

A night in the Jordanian desert of Wadi Rum | Atlas & Boots


And this....

None of which prepared us for Petra...
...a rose-red city half as old as time.

 

[Moonglow]

If those are pictures of the desert at night, why are there shadows from the sunlight?

 

[PoliticalChic]

PHOTOS: A Walking Tour Of Petra, The Ancient Rock City Of Jordan


One walks through caverns surrounded by cliffs. Along the road, some of it paved by the Romans who conquered later, some dirt and stones, observing the carvings by the Nabataeans, dating back to the first century, AD.


And....along the way:

petra pictures - Google Search

And this:

PHOTOS: A Walking Tour Of Petra, The Ancient Rock City Of Jordan

 

[PoliticalChic]

Petra's Royal Tombs were cut to house the Nabatean's most revered rulers.
Petra: the secret way into Jordan's lost city



Then.....around a corner.....

PHOTOS: A Walking Tour Of Petra, The Ancient Rock City Of Jordan



This....the jaw-dropping wonder of Petra.....'The Treasury'

Megaliths and the True Ancient History of Earth and the Inhabiting Races

 

[PredFan]

Petra's Royal Tombs were cut to house the Nabatean's most revered rulers.
Petra: the secret way into Jordan's lost city



Then.....around a corner.....

PHOTOS: A Walking Tour Of Petra, The Ancient Rock City Of Jordan



This....the jaw-dropping wonder of Petra.....'The Treasury'

Megaliths and the True Ancient History of Earth and the Inhabiting Races

Hey! That's where they keep the Holy Grail! Choose wisely.

 

[Moonglow]

I wonder if they used bronze or the new fangled iron to carve with?

 

[Moonglow]

Petra's Royal Tombs were cut to house the Nabatean's most revered rulers.
Petra: the secret way into Jordan's lost city



Then.....around a corner.....

PHOTOS: A Walking Tour Of Petra, The Ancient Rock City Of Jordan



This....the jaw-dropping wonder of Petra.....'The Treasury'

Megaliths and the True Ancient History of Earth and the Inhabiting Races

Hey! That's where they keep the Holy Grail! Choose wisely.

They turned it into an ash tray...

 

[PoliticalChic]

Bazaar Planet | Ancient Civilizations | Jordan | Petra

"The Nabataeans, ... were an Arab[1] people who inhabited northern Arabia and the Southern Levant, and whose settlements, most prominently the assumed capital city of Raqmu, now called Petra,[1] in AD 37 – c. 100, gave the name of Nabatene to the borderland between Arabia and Syria, from the Euphrates to the Red Sea.


Trajan conquered the Nabataean kingdom, annexing it to the Roman Empire, where their individual culture, easily identified by their characteristic finely potted painted ceramics, became dispersed in the general Greco-Roman culture and was eventually lost. They were later converted to Christianity. Jane Taylor, a writer, describes them as "one of the most gifted peoples of the ancient world".[2]"
Nabataeans - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



Alas....the city we call Petra was abandoned.....some say due to earthquakes, some say the growth of Islam changed trade routs.





Petra
John William Burgon
It seems no work of Man's creative hand,
by labour wrought as wavering fancy planned;
But from the rock as if by magic grown,
eternal, silent, beautiful, alone!
Not virgin-white like that old Doric shrine,
where erst Athena held her rites divine;
Not saintly-grey, like many a minster fane,
that crowns the hill and consecrates the plain;
But rose-red as if the blush of dawn,
that first beheld them were not yet withdrawn;
The hues of youth upon a brow of woe,
which Man deemed old two thousand years ago,
Match me such marvel save in Eastern clime,
a rose-red city half as old as time.



....it remains today, a true wonder of the world.

 

[Yarddog]

If those are pictures of the desert at night, why are there shadows from the sunlight?

Its not the sun, its the glow from the depleted uranium rounds

 

[waltky]

There's been a PBS program on Petra...

... they measured it with laser scanners.

 

[PoliticalChic]

I wonder if they used bronze or the new fangled iron to carve with?

Sometimes you actually surprise me: that's a really interesting question.

Prior to my visit to Petra, I was in the Timna geological area, in which the Egyptians mined copper.
It represents, arguably, the first industrial process, going back almost 3500 years.


Somewhere between the Egyptians and the Romans, someone figured out how to create a bellows, and pump air into a fire, making it hot enough to melt the copper in the ore to smelt the metal.

On the soil around these ruins you can see many small copper nuggets, the pieces that remained from the copper production. You can see these pieces in green color among the other rock fragments (such as the quartz and granite stone fragments, and the sand grains of the white & red sandstone ).
Timna - ancient copper mines


Later, tin was added to make bronze.

The use of iron may go back to before 1000bc....


This is in Petra....'the theater'....built by the Nabataens...but added to by the Romans.

The great Nabataean Theater, still almost completely rock-carved, looks like a typical Roman theater, but it was actually built by the Nabataeans in the first century AD, when the arrival of the Roman Empire in Jordan began to influence the art and the architecture of the indigenous peoples. The Theater is almost entirely dug into the sandstone (the seats are not made of stone blocks, but they are all carved in the mountain) and could accommodate up to about 7000 people.
Day tour to Petra, the ancient Nabataean city used as set for Indiana Jones movie. Pictures of Petra.

 

[PoliticalChic]

Petra's Royal Tombs were cut to house the Nabatean's most revered rulers.
Petra: the secret way into Jordan's lost city



Then.....around a corner.....

PHOTOS: A Walking Tour Of Petra, The Ancient Rock City Of Jordan



This....the jaw-dropping wonder of Petra.....'The Treasury'

Megaliths and the True Ancient History of Earth and the Inhabiting Races

Hey! That's where they keep the Holy Grail! Choose wisely.

My little guy pointed out it is in one of his fav movies.

 

[PredFan]

L

Petra's Royal Tombs were cut to house the Nabatean's most revered rulers.
Petra: the secret way into Jordan's lost city



Then.....around a corner.....

PHOTOS: A Walking Tour Of Petra, The Ancient Rock City Of Jordan



This....the jaw-dropping wonder of Petra.....'The Treasury'

Megaliths and the True Ancient History of Earth and the Inhabiting Races

Hey! That's where they keep the Holy Grail! Choose wisely.

My little guy pointed out it is in one of his fav movies.

Of all of them, that was the best.

 

[PoliticalChic]

Uh oh......looks more dangerous than I had imagined.


"...motive unknown...."

Typical NYTimes note.....everybody knows the motive: Islam.




"Jordan Stabbing Attack Leaves 8 Wounded at Roman Site
The motive for the attack at Jerash, an archaeological site and tourist draw in northern Jordan, remained unknown.

AMMAN, Jordan — An assailant stabbed eight people at the popular archaeological site of Jerash in northern Jordan on Wednesday, according to the authorities, who said the man had been arrested. The motive for the attack remained unclear.

Four foreign tourists and four Jordanians — a tour guide, a truck driver, and two police officers, one of whom tried to stop the attack — were wounded and taken to a hospital, a spokesman for the Jordanian police said."
Jordan Stabbing Attack Leaves 8 Wounded at Roman Site