It was a moderately long bus ride from the quayside at Aqaba to get through many miles of desert and mountains to our remote destination. There was little of interest other than signs to 'Wadi Rum', a desert area (to which some other passengers were going) which is so hostile to life that it has been used for many films featuring extra-terrestrial landscapes, including 'The Martian' (2015, director Ridley Scott, lead, Matt Damon) due to its supposed similarity to the terrain on Mars.
A welcome toilet stop (the bus loo isn't usually to be recommended!) at 'The Desert Castle Bazaar' .....
provided some brief retail therapy as well, but there wasn't really enough time for any serious haggling. It was a nice enough place though with acceptable toilets.
Then more miles of rubbish strewn desert; for as far as I could see, the desert either side of the road was littered with plastic waste, bits of tyres and vehicle parts and seemed to be used as a general waste tip for all travellers.
The mountains at least provided better views with the road exceeding 5,000 feet in height in places, until eventually we dropped down a bit into Wadi Musa. This is a sizeable town which has grown up to the east of ancient Petra; presumably all of the 8,000 or so inhabitants are there to serve the nearly one million visitors annually to this remarkable place. There is little else in this remote and desolate mountainous part of Jordan. Quite where sufficient water comes from for the local and visiting populations is anybody's guess.
Once through the entrance and having avoided the equivalents of pushy taxi drivers - horse-drawn cart operators - our excellent guide led us towards the Siq, a natural canyon formed many millennia ago when an earthquake left a jagged cleft across the rocky terrain.
Even before we'd got into the Siq proper, there were obvious signs of ancient habitation all around with caves of varying sizes cut into the relatively soft sandstone .....
Everywhere we looked there were amazing things to see, our group for instance looking at one impressive group of massive carved blocks ...
While behind them were even more impressive things to see ....
Many of the rock constructions, dwellings or whatever, had a curious mirror-image set of steps above them such as these .....
But in this instance, there was still virgin rock below the steps implying this was an unfinished project. From this, archaeologists have worked out that the carving/construction of these tombs and dwellings must have been from the top down, very logical when you think about it. It beggars belief though that tons of rock must have needed removing for even the smallest of such constructions.
It's difficult to imagine how long it must have taken with a mallet and chisel to create this burial chamber (shown from a different angle) ...
Even the poorer dwellings would have involved a lot of work ...
A little further down into the Siq it's not just dwellings but art that has been carved into the rock as well. More than one camel train is depicted in the descent to the main centre of Petra.
"Camel?" you may ask, "What camel?". Well, it's been somewhat eroded by wind and sand but to the right of the green pointer our guide is using is the camel-herder, at least his lower half is still visible. Then to the left of him are the remains of one camel's front legs/feet and further left its hind feet, and between the front and hind legs the outline of its belly is still visible.Out of shot further to the left is a second camel and to the right is another set of camels going the other way.
Now into the Siq proper it gets progressively narrower as we go downhill and the sky gets ever more distant.
It becomes very obvious why this was such a well protected city; an army of thousands could be repelled by a small group of well armed men in such a narrow passageway. Note also the ledges in the rock faces on either side, these are water channels providing a constant supply of piped water brought from hundreds of kilometres away, a major engineering challenge which made it possible for this city to flourish in an otherwise arid area.
Even further down the Siq gets darker and more claustrophobic but the light at the end of the tunnel glows with a pinky/reddish hue ....
All of a sudden the narrow Siq ends in a large open area with throngs of people, camels and horses, and the most amazing view:
I think most people will have seen pictures of the amazingly well preserved 'Treasury' facade which was mis-named by early European explorers who rediscovered this lost city. In actual fact it is properly known as 'Al Khazneh', probably the mausoleum of Nabataean King Aretas IV constructed relatively late in the city's long history, when its population peaked at an estimated 20,000 inhabitants about 100 AD.
Quite how this particular tomb survived as well as it has when other structures have been significantly eroded, is not well understood. In fact, the relatively soft sandstone should not survive long at all so the archaeologists think that the Nabataeans must have found a way of preserving the incredible detail, but quite how is a mystery to modern science.
Sadly, 'Al Khazneh' used to be even better than it is today as portrayed in this beautiful painting by David Roberts who made a very difficult Arabian trek during the 1830s to draw/paint many works of art around this fantastic city of rock. This is how the tomb looked in 1839 with the figures and urn at the top all intact.
Unfortunately men with rifles have, in the past, used the site for target practice resulting in significant damage to the urn (which was wrongly believed to hold treasure) and the figures. Most of the figures have been totally destroyed and this is the scarred urn today:
Moving on from 'Al Khazneh' are many other monuments of such incredible scale and grandeur that it's difficult to portray just how amazing this site is, and we only saw a small part of the centre of the city, which extends for some considerable distance up various valleys. Here are just a few examples:
A welcome toilet stop (the bus loo isn't usually to be recommended!) at 'The Desert Castle Bazaar' .....
provided some brief retail therapy as well, but there wasn't really enough time for any serious haggling. It was a nice enough place though with acceptable toilets.
Then more miles of rubbish strewn desert; for as far as I could see, the desert either side of the road was littered with plastic waste, bits of tyres and vehicle parts and seemed to be used as a general waste tip for all travellers.
The mountains at least provided better views with the road exceeding 5,000 feet in height in places, until eventually we dropped down a bit into Wadi Musa. This is a sizeable town which has grown up to the east of ancient Petra; presumably all of the 8,000 or so inhabitants are there to serve the nearly one million visitors annually to this remarkable place. There is little else in this remote and desolate mountainous part of Jordan. Quite where sufficient water comes from for the local and visiting populations is anybody's guess.
Once through the entrance and having avoided the equivalents of pushy taxi drivers - horse-drawn cart operators - our excellent guide led us towards the Siq, a natural canyon formed many millennia ago when an earthquake left a jagged cleft across the rocky terrain.
Even before we'd got into the Siq proper, there were obvious signs of ancient habitation all around with caves of varying sizes cut into the relatively soft sandstone .....
Everywhere we looked there were amazing things to see, our group for instance looking at one impressive group of massive carved blocks ...
While behind them were even more impressive things to see ....
Many of the rock constructions, dwellings or whatever, had a curious mirror-image set of steps above them such as these .....
But in this instance, there was still virgin rock below the steps implying this was an unfinished project. From this, archaeologists have worked out that the carving/construction of these tombs and dwellings must have been from the top down, very logical when you think about it. It beggars belief though that tons of rock must have needed removing for even the smallest of such constructions.
It's difficult to imagine how long it must have taken with a mallet and chisel to create this burial chamber (shown from a different angle) ...
Even the poorer dwellings would have involved a lot of work ...
A little further down into the Siq it's not just dwellings but art that has been carved into the rock as well. More than one camel train is depicted in the descent to the main centre of Petra.
"Camel?" you may ask, "What camel?". Well, it's been somewhat eroded by wind and sand but to the right of the green pointer our guide is using is the camel-herder, at least his lower half is still visible. Then to the left of him are the remains of one camel's front legs/feet and further left its hind feet, and between the front and hind legs the outline of its belly is still visible.Out of shot further to the left is a second camel and to the right is another set of camels going the other way.
Now into the Siq proper it gets progressively narrower as we go downhill and the sky gets ever more distant.
It becomes very obvious why this was such a well protected city; an army of thousands could be repelled by a small group of well armed men in such a narrow passageway. Note also the ledges in the rock faces on either side, these are water channels providing a constant supply of piped water brought from hundreds of kilometres away, a major engineering challenge which made it possible for this city to flourish in an otherwise arid area.
Even further down the Siq gets darker and more claustrophobic but the light at the end of the tunnel glows with a pinky/reddish hue ....
All of a sudden the narrow Siq ends in a large open area with throngs of people, camels and horses, and the most amazing view:
I think most people will have seen pictures of the amazingly well preserved 'Treasury' facade which was mis-named by early European explorers who rediscovered this lost city. In actual fact it is properly known as 'Al Khazneh', probably the mausoleum of Nabataean King Aretas IV constructed relatively late in the city's long history, when its population peaked at an estimated 20,000 inhabitants about 100 AD.
Quite how this particular tomb survived as well as it has when other structures have been significantly eroded, is not well understood. In fact, the relatively soft sandstone should not survive long at all so the archaeologists think that the Nabataeans must have found a way of preserving the incredible detail, but quite how is a mystery to modern science.
Sadly, 'Al Khazneh' used to be even better than it is today as portrayed in this beautiful painting by David Roberts who made a very difficult Arabian trek during the 1830s to draw/paint many works of art around this fantastic city of rock. This is how the tomb looked in 1839 with the figures and urn at the top all intact.
Unfortunately men with rifles have, in the past, used the site for target practice resulting in significant damage to the urn (which was wrongly believed to hold treasure) and the figures. Most of the figures have been totally destroyed and this is the scarred urn today:
Moving on from 'Al Khazneh' are many other monuments of such incredible scale and grandeur that it's difficult to portray just how amazing this site is, and we only saw a small part of the centre of the city, which extends for some considerable distance up various valleys. Here are just a few examples:
As can be seen, tourists are free to clamber all over these remarkable and ancient (1,000 to 3,000 year old) structures - a situation which surely can't continue indefinitely?
For anyone considering a visit here, set aside two or three days and see the whole site close up before everything gets sealed off behind fences as Stonehenge now is.
Highly recommended!
For anyone considering a visit here, set aside two or three days and see the whole site close up before everything gets sealed off behind fences as Stonehenge now is.
Highly recommended!
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