Travel in Petra - Jordan - Culture - WorldTravelGate.net®-

The Siq is situated in small rock outcrops to the left and right of the path are some small Nabataean 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 Nabataeans 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.

Khazneh (The Treasury) is one of the most elegant remains of antiquity carved out of solid rock from the side of the mountain, around 140 feet high and 90 feet wide.

Beyond Al Khazneh, the visitor find hundreds of Petra’s carved and built structures, soaring temples, elaborate royal tombs, and a carved Roman Amphitheatre which houses around 7,000 seats constructed in the early first century AD. Large and small houses, burial chambers, banquet halls, water channels and reservoirs, public buildings and paved streets can be found everywhere.

High up on the mountains to the west is the great building known to the Arabs as the Deir, or Convent. Judging from its elevated position, this may have been a temple rather than a tomb, and a small altar set in a niche at the back of its one room seems

to confirm this. From here a truly wonderful view is obtained down to the Wady Arabah, some 4000 feet below, and on a clear day the mountains of Palestine and Sinai can be seen to the west and south, and on top of a peak to the southeast is the tomb of Aaron.