Travel Stories >> Jordan >> PETRA, the Nabatean Kingdom....

PETRA, THE NABATEAN KINGDOM....

"Here, this is for Mr. Roger, " said my driver, Hammad, as he handed me a small brightly gift-wrapped box. As Roger opened the wrapping later to find two boxes of film, he grinned, "This is going to be a great trip."

We left Amman on a Friday morning and began to head south. There are three ways to travel south in Jordan, the Desert Highway (the westernmost north-south route), the King’s Highway (the central north-south route) and Route 65 (along the eastern Jordanian border from the Dead Sea to Aqaba). Although the King’s Highway is slow-going, and hairpinned, this biblical thoroughfare (Numbers 20:17) is the ancient route, the path of traders, warriors, and pilgrims. In our meandering, there would be no other choice.

MADABA and MOUNT NEBO

Although we knew we would have plenty of time in the course of a few years to really see the places close to Amman, we could not resist our first stop outside the town of Madaba. Located some 20 miles from the hustle of Amman, Madaba is a sleepy little town described as an important Christian center in the land of Jordan. Check your bibles for the references to ‘Medeba’ (Isaiah 15:2, Joshua 13:9,16) and you will read about its identity as a Moab town during Jesus’s lifetime. Although we will surely spend more time in Madaba in the future, we were there in passing on our way to Mount Nebo, the place where God showed Moses the promised land (Deuteronomy 34:1). Once up to the top of the mountain, perched out on a striking precipice, we come upon the Moses Memorial Church. There is a modern sculpture of a cross with a serpent wrapped around it (John 3:14-17) sitting dramatically up on the patio in front of the church.

So now you are saying, "why does she keep adding these biblical chapter references." I must say that to really make travelling fun in Jordan you must carry a decent (King James version) bible in one hand and the "Blue Guide" (the ONLY real guide book for this country) in the other. Any tourist (long term or weekender) with these two books can set all the names, places, and biblical events into their own current reality. No wonder Jordan is gearing up all over the country for the, "Christian tourism onslaught," they are all expecting for the new millennium. Although I am not a big fan of ‘organized religion’ (and find troubling the Christian fundamentalism and numbers of bumper-sticker Christians in the USA)… Jordan is a way for me to appreciate the bible as an extraordinary history book and to put the events mentioned in their actual sites.

Out on the edge of the world in front of the Moses Memorial Church, you can see (with the help of a map set in marble) Jericho, Jerusalem, the Dead Sea, and, well, ‘all of the promised land’, just as Moses saw it. The mosaics in the nave and two apses of the little church (being restored by the Franciscans) are in strikingly good shape (considering they date from the 4th century AD) and most impressive of all is the simple mosaic cross put into the plaster at the right side of the alter – not for the artwork but for the fact that some believe the remains of Moses lay beneath it.

Along the King's Highway...

Once back in the car and down from Mount Nebo, our trip became a ‘book-and-see’ kind of journey. I, with my Blue Guide, and Roger at the wheel – we meandered our way south through the great wadis (valleys) and the dusty towns. We passed the town where Solome asked for John the Baptist’s head on a platter, where Lot’s wife was turned to a pillar of salt, where the Crusaders built their castle/fortresses, where Saladin poured boiling oil on invaders, where the traders of the orient passed with their silks, spices, and silver packed on the backs of thousands of camels, and where centuries of Greeks, Romans, Israelites, Moabites, Maccabeans, Nabateans, Byzantines, Ummayads, Ottomans, and so many others fought, traded, loved and thrived for so many centuries. Every town we pass has some little piece of antiquity: the ruins of a Crusader’s castle, or a Byzantine church, an Umayyad mosaic, or a few Roman pillars.

And as the sun begins to sink in the western sky, we begin to hurry a little to get to Petra before nightfall. Why hurry? You ask.

My Aunt Alice is a travel agent of many years and many countries. One of her clients, a man whose business takes him all over the world, told her once, "The most beautiful hotel I have ever stayed in is the ‘Taybet Zaman’ outside of Petra." With a recommendation like that where else could we have spent Roger’s birthday! The Jordan Tourist Investment group has taken the remains of a 12th century stone village and converted it into a sweet little compound of bungalows, eateries, artisan shops, a pool, and a health club. Each of the village’s houses is now an individual hotel room or rather, bungalow. Perched on the western wide of the Musa Valley, the sunsets from the terrace were spectacular.

Concert at BEIDA ("Little Petra")

But we had to hurry. We had, we had been told, tickets waiting for us at the reception for a musical performance and a dinner at 7pm that evening. We knew only that the pianist was a renowned Iraqi and that the performance was to take place at Beida, "Little Petra". So, dusty and tired we arrived late to the Taybet Zaman, a little disappointed to have arrived (perhaps) too late to make this event. "No, no", said our concierge, Nadim, "change if you wish, and I will get a taxi for you". A taxi? But we had a rental car for the very purpose of not having to rent taxis. "But this is in a rather remote area, a taxi will be best." And did I balk at paying the driver 15JD ($22) each way!

Ok, so we hoped that, as Nadim suggested, the concert would start late ("Don’t worry, Madam, everything starts late in Jordan"). In our nice clothes (‘bring one nice outfit, just in case’) we sat in the back of this dusty old Mercedes and off we went. We left the hotel and traveled 10 miles back to, and then through, the collection of houses and hotels built just outside the gates to the ruins of Wadi Musa (Petra). The driver continued outside of town and drove and drove and drove. There were no lights, no people, no vehicles, and the brilliance of the full moon on the wild craggy Shara mountain range outside our cab gave us the impression that we were on the moon itself.

This had to be wrong, who on earth would build a concert hall out here???

And then in the distance, in a crevice, a narrow valley between enormous boulders, we saw what looked like a Bedouin campfire. So…. we decided, there were other human beings out here. And the cabbie drove on. And on. And on. And finally he made a turn, off the paved road and onto a gravel road and began to double back from where we’d come. And we arrived in short order to the "Bedouin campsite" , and found to our great amazement, an audience of some 100 finely dressed men and women sitting in orderly plastic patio chairs, listening peacefully as the Iraqi, Abdel Rahman El-Bacha played Mozart’s Sonata K.332, Beethoven’s Sonata Op. 111, Schumann’s Sonata No. 3 in F minor, and a sweet encore of Chopin. What’s more, the backdrop to our pianist’s ‘stage’ was a fabulous Nabatean carved building façade, our first taste of what we were to experience in the following two days. It was surreal. The full moon above, the candles in sand in paper bags lining the entrance and the ‘stage’, the buffet dinner being prepared further into the gorge, and this beautiful music from the grand piano in front of us.

Since our tickets had NOT been waiting for us at the reception as promised, Nadim had told us to take our money (we hadn’t yet paid for them) and ask for Rania at the reception of the concert. There was no Rania, there was no one to sell or take tickets, there was just this beautiful setting, so down we sat, and listen we did. As the concert finished late, we knew no one, and had no tickets, the cabbie was waiting, we decided that a late meal at the hotel was our best bet. Later, when I thought back about Nadim’s suggestion, the only explanation I can come up with is that ‘Rania’ (in addition to being the name of the current Queen, and coincidentally, a sponsor of these musical events in Petra) is a common Jordanian name, and that asking for a "Rania" would mean someone would be able to attend us.

It was a magical end to a spectacular day, and this was just the first of three.

PETRA, or "do camels smell as bad as donkeys do?"

Everyone who has ever been to the Middle East, or more specifically, Jordan, will ask you, once you’ve been here, "So have you been to Petra, yet?" And after a few weeks of blushing and explaining that you’ve been sort of busy (yeah, like 14-hour-days-7-days-a -week busy) you say to yourself, ok, it’s time to get to Petra. For the average American, the closest they will ever come to even thinking about something as spectacular as the Nabatean ruins in the valley, Wadi Musa, is in watching "Indian Jones and the Last Crusade" (yes, the one with Sean Connery). So thanks to Steven Spielberg we are treated, if ever so slightly, to the wonder that is Petra.

The guidebooks gush and the photojournalists snap and they have a right to. You can read every book, and see every picture but nothing will bring you even close to the feeling of overwhelming calm and delight that is the experience of the ruins in this hidden valley

After a ten minute drive from the Taybet Zaman to the entrance of the Visitor’s Center, we left the car in the bus parking lot (across from the Movenpick Hotel) and bought our tickets (20JD/day, 25JD/2 days, 30JD/3 days) for two days, and moved along through the entrance. This will be the last time we pay these prices for once we have our residency permits the government of Jordan will charge us only 1JD (about $1.40) to enter Petra.

There are four modes of transportation in Petra: horse, donkey, camel, and your own two legs. Upon clearing the threshold of the entrance, you shall be beset upon by every local who owns a horse and he will cry at you, "Nice horse ride to the entrance, ma’am, very cheap, special price mister…" and they continue for most of the mile long path jeering the same and yelling out the dinar price of a ride. You won’t have the luck of meeting the camel and donkey pushers until you are actually inside the valley. The wide sandy path follows the Musa riverbed for about a mile. It must be mentioned here that we have not seen any water in any riverbed since we’ve been here, in fact, Jordan is one of the dustiest places I have ever been. Sunny, but dusty. Along the way you have your first taste of two important facts about the Nabatean culture: first, they were VERY big on tombs, death and funerary rites, and second, they carved their buildings out of rocks – or better said, INTO rocks. As you read through what is to follow, keep this in mind: it is almost more correct to say that the monolithic structures at Petra like the Treasury and the Monastery are not so much buildings as they are sculptures. It is the facades of the Nabatean structures that are so impressive and have survived so many centuries of both natural and human destruction.

The Gateway, "Bab-as-Siq"

On the path along the Musa riverbed which is called Bab-as-Siq (gateway to the Siq) one encounters three large djinn blocks (30 foot cubes), numerous cave-like entrances in the rockfaces, and a large tomb with four obelisks carved into the top of it. As you finish the first mile you come to a place where the Nabateans dammed the river to re-route it, thus freeing the old riverbed and therefore permitting it to be used as a passageway into the city. Our tickets are checked once more at this point, and the wonder begins. You leave open space, and you enter a crevice. That old riverbed, now a pathway, is called the Siq and is, ".. [a] spectacular gorge about 1.2km long, a natural fault through the mountain, which was and is the principal entrance to Petra. Much of the way is in shadow, but occasionally a shaft of bright sunlight penetrates the high perpendicular walls." (apologies to the Blue Guide)

To digress a bit here, one must understand what, who and when the Nabateans were. Originally of nomadic tendencies from the region called North Arabia, the Nabateans began to settle down about 100 years BC and made their capital Petra. Petra’s location, just off the King’s Highway and in a strategically conducive position as a major trade route crossroad, made the Nabateans the central focus for the metals and dyes being carried from the Dead Sea to Egypt (particularly bitumen – found in abundance at the Dead Sea and used in the mummification process by the Egyptians), the silks from India and China, and all the spices from Arabia. In particular, the Nabateans controlled the frankincense route from Yemen (the only place in the world it is found) to the entire Middle East and Western world where it was used on most religious altars, and was thus a very valuable commodity.

The Nabateans were skilled water engineers and at Petra took advantage of a number of natural springs found in their mountains. As you walk through the Siq your attention is drawn to the great water systems that channel along the walls, in fact, the engineers built in ceramic water piping (some of which still remains!) to carry the precious liquid . In addition to their water engineering skills, the Nabateans were great stone carvers. Along the Siq walls are found carved votive niches, god blocks, statuary, and other fascinating reliefs. If you are lucky, and pick an off day (not a Friday or Saturday) and an off hour (10:30-11:00am was great), you can make your way through this magnificent gorge in peace (no tour groups, no loud voiced tourists). It is worth a leisurely pace and to stroll along the cool mountain walls, gazing up 75 feet to the sky and along the brilliantly colored mineral striations in the walls. The geology of Petra is enough to change a graduate student’s mind about a dissertation. The entire valley of Petra is surrounded by dramatic mountains of the most unusual rock and minerals ever seen – from morning light to evening light the rock faces change from pink, rose, red, purple, yellow, brown, and blue. Edward Lear once traveled here, and his servant (an Italian prone to culinary similes) is said to have exclaimed, " we have come into a world of chocolate, ham, curry powder and salmon!." (Blue Guide, p. 253).

The Treasury

As you come to the end of the Siq, the passageway narrows and the absence of direct sunlight puts you in a cool, anticipatory mood. The guidebooks prepare you and you’ve seen the photos, but nothing is like that first true glimpse of the rose-colored façade of the Treasury. Itself in somewhat of a gorge, the Khaznat (or Treasury) is lighted for most of the day by the reflection of light from the opposing wall. It glowed a soft sandstone yellow when we first saw it, and was a deep rosy red by the end of the first day on our way out. As you step out of the Siq and into the small area in front of the Treasury you are surrounded by the stories of the last century of Bedouins who shot their rifles at it, believing that one or another of them would shoot free the vast treasure hidden behind the second storey reliefs. The descriptions of the architecture of this and the other Petra monuments are not for this story. Suffice it to say that the Nabateans had a very distinct style that was repeated throughout the valley and its monuments and tomb façades. The style is described as an Orient meets Occident – and Hellenic, Roman, and original patterns and designs are mixed and utilized to create a unique and aesthetically pleasing visage.

It is at the Treasury that the camel and donkey pushers begin to descend, driving their ‘vehicles’ right up to you with an insistence that you would be much more comfortable travelling the length of the valley on THEIR beast (fleas be damned), rather than walking. Most will take a pleasant, "no thank you", although each one believes that you will for some reason, change your mind between the guy in front of him and he himself…. So they ALL ask, in succession. On the second day we were in the valley early and as we hustled through the city center we were approached by a small horde of donkey riders on the heels of who were just as many camels and their dons. "Hey mister, donkey ride?" Roger smiles and shakes his head no. The donkey man then says, loudly enough so his camel buddies behind him can hear, "Well!!, Don’t ride the camels," he exclaims with a grin and his eyes twinkling, "They too high! Very dangerous!", and as we laughed the whole troupe of them went chasing each other up to the Treasury end of the valley to solicit the next group of tourists. What fun!

The Theater, Main Street, the great Tombs

The next 500 yards of walk is called either the "Outer Siq" or the "Street of Façades", and links the Treasury and the Theater. Along the Outer Siq are mostly tombs; carved façades in Nabatean style each with interesting stories about the families once within or the design of the façade. The Theater itself is dated from the first century and is most fascinating because it is almost entirely carved from the rock in which it sits. Greek in style, it is neither the size nor the high design of the theaters in Jerash or even the Roman theaters we have seen in Merida, Spain. It is the same beautiful purple-red stone as much of this corner of the valley, and restoration makes it more presentable. Oddly, sitting much like box seats at a ballgame, above the last row of theater seats are more tomb facades, carved into the mountain as is the style here.

After the Theater and continuing into the valley, the walls on both sides of the ever-widening pathway are littered with tomb facades, and cavelike holes in the mountainsides. A number of extremely impressive tombs, some the size of the Treasury and larger line the east mountain face as the valley opens up to a wide flat expanse of land. These include the Urn Tomb, Tomb 813, the Tomb of Unaishu, the Palace Tomb, the Royal Tombs, and others.

As you come around the bend in the road and the river[bed] – you were walking North and have just veered hard to the West – with the great wall of Tomb facades at your back, you pass the ruins of the Nyphaeum (water fountain). We sat under a large fig tree here and watched with great amusement as a couple of the donkey men (their dark smiling faces topped with the ubiquitous red and white checked cloths held in place on their heads by the black double bands) helped a couple of Italian Marias in their 60s get up on the beasts of burden. It was quite a show. And took place with much ado and with great fanfare and squealing (from the Marias not the donkeys) and to both the chagrin and amusement of the donkey owners who realized they would not be just leading these donkeys back to the Treasury but would be holding these handbagged, bluehaired ladies with all their might to keep them perched on the beasts for the duration of the ride. In fact on the second day, Roger and I trekked upward 800 (they say) steps to El-Deir (The Monastery) – a good hard hike straight up for an hour or so… and the donkeys clambered past with aging French and German tourists astride. At one point a little gray number struggled by buckling under the weight of some plumber from Arizona ("Mazza Plumbing – 1-800-555-2424 on his t-shirt). I noted to Roger that the climb was scary enough on my own two legs – there were many sections that the US National Park Service would have closed off in a heartbeat – I couldn’t fathom doing the ascent (or descent!) on the back of a donkey whose misstep could slide you both into any number of gorges 100s of feet in depth. I suppose the choice between risking the climb on an animal or a heart attack leaves many heavy plumbers from Arizona choosing the donkeys.

The City Center

As we approach the city center we can see up the hill on the left (South) the low, middle, and upper markets ( lots of steps and piles of partial columns – all in the process of being restored), and up the hill to the right the ruins of a beautiful Byzantine ecclesiastical complex (with some tremendous mosaics preserved in the apses). USAID has just finished a restoration project on the Byzantine complex and the extent of the work is far-reaching. The project even restored a baptismal font – a columned atrium where infants were baptized during the Byzantine occupation of this land.

So back we are entering the city center, through the Temenos Gate and in to the area or ‘precinct’ of the Qasr al-Bint (dated to the 1st century BC), the museum, and the two tourist restaurants (both dated to the late 20th century AD). The Qasr-Al-Bint (meaning the Palace of the Pharaoh’s Daughter) is in high restoration mode and is somewhat enclosed by fencing. An enormous structure of two storeys with columns, windows, Doric friezes, porticos, statues, and a massive altar. Its exact purpose unknown, the guidebooks suggest that worship of some kind took place here. I have queer little moments when I think to myself that it was probably a shopping mall – but you just can’t suggest thing like this to the archeologists working the digs. Yes, many of the structures and sites in the valley are archeological works in progress. As we climbed up the southern side of the hills (behind the Theater) we passed a number of structures that were fenced and in "obra" (as they say in Spanish).

The trek to the High Place of Sacrifice

From the city center there are a number of hikes that a visitor with some gumption can undertake. On the first day Roger and I broke off in the southerly direction to reach the "High Place of Sacrifice." Don’t you love names like this? I’m sure the Nabateans had some really complicated, exquisite monikers for these little sanctuaries of ritual but modern man can’t come up with anything better than, the high place of sacrifice? So off we trekked without a decent map and with the sun at four o’clock (at least we were on the southwest side of the mountains). We climbed around, getting lost only once, and found the various tombs as described by our Blue Guide. We knew we were on the right track when, tucked into the mountainback we found the Tomb of the Broken Pediment – identified by the odd keyhole shaped entrance – probably the result of a round window over a door having been eroded into a single orifice. The climb to the HPofS can be done either along the southern face of the ridge (as we had chosen) or up the northern side from near the Theater. The southern climb was vastly more interesting as the various tombs and fountains and monuments along the route were still intact enough to provide for interesting exploring. At the Tomb of the Broken Pediment we hooked up somewhat casually with a young couple from Holland, Hein and Sybelle, delightful company, and for me, as usual, a new audience for my quips and aside comments. We hiked (in some places very steep – original! – steps) past the tomb of the Roman Soldier (so named for the relief carved above the entrance), the Triclinium (with interior columns – some with stucco still visible of the surface!), the Garden Temple, the Lion Fountain (missing a head but otherwise intact). We also passed some Nabatean graffiti (I kid you not), I think it said, "Uzza was here", actually, many of the tombs were accompanied by inscriptions.

I should revisit here, the Nabatean obsession with death, tombs, and funerary rites. It is evident for even the amateur like myself that the care that was taken in the design and maintenance of the Nabatean tombs suggests a great deal of respect and reverence for the dead. The historians know from the excavation and exploration of many Nabatean tombs that most were designed, laid out and cared for in similar fashion. In one tomb archeologists found an inscription describing in detail the practice of the times, "this tomb and the large and small chambers inside, and the graves fashioned as loculi, and the courtyard in front of the tomb, and the porticos, and the houses within it, and the gardens and the triclinium, the water cisterns, the terrace, and the walls and the rest of the property in these places is the consecrated and inviolable property of Dushara" (the Nabatean "God"). And the ruins of the tombs we see DO have the spaces for the gardens, the terraces, the cisterns and the porticos. It is believed that the tombs were cared for (probably) by family members who lived in the compound of the tombs, hence the discussion of "houses within" in the aforementioned inscription.

So as the sun gets lower in the sky, Hein, Sybelle, Roger and I climb higher into that same sky. The last few hundred yards are many steep steps and switchbacks, and where there is an occasional resting spot we can look out over the valley way back to the city center – the views are striking – we feel like we are climbing to the top of the world.

We pass almost no one on our climb, and yet when we get to the HpoS, there is a refreshment stand and some 15-20 people milling about, some tourists, a park police (?), and a couple of locals who surround us and ask if we wouldn’t like to buy a bracelet (we wouldn’t). The HpoS is indeed high, and at its greatest outcropping provides a spectacular view of the valley, particularly of the great tombs on the east mountain walls. We take our pictures, chat, sit in the sunset, and prepare to descend down the east side of the mountain. Our descent takes no time at all and the steps leading down the mountain are in very good shape – obviously the preferred route for most of the tourists. It is amusing because during our climb up the back side we have felt rather adventurous, like pioneers – "the first people to brave the south-western face of the mountain…." One of the many charms of the entire Petra complex is the accessibility to everything. As I have mentioned, this place would give the US National Park Service apoplexy. With the exception of very specific dig sites that are clearly fenced you can walk anywhere, climb anything, photograph anything, pick up anything, the place is yours! Not really, of course, but the fact that it is so open for exploration means you can choose the level of involvement you wish to have with the ruins, the digs, the hiking trails, the gypsies, the camel drivers, everything.

We watched a group of German tourists come through the Siq (on our second day there) at 9am, and by the time we had meandered to the Theater, they were already passing us to return to the entrance! They had marched through the valley, snapped their photos, purchased a few Roman coins (recently minted in Taiwan we were told by a vendor near the Urn Tomb) or a necklace of many beads from the gypsy girls, reached the city center, taken a few more photos, turned on the dime and marched back out! The second day we were there, as we reached the end of the Siq near the Treasury, a guide managing a group of some 15 French tourists lined them up, one in front of the other – each with their left hand on the shoulder of the one in front. He then had them close their eyes, and march slowly with him in the lead as he softly counted to them and implored them NOT to peek. He drew them into the last 20 feet of the Siq, where the crevice is narrowest and where the first dramatic glimpse of the Treasury is best experienced. As they finished their count and he said, ok, open the eyes… they all gasped and ohhh-ed and ahhhhed. It was sweet.

The Monastery, "El-Deir"

The first day we soaked in the landscape and the layout and did the first climb, to the high place of sacrifice. The second day we came back for the photography and to climb to the Monastery. After the Treasury, the Monastery is a great favorite of photographers and historians. In the hot mid-day sun we started out from the city center, behind the Basin Restaurant, and hit the trail for El-Deir (say: el-day-er) or, the Monastery. Contrary to our empty trails on the trip to the HpoS the day before, this climb was a busy one. A group of French senior citizens (complete with handbags and umbrellas), a bevy of blonde, pony-tailed Danish or Norwegian girls, a pack of young Italians (lots of earrings on the men, and tattoos on the women), and a many like ourselves: little groups of 2s and 3s. The donkey drivers were persistent with many and rode up and down the trail/steps hollering, "taxi", "donkey ride to the top, cheap" and the like. Halfway up the mountain one of the French seniors decided he’d had enough climbing and would ride. His wife and other companions took enormous pleasure in watching him both mount then try and stay on his ass as it clamored up and away from the group… teasing is universal, the language makes no difference. The steps were busy with donkeys; carrying bags of empty Pepsi bottles down the mountain, lugging bags of full Pepsi bottles up the mountain. At one point about ten minutes to the top, a young man with the headgear came charging down the steps on a large light gray donkey – forcing us all to press our bodies against the nearest available interior wall or risk being run over – and once he passed in a flurry, a British gal near us exclaimed with some disgust, "hhumpf, fancies himself quite a bit of Indiana Jones, don’t he?"

The climb to El-Deir was harder then the climb to the HpoS had been the day before. The sun was directly overhead and the steps seemed never-ending. An hour and a half straight up (fifteen minutes to descend!) but worth every step. Along the trek you could regularly turn around and look out across the valley to the royal Tombs on the east face. Early in the climb we wandered into a little side valley in which we found the lovely carved façade of the Lion Triclinium (a triclinium, by the way, is a roman dining room or banqueting center with three couches along the walls for lounging diners), a few feet later we squeezed under an enormous boulder wedged into the trail many years ago in an earthquake. We walked along the edges of tremendous and dramatic gorges, open flat terraces of shale, and narrow valleys in which juniper bushes and caper plants grow. As we reach the top, we came over a little valley between two tall, high rock faces. We descended a little bit and came around a corner to the right and found ourselves suddenly in the shadows of this enormous façade carved in the backside of the mountain we’ve just climbed. The books all say, and they are right, that what El-Deir lacks in decoration and style, it makes up for in sheer size. Wow.

At about 167 feet high by 130 feet wide (the Blue Guide says, "twice the width of the west front of Westminster Abbey"), El Deir is a monument to monuments. The word Deir means monastery in Arabic and is likely named for the crosses scratched into the interior walls. As a result of some inscriptions on a cliff to the west of the façade, the historians believe this building was the site of the cult of Obodas, one of the Nabatean kings. The front of the façade is divided into two storeys. The lower one is marked at the corners by semi pillars and holds six columns crowned with typical Nabatean capitals. The center is a pedimented doorway that once had (we think) stairs rising up to it. The second storey is most impressive: a center tholos (my book says, " a large circular structure) capped with a conical roof with an urn on top (the urn itself is 30 feet high!), flanked by two large columned rectangular niches each capped with a triangular sort of half-timpanum (maybe it is just easier to check out the pictures). Strangely, and much like every other structure we’ve entered at Petra, there is nothing much inside… like the Treasury, just a large cube of a room, no decoration, no other rooms, nothing.

El-Deir is actually part of what was a large complex of buildings and caverns, but since it is all that remains today, we are duly impressed. Its façade was carved deep into the mountain face allowing for the large courtyard out in front of it - approximately 200 feet square. All that remains of the courtyard in front of El-Deir are the nubs of the columns along the southern side of the area in front of the façade. Across the courtyard is a large rock into which is cut a cave. There is also a refreshment stand with nice cool water, sodas, and candy bars… and like every remote corner of Petra, gypsy girls and boys selling necklaces, bracelets, fancifully carved, curved knives, ‘real’ Roman coins, shards of ‘real’ Nabatean pottery, and whatnot.

As we descend from the Monastery complex we are elated and slightly saddened (it is over) as well. We have seen it. We have hiked it. We have photographed it. We have reveled in its beauty. We have ‘been to Petra’. We elect not to take a camel ride back to the Siq entrance (I asked Roger if he was sure, I could take his picture to send back home, but he would not hear of it). We walk slowly past the horsemen ("madam, cheap horse to the entrance, beautiful horses, taxi to the entrance, etc…."), back past the djinn blocks and the obelisk tomb face. We trudge out through the entrance, stop for an ice cream (say: "booz-eh") outside the visitor’s center, and finally find ourselves – hot, dusty, and exhausted – sitting in our rental car once more. We make the ten minute trip back to our beautiful Taybet Zaman. Our legs feel like rubber bands, and Roger – who has been backpacking his cameras – has been carrying an extra 30 lbs on his back for two days. We allow ourselves to indulge in the Turkish baths and the masseuse at the hotel. After dinner, some of the hotel staff come knocking at the door of our little bungalow and with candle-lighted cake in hand, sign Happy Birthday to a much surprised Roger. It has been a monumental trip. We have seen and heard some extraordinary things, and we are coming back, as often as possible – and with as many guests as possible. Have you bought your tickets yet?

Copyright © 1999 by Rachel Peterson

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