FINAL WARNING: The Curtain Falls
north of Aqaba (which is on the Gulf of Aqaba), is a 20-square mile
complex known as the ancient city of Petra (a Greek word meaning
‘Rock’). Located in a valley, and surrounded by impassable sandstone
cliffs, the only entrance is a narrow path known as El Ciq, which is
about 6,000 feet long, and varies in width from 12 to 30 feet. The sides
are part of nearly perpendicular cliffs which range in heights from 300
to 500 feet.Known as Mount Seir in the Bible, this was the home of Esau, the
father of the Edomites (ancestors of the Palestinian Arabs). During the
Babylonian captivity of the Jews, the Edomites moved into Israel, and
Petra was inhabited by an Arabic tribe known as the Nabataeans (said
to be the descendants of Nebajoth, the oldest son of Ishmael) during
the 6th century BC, and became an important trade center. They were
defeated by the Romans around 55 BC, and in 32 BC, Marc Antony
gave Petra to Cleopatra of Egypt as a gift. Because he was married to
Octavia, the sister of Roman Emperor, the Senate stripped him of his
rank and ordered him back to Rome. Antony committed suicide in 30
BC, as did Cleopatra later. With the decrease of Roman influence in the
5th century, and after the Islamic invasion during the 7th century, the
area became part of the province of Arabia, and remained a ghost town
until it was rediscovered in 1812 by Swiss explorer John L. Burckhardt.
The last segment of the 1989 Paramount movie Indiana Jones and the
Last Crusade was filmed at Petra.Believed to have originally been built inside an extinct volcano, this
rock city contains many elaborate facades among its many structures,
which include various tombs, monuments, and dwellings, which were
carved into the rock of the mountainside. Some date back to the
Edomite era, most are Nabataean, and some are Roman and early
Christian. There are thousands of natural and man-made caves. Even
though it is located in a desert area, there are water cisterns there, and
dozens of springs and wells, including the Ain Musa (‘Spring of
Moses’), two miles from the entrance, which is traditionally identified
as one of the two sites where Moses produced water by striking a rock.
At one time this spring had been channeled into the city. It has been
reported that Petra could hold up to a million people.In 1935, out of a $5 million trust fund, Dr. William E. Blackstone sent a
group of Christians there with Bibles, printed in Hebrew, which were