Illustrations: Jonatan Sarmento/ ()
Age 2300 years
Internal area 264 km2
visitors per year 1 million (in 2019)
It was carved in stone. The very name of the city, in present-day Jordan, means “stone” in Greek. Over time, Petra, the birthplace of the Nabataean people, has been known by various expressions: “pink city”, “rocky city”, “lost city”, “of stones” and “of the dead”.
It was founded in 312 BC, and became an important hub on trade routes. Caravans of silk, incense and spices linked China and India with Greece, Rome, Egypt and Syria. Nomadic Arabs, the Nabataeans literally carved the city, in a mixture of Greco-Roman and Oriental architecture. Petra came under the sights of the Romans Pompey and Herod, but only succumbed in around 130 AD, when Emperor Hadrian conquered it (not whether known at the base of the sword or not).
Some time later, around the 5th century, the Nabataeans decided to pull the camel to other safer corners, as two earthquakes destroyed the city. Petra was abandoned and was forgotten in time and sand – only the Bedouins knew how to find it in the desert . Until, in 1812, the Swiss explorer Johann Ludwig Burckhardt, a lover of Muslim culture, impersonated an Arab merchant to gain the trust of the Bedouins, who one day finally showed him the way to the stones.
– What was Machu Picchu?
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– How is Lhasa, the capital of Tibet?
– How were the moai on Easter Island built?
WONDER IN THE ROCK
The site has several royal tombs, tombs, colonnaded streets, arched gates, obelisks and altars. The largest structure is the Ad-Deir, or Monastery. It is reached from a staircase of 843 steps carved into the rocks. You can go up on foot or with animals.
MASONERS
The main works of Petra, such as the Monastery, were built from the ground up. The workers raised big stairs, with 6 m steps, before starting to hammer the sandstone. They were not suspended from ropes, but were anchored to the steps.
DISCOVERIES
Archaeologists believed that the entrance to the Monastery had a straight staircase. But studies with 3D scanners showed that the ladder possibly bifurcated. In the middle of the field there was a structure with six columns, perhaps an area for rituals. The Monastery would then be a center of veneration.
MYSTERIES
These finds are still buried, about 50 cm under the ground. There is still much to discover about Petra, as only 1% of the city’s 264 square kilometers has been explored. Unesco heritage, Petra is one of the seven wonders of the modern world. In pop culture, she has appeared in movies like Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Transformers It is Mortal Kombat.
FESTIVAL OF COLORS
At 7 am, the rocks reflect pale colors. At 1 pm, they vibrate between pink and red. In the excavated and carved spots, the sandstone stones also turn a pinkish hue. The play of light and shadow continues into the evening, when around 1,500 candles usually light up the Treasury (more about it below).
DECADENCE
After strong earthquakes, Petra became a ghost town. The houses were destroyed, leaving only tombs, a theater with 8 thousand seats and more than 800 monuments. These natural disasters greatly influenced the rocky city’s frame, as 95% of its curves are natural (only 5% of the enclave was carved by the tribes that lived there)
open pit treasure
Another famous building in Petra is more hidden
The Siq is a 1.5 km long strait flanked by 80 m high rocks. It leads to the Treasury, or Al-Khazneh. According to legend, an Egyptian pharaoh had hidden riches there, which was never discovered. The 40 m high temple was built as a tomb for a Nabataean king. It is believed that craftsmen from Alexandria, an Egyptian city that was a reference in architecture at the time, collaborated on the works.