The Magnificent Ancient City of Petra, Jordan

 

The Monastery, Petra

When we first visited Petra with our kids nearly 40 years ago, Bedouin families were still living in its caves.  The next year, the Jordanian government kicked them all out, moving them to a village above the valley, in order to turn Petra into a “real” tourist site.  It was phenomenal then, when our kids were able to play soccer with local Bedouin boys inside one of the huge cave tombs.  Today, it is no less wonderful, just filled with Bedouin offering rides on their camels and donkeys instead of living in the caves.  

view of Wadi Musa (Petra) from above

The valley is one of the most spectacular ancient cities in the world.  First, the rock into which the tombs and temples have been carved is multi-colored and gorgeous. 

Petra's colorful rock formations

Second, one of the most stunning sights on earth is emerging from the narrow Siq, a deep rock chasm with towering cliffs, ranging from 10 to 40 feet wide and ¾ mile long, to see the famous Treasury building, what everyone visits Petra to see.

the beautiful Treasury

But, there is so much more—the Nabataean stone architecture and tombs, Roman ruins, Byzantine mosaics, not to mention the natural beauty of Wadi Musa (Valley of Moses), the canyon of Petra, occupied for 12,000 years. 

walking down the Siq

All along the valley, tombs have been carved into the sandstone.  You can walk the length of the valley to a restaurant at the end and then climb another mile to the Monastery, a third century BC Nabataean tomb surrounded by huge black rock mountains and many vendors.  If you don’t want to climb the stairs cut into the rocks, you can take a donkey ride, which one of our group decided to do.  Despite her qualms, her donkey and guide hauled her safely up the steep trail so she could see not just the Monastery, but the gorgeous terrain all around.  If you walk from the entrance to a viewpoint past the Monastery and back, it is 10 to 11 miles, and a wonderful hike. 

tombs dug into the cliffs

The Byzantines built several churches, one of which

has beautiful mosaic floors.  It is well worth the short

climb to the church because the mosaics are 

stunning and you can continue on to a long series of

tombs carved into the colorful cliffs.

mosaic floor in Byzantine church

The Romans built their own city in the first couple of centuries AD, complete with temples, marketplaces, theaters and roads.  They ruled Petra for 250 years, but left when an earthquake destroyed much of the city. 

Dogs and donkeys are everywhere, usually resting, sometimes noisily announcing their fights and frustrations.

Roman temple

tomb cut into colorful cliff

dogs lolling along the Roman road

The Roman City of Jerash and Ancient Amman

Two views of Jerash's Roman Forum

                                  

Jordan’s wonderful Greco-Roman city of Jerash is one of the most beautiful Roman cities I’ve visited anywhere in the world.  It spreads across open fields, full of wildflowers in March and April, with its warm sandstone columns and stones glowing in the sunlight.  Centuries after the Romans built the roads, colonnades, theaters, temples, markets, forums, and houses that made up the Roman city, the Byzantines took over, building churches alongside the earlier structures, using stones from the Roman period.  An 8^th century AD earthquake destroyed most of the city and later earthquakes finished it off. 

Roman columns and storm clouds

We visited Jerash on a stormy day, just before a rare rainstorm drenched the city.  You could easily spend a full day wandering, pretty much alone, among the ruins, but we kept an eye on the rain clouds, spent several hours enjoying the site, and scrambled into a restaurant just before the rain poured down in sheets.  Quite unusual for arid Jordan.

Roman theater in Jerash

As in most Roman cities, the Forum was the heart of the city.  The graceful Forum in Jerash is surrounded by columns and crossed by the Roman road Trajan built.  After Trajan, Herod visited the city, welcomed by a huge arch constructed in his honor. 

 The theaters have amazing acoustics.  You can stand in just the right place on the stage and be heard easily throughout the seats rising steeply up the sides of the theater. 

Today, there is other life in Jerash, besides tourists.

bird nesting in Roman column
below:  columns and capitals of church

Roman stone flower and today's daisy

The Byzantine church of St. George has beautiful mosaics that are, unfortunately, fully exposed to the weather.  Jerash would like to protect these treasures, but doesn’t have the money.  In some ways, I’d love to see the mosaics better protected, but would hate to see ugly tin roofs mar the open serenity of Jerash.  It is such a pleasure to wander the unmarked paths among the ruins, visiting these ancient structures as they were 1500 to 2000 years ago, imagining the busy marketplace, roads filled with goods and chariots, priests in their temples, and the daily life of the inhabitants.

left:  family walking along Roman road; right:  Hadrian's Arch

 

  

mosaics in St. George's church

Temple at Amman Citadel

After the deluge, we returned to Amman and its Citadel, atop one of the hills that make up the city.  There are the remains there of a fortress and a temple as well as a small museum with sculptures from 6,000 BC.  Obviously, people have occupied what is not Amman for many thousands of years.  Below the Citadel is a beautifully-preserved Roman                                                                                                    amphitheater, surrounded by the buildings of the                                                                                          modern city. 

Roman Amphitheater, Amman

Amman Citadel with modern city behind

 

8500 year old sculpture from Amman

 

The Fortress of Masada and Entry to Jordan

 

Roman siege camp below Masada

Driving south along the Israeli side of the Dead Sea, just about at its southern end, you look west to see the high sandstone butte that is Masada.  This is where a group of Jews withstood a Roman siege for months in the first century AD, until the Romans built a siege tower atop a narrow ridge and battered their way into the fortress.  A chronicler writing 100 years later said nearly 1000 Jews committed suicide at Masada rather than become Roman slaves, but archaeologists have found only 28 human remains, so the story is a bit murky.  What we do know is that the Jews in Judea had rebelled against the harsh Roman rule and that a final contingent of these rebels made their last stand at Masada.  All around Masada are the remains of Roman siege camps where soldiers stayed until their assault on the fortress.

Dead Sea and desert from top of Masada

Guard houses and storage rooms

During the first century BC, King Herod built a palace on the site, with 3 layers of the palace cascading down the cliffs on one side of the mesa.  There are the ruins of store rooms, cisterns and 2 temples on the site, with several Roman mosaic floors and painted frescoes.

Today, Masada is a major tourist attraction in Israel, with a cable car making it easy to get to the top of the mountain.  Several years ago, we visited here and found the line for the return cable car too long for us, so we walked down the snaking trail to the bottom.  Many people climb to the to of the butte along the same steep ridge the Romans used in their final assault on Masada.  

Herod's bath house

The views of the Dead Sea below are beautiful, if usually a bit murky from blowing dust and sand.  The area along the Dead Sea is full of sink holes which you can see from the summit and from the road that runs along the west side of the sea.  These have forced rerouting of the road in several places and caused an entire resort to be abandoned because its buildings were collapsing into the huge sinkholes upon it was unwittingly built.

Roman mosaic in Herod's palace

We crossed into Jordan across the Allenby/King Hussein Bridge, just north of the Dead Sea.  There were very few people at the Israeli border station, except for a couple of officials rudely shouting orders and demanding documents.  To get to the Jordan border station, you have to drive about a mile, across the trickle that is now the Jordan River.  Our Jordanian bus met us outside the Israeli border station to take us across the border, but there is also a regular shuttle between the 2 stations, so it’s an easy crossing.

On the Jordanian side, you go through Jordanian immigration.  Fortunately for us, Jordan had just dropped its requirement for a PCR test for entry and another PCR test upon arrival.  So, we proceeded to Amman with ease.  

Sink holes dot the desert by the Dead Sea