Petra

The most famous attraction in Jordan is the Nabataean city of Petra. More than 2000 years ago Petra was used as a temporary refuge by nomadic Nabataeans who came north out of Arabia. From a few caves in a rocky outcrop, easy to defend, the Nabataeans created Petra as a fortress capital city.

To reach the city the visitor travels on foot, or horseback, through the awesome Siq; a winding, one-kilometer long fissure between overhanging cliffs. At the end of the Siq in the towering brightness appears Petra’s most impressive monument: The Treasury (El-Khazneh).

This massive Royal Tomb was carved out of the solid rock from the side of mountain. Beyond El-Khazneh are hundreds of carved and built structures, soaring temples, elaborate royal tombs, a roman theater (seating 3000 people), large and small houses, burial chambers, banquet halls, water channels and reservoirs, Baths monumental staircases, cultic installations, markets arched gates, public buildings, and paved streets.

But Petra is not only about the Nabataeans. Within a fifteen minute drive of Petra the visitor can walk through 8000 years old excavated Stone Age villages at Beidha and, wander among the ruins of settlements of the biblical Edomites.