CARVED, NOT BUILT: PETRA, THE CITY THAT TIME FORGOT
Besides its aqueducts and rockcut architecture, a lot is waiting to be unveiled in the rosered city
We walked through a long, narrow canyon in the honey and apricot coloured sandstone mountains in southern Jordan. The curvilinear walls rose 250 feet high on both sides, and when I looked up, a jagged opening revealed the sky. Every now and then, a horse-drawn carriage clattered by, carrying visitors. It was a dramatic entrance to an ancient city and trading hub, lost in time and covered by sand. Its name vanished with it, and we now call it Petra.
Only a handful of local Bedouin might have been aware of the site in 1812, when a Swiss explorer heard about it and persuaded a guide to take him there. After it was discovered and cleared of its sandy mantle, stories of its beauty and mysteriousness spread, and Petra began to attract many a traveler and historian. The excavations continue, and even now, they say, seventy per cent of this site is still to be unveiled.
The etchings on the stone speak of the camel-laden caravans that once arrived at this natural fortress laden with myrrh, spice, crafts, and jewels from Yemen, Arabia, Syria, and India to rest and trade en route to other places.
The long walk through the narrow, wind-carved gorge led us to an opening, where we saw The Treasury, the first of several tall, elaborately chiseled facades inspired by Hellenistic pediments and pillars that form the fronts of surprisingly simple and small, cave-like rooms.
“It was the skilled Nabataean people,” said Mahmoud Twaissi, our guide, “who created this city where 30,000 people lived from 300 BCE to 200 CE. They were talented architects and engineers, who also cut aqueducts in the stone to collect and channel the natural spring water.”
He pointed to the indents next to the decorative façade of The Treasury where the workmen must have raised themselves while working. “They carved from the top to the bottom, to avoid stones falling on their finished work,” he explained.
“What happened? Why did the city disappear?” we asked. We had walked through the depths of the site and were now straddling donkeys that clambered noisily up the steep steps in the heat, to a secluded ruin called The Monastery.
“Who knows,” he responded, “perhaps the springs ran dry. Perhaps it was so splendid that the Romans took it for themselves. Later, the trade routes shifted, and this place was erased from all maps and memories.”