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

The ancient Nabataean city of Petra was centre of an Arab kingdom in Hellenistic and Roman times; its ruins are in southwest Jordan. The city was built on a terrace, pierced from east to west by the Wadi Musa (the Valley of Moses)—one of the places where, according to tradition, the Israelite leader Moses struck a rock and water gushed forth. The valley is enclosed by sandstone cliffs veined with shades of red and purple varying to pale yellow, and for this reason Petra was called by the 19^th-century English biblical scholar John William Burgon a “rose-red city half as old as Time.”

The Greek name Petra (“Rock”) probably replaced the biblical name Sela. Remains from the Paleolithic and the Neolithic periods have been discovered at Petra, and Edomites are known to have occupied the area about 1200 BC..

Centuries later the Nabataeans, occupied it and made it the capital of their kingdom. The Nabateans were semi-nomadic people from the northern Arabian Peninsula who migrated to southern Jordan in the sixth and fifth centuries BC, to the land of the former biblical Kingdom of Edom. By the fourth century BC, Petra became a centre of Nabatean culture. Under Nabataean rule, Petra prospered as a centre of the spice trade that involved such disparate realms as China, Egypt, Greece, and India, and the city's population swelled to between 10,000 and 30,000. The Nabataeans were builders of great skill, carving their city from the living rock. Working from the top down, they sliced off huge slabs of stone, using the two-metre ledge thus formed as scaffolding for the masons to stand on. Entablatures and capitals were carved before another slab was removed in the same way, to make another platform, from which facades and columns were carved and the deep chambers beyond were hollowed out. In this way, the builders were able to descend ten storeys to the valley floor below. In 312 BC the region was attacked by Seleucid forces, which failed to seize the city.

The city reached the peak of its fame in the second century, under Roman rule. A succession of habitation, leadership and development followed but, as shipping slowly displaced the caravan routes, the city's importance gradually dwindled; it fell into disuse and was lost to the world for over a thousand years. In 1812 it was re-discovered by the Swiss explorer, Johann Ludwig Burckhardt and is now a favourite with tourists from all over the world.

Inhabited since prehistoric times, this Nabataean caravan city was an important crossroads between Arabia, Egypt and Syria-Phoenicia. Pιtra, half-built, half-carved in the rock within a ring of mountains and riddled with passages and gorges, is one of the most famous archaeological sites in the world, where ancient Eastern traditions blend with Hellenistic architecture.