Desi Dixon: Petra

Some archeologists consider ancient Petra as the eighth wonder of the ancient world - a dead city carved into the stone by the Nabataeans, an Arab tribe with origins in the Arabian peninsula who settled in southern Jordan more than 2200 years ago. This location was the strategic crossroads of trade and the Nabataeans were masters of the routes by levying tolls and protecting the caravans laden with Arabian frankincense, myrrh, Indian spices and silks, African ivory and animal hides. These profits enabled them to establish a kingdom from Damascus, the Sinai and greater Arabia.

A friend now living in Glasgow and I traipsed to Jordan in early January for 3 nights with the aim of seeing Petra and then some R&R at a hot springs next to the Dead Sea. We woke up at 6am to be able to enter the gates of Petra at 7am. It was windy and really cold and we knew we were in for a long day to walk the length of the UNESCO World Heritage site, about 7 miles in total.

This is the most famous image of Petra, the first building in the settlement called The Treasury (Al-Khazneh) with a facade 30 meters wide and 43 meters high. It was carved in the 1st century B.C. as a tomb for an important Nabataean ruler and reflects Hellenistic and Alexandrian Hellenistic architectural inspiration.

These are tombs.

I am standing in front of something significant but can't remember or recognize it:

And, as usual, "the real thing" claims a presence, even here:

This is the Urn Tomb, the largest of the royal tombs, carved approximately 70 A.D. and altered in the mid-fifth century when it was reconsecrated as a Byzantine church:

Some of the architectural details of the colonnade, the main street in the ancient city:

These two, Khalid and Mohammed, should have been in school but were trying to earn a living selling donkey rides to tourists up the 800-stair hike to the last monument on the site, the Monastery. We must have politely declined two dozen times. Persistence did not pay in this case, but they were very charming and visually compelling.

Some of the steps:

A tomb on the way up to the Monastery:

The Monastery (Al-Deir) at the end of the 800 stair climb through the cliffs. It was probably a pilgrimage site and later used as a church during the Byzantine era.

Ruins of a tomb, which is effectively a cave and sometimes inhabited by the indigenous Bedouins. These photos are snapped on the climb down back to the site entrance, 3 or so miles in length with the clouds rolling in. I can't wait to get to the spa later that night!

An arch from a building off the colonnade I didn't snap on the way to the Monastery. Check out the donkeys and camels waiting to pick up weary tourists: