Amazing Petra

Yesterday was a long day. We went to a place called Petra, which means rock. It has really amazing tombs carved out of huge sandstone cliffs. We walked and walked and it was hot. Some people chose to ride horses, donkeys or chariots! We didn't! We walked. You could also ride a camel, but they didn't go very far. Petra is hard to describe, so I will put lots of pictures in the blog to give you the idea. 

Petra was a thriving city of the Nabataeans who lived over 2000 years ago. They settled near what is called Wadi Musa which means Valley of Moses, because there is a spring that is thought to be the place where Moses hit the stone and water came out. This was many years before the Nabataeans lived in this area. The Edomites lived here then.

Jordan is full of so much history. Almost everywhere you go there are remains of civilizations from before the Old Testament times, the Hellenistic Period, the Byzantine Era and so much more. 

In Petra there are tombs which were carved out of the sandstone by the Nabateans. They are the local people who lived in Jordan. There is also a huge Roman Temple with columns and big blocks of stone. It was amazing to me to see things here that were similar to what I have seen at Greece, Italy and even Turkey!

Click HERE to hear the flute player in the Rock Carving

The carving in Petra is stunning. It is amazing to think that people carved this intricately into the cliffs. Our guide explained that they started from the top and then carved enough so that they had a place to stand and kept working their way on down.

 You may recognize some of the scenery from Indiana Jones movie. This area was used as a backdrop for the movie. It is perfect because it is so dramatic. There was another movie being made when we arrived. There were a lot of soldiers with fancy uniforms on milling about and waiting for their scene to start.

We did not hang around to watch what they were doing, but kept walking up to the top at the end which is called the Monastery. Once we got to the top we could actually see over the whole mountain range down to the Negev desert.