Petra, part 2

As I mentioned in my first post about Petra, daughter A and I hiked up to see the high place of sacrifice and got ourselves lost six ways to Sunday. This should have been about a 1.5 hr roundtrip detour for us, but was more like double that. As we ascended, we had some really great views and no idea how to get back to where we started near the theater.

The stairs we used had been carved out at least a couple millennia ago, which was helpful. But with my annoying heart arrythmia that's exercise induced, particularly on steep inclines or stair climbs, I had to stop every so often to do my "tricks" to get my heart rate back into a normal range. Once we get past this pandemic, I'm gonna have to follow up with a cardiologist to schedule heart ablation. I've still got places to travel and things to see, and not all at sea level!

Once we got near the sacrificial place, the stairs ended and you had to bear crawl the final 25 steps or so. No handrails. Nothing to catch you if you lost your footing. So daughter A did her spider monkey climb to the tip-top and I took her word for it that it was a lovely view. As we started our descent, we either missed or misread a sign. We saw some amazing vistas, but we just kept twisting and turning, with no idea where we were headed and no further signage to guide us. Or cell service.

And so there was no choice but to just keep swimming walking. We passed some amazing entrance doors along the way. My favorite pic was standing in a tomb and taking a pic out its door across to a different tomb's doorway. Eventually a teenaged Bedouin girl walking towards us was able to point us back to the main tourist avenue via a trail coming in behind the old Roman colonnaded street.

We saw quite a few critters in Petra, namely donkeys, camels and goats. And a couple friendly cats who kept me company when I stopped to lower my heart rate.

Then there was this donkey, below, who was clip clopping along the trail when we were lost, no rider in sight. 

Lord have mercy, we were highly entertained when this feisty camel got away from the boy holding his reins and didn't want to be caught.

We met a lovely lady in Petra, author of the book Married to a Bedouin. Marguerite Van Geldersmalsen has lived here since 1978, raised several children with her husband Mohammad and can now be found daily in Petra selling jewelry made by local craftswomen. And copies of her book. In the pic below, author Marguerite is in the tan pants behind the umbrella pole.

Finally, I want to share with you the church remains we toured in Petra. Built in approximately 450 AD, it stood for 150 years before fire destroyed most of it in 600. The ruins of the church are covered and you can still see the mosaic floors as well as the baptistry. 

The pic above is a piece of carved stone I saw in the church. I bought a silver pendant with the same design from Marguerite, made by one of her local Bedouin friends.

Thanks to our Muslim guide Nidal, I now know the biblical connection to the treasury believed to be the tomb of Nabataean king Aretas. The king's daughter Phasaelis was married to Herod Antipas. However, Herod decided to divorce her and marry Herodias, mother of Salome. So Phasaelis fled home to Petra and told her father. Aretas invaded Herod's domain and defeated his army. 

Now the biblical connection to John the Baptist... In Matthew 14, Herod had John the Baptist arrested and imprisoned at the behest of his wife Herodias. John spoke out against Herod marrying her. Herod didn't immediately execute John because he was afraid to since the people considered John a prophet. But after Herodias' daughter Salome did her dance for Herod and his guests at his birthday dinner, Herod promised Salome whatever she wished. After conferring with her mother, Salome requested John the Baptists's head on a platter. Despite his distress, Herod didn't want to lose face in front of his guests and so he had John beheaded and his head brought on a platter and presented to Salome and Herodias. John's disciples came and took his body to bury. Then they went and told Jesus. 

Aretas is also mentioned in 2 Corinthians 11:32... In Damascus the governor under King Aretas had the city of Damascenes guarded in order to arrest me (Paul). I absolutely love it when historical accounts and facts support events in the Bible, God's word!

Petra, part 1

We kicked off our tour of Petra at 8 am, which was easy peasy since our hotel was located directly across from the entrance. This turned out to be a good thing since it was quite a downhill hike just to get to where the good stuff starts.

I'll admit it up front... we got lost in Petra after a couple hours. We had a map that wasn't terribly detailed and the trails weren't well marked. That's our story and we're sticking to it. We might have spent more than the seven hours we did in Petra if we hadn't chanced upon a local Bedouin teenage girl who pointed us back to the main tourist track. 

Petra was capital of the Nabataeans, flourishing from the 1st century BC though inhabited for centuries before that. Built along an overland trade route, it was well known for dealing in incense and spices. Petra was annexed by the Roman Empire in the 2nd century AD and we saw evidence of that in its architecture. A destructive earthquake hit Petra in 363 AD and destroyed much of the city. That, coupled with the change in trade routes and the Arab invasion several centuries later, eventually led to Petra becoming abandoned by all but the local Bedouin tribes by the 8th century.

In 1812, a Swiss explorer named Johannes Burckhardt "rediscovered" Petra, gaining fame in the west and attracting visitors. Petra is called the Rose City, and it will become apparent why through the pictures I took when we toured it. Carved from the native sandstone, erosion has taken its toll over time and yet Petra is still hauntingly beautiful. 

Armed with a copy of the map above, tour guide Nidal gave us a lot of background information and details as we kicked off our trek into Petra. 

Below is the famed Khazneh, or treasury, carved from the sandstone cliffs. It's believed that this was built as the mausoleum for King Aretas. I'll go into Aretas' biblical connection in my second post about Petra.

All along the most well traveled and main part of the tour with Nidal during our first 1.5 hrs at the site, we saw simple carvings and entrances...

... in addition to more elaborate ones. 

As you can appreciate in the pic below, the natural rose-red sandstone was just gorgeous.

In the pictures above and below, you can get an idea of the scale of Petra. Despite the fact that we walked for ten miles, there was still a lot we just didn't have time to see.

The Nabataeans buried their dead in tombs with carved exteriors as you've seen in many of the photos. 

It was interesting to note that although the outside of the tomb was typically quite ornate, there was only one interior with similar intricate carving. 

Most of the interiors were disappointingly basic.

Our tour guide Nidal explained to us that this is how you differentiate from a burial tomb and a home - the burial has exterior carvings, but a dwelling does not. In addition to tombs and  homes, Petra contains the remains of temples, a theater, churches, etc. 

Polytheistic, the Nabataeans gods were never represented in full scale statuary like I've seen in Egypt and Italy. However, you can still see traces of the gods carved into doorways, nooks of temples and in niches. 

Below is the theater, the only ancient theater in the world carved directly out of rock, with seating for about 4000 spectators.