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<< Our Photo Pages >> Petra, Nabataean Town - Ancient Village or Settlement in Jordan

Submitted by AlexHunger on Friday, 20 June 2014  Page Views: 16342

Multi-periodSite Name: Petra, Nabataean Town
Country: Jordan Type: Ancient Village or Settlement
Nearest Town: Amman
Latitude: 30.329170N  Longitude: 35.441940E
Condition:
5Perfect
4Almost Perfect
3Reasonable but with some damage
2Ruined but still recognisable as an ancient site
1Pretty much destroyed, possibly visible as crop marks
0No data.
-1Completely destroyed
5 Ambience:
5Superb
4Good
3Ordinary
2Not Good
1Awful
0No data.
5 Access:
5Can be driven to, probably with disabled access
4Short walk on a footpath
3Requiring a bit more of a walk
2A long walk
1In the middle of nowhere, a nightmare to find
0No data.
3 Accuracy:
5co-ordinates taken by GPS or official recorded co-ordinates
4co-ordinates scaled from a detailed map
3co-ordinates scaled from a bad map
2co-ordinates of the nearest village
1co-ordinates of the nearest town
0no data
4

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Average ratings for this site from all visit loggers: Condition: 4 Ambience: 4.8 Access: 3.25

Petra, Nabataean Town
Petra, Nabataean Town submitted by neolithique02 : The Deir. (Vote or comment on this photo)
Ancient Settlement in Jordan. World heritage site. Former capital of the Nabataeans, half built and half carved into the cliffs.

Petra is without doubt Jordan’s most valuable treasure and greatest tourist attraction. It is a vast, unique city, carved into the sheer rock face by the Nabataeans, an industrious Arab people who settled here more than 2000 years ago, turning it into an important junction for the silk, spice and other trade routes that linked China, India and southern Arabia with Egypt, Syria, Greece and Rome.

Entrance to the city is through the Siq, a narrow gorge, over 1 kilometre in length, which is flanked on either side by soaring, 80 metres high cliffs. Just walking through the Siq is an experience in itself. The colours and formations of the rocks are dazzling. As you reach the end of the Siq you will catch your first glimpse of Al-Khazneh (Treasury).

This is an awe-inspiring experience. A massive façade, 30m wide and 43m high, carved out of the sheer, dusky pink, rock-face and dwarfing everything around it. It was carved in the early 1st century as the tomb of an important Nabataean king and represents the engineering genius of these ancient people.

More at Visit Jordan

Note: Ab Deir - "The lighting is spectacular; the sun setting through the gate perfectly illuminates the sacred areas of the deep interior" See comment.
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Petra, Nabataean Town
Petra, Nabataean Town submitted by Swinside : Colonnade Street at Petra (1 comment - Vote or comment on this photo)

Petra, Nabataean Town
Petra, Nabataean Town submitted by h_fenton : The tomb commonly known as 'The Treasury' and probably the most famous of all the monuments at Petra (Vote or comment on this photo)

Petra, Nabataean Town
Petra, Nabataean Town submitted by neolithique02 : Stone town. (Vote or comment on this photo)

Petra, Nabataean Town
Petra, Nabataean Town submitted by neolithique02 : Amazing. (Vote or comment on this photo)

Petra, Nabataean Town
Petra, Nabataean Town submitted by Swinside : Sandstone weathered cave at Petra

Petra, Nabataean Town
Petra, Nabataean Town submitted by Swinside : Ad Deir (The Monastery)

Petra, Nabataean Town
Petra, Nabataean Town submitted by Swinside

Petra, Nabataean Town
Petra, Nabataean Town submitted by Swinside : Detail on Obelisk Tomb

Petra, Nabataean Town
Petra, Nabataean Town submitted by Swinside : Obelisk Tomb

Petra, Nabataean Town
Petra, Nabataean Town submitted by durhamnature : Old painting from "Holy Land...." via archive.org Site in Jordan

Petra, Nabataean Town
Petra, Nabataean Town submitted by durhamnature

Petra, Nabataean Town
Petra, Nabataean Town submitted by neolithique02 : Remember the movie!

Petra, Nabataean Town
Petra, Nabataean Town submitted by h_fenton : A theatre cut straight from the rock at Petra

Petra, Nabataean Town
Petra, Nabataean Town submitted by Swinside : Sandstone weathered cave at Petra

Petra, Nabataean Town
Petra, Nabataean Town submitted by Swinside : Ed-Deir (The Monastery) Steps

Petra, Nabataean Town
Petra, Nabataean Town submitted by Swinside : El Khazne (The Treasury) a painting by Scottish artist David Roberts (public domain)

Petra, Nabataean Town
Petra, Nabataean Town submitted by Swinside : Outer Siq

Petra, Nabataean Town
Petra, Nabataean Town submitted by Swinside : Al Siq

Petra, Nabataean Town
Petra, Nabataean Town submitted by Fairycake : View over Petra showing the extent of the unexcavated city

Petra, Nabataean Town
Petra, Nabataean Town submitted by durhamnature : Old painting from "Holy Land...." via archive.org Site in Jordan

Petra, Nabataean Town
Petra, Nabataean Town submitted by durhamnature

Petra, Nabataean Town
Petra, Nabataean Town submitted by durhamnature

Petra, Nabataean Town
Petra, Nabataean Town submitted by durhamnature : A dolmen, from "Petra Peraea and Phoenicia" via archive.org Site in Jordan

Petra, Nabataean Town
Petra, Nabataean Town submitted by durhamnature : Columns, from "Petra Peraea and Phoenicia" via archive.org Site in Jordan

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Nearby sites listing. In the following links * = Image available
 1.9km NW 319° Jabal Fatouma Dolmen* Burial Chamber or Dolmen
 4.7km N 7° Beidha* Ancient Village or Settlement
 5.2km N 10° Siq al-Barid-Little Petra* Ancient Village or Settlement
 13.3km WSW 244° Wadi Masoudah - David Roberts Rock* Rock Cut Tomb
 13.8km E 90° Big Circle J5 Misc. Earthwork
 16.3km ENE 71° Big Circle J6 Misc. Earthwork
 21.8km SW 222° Petroglyphs near Jebel al Samra Um al Hidha* Carving
 23.1km NNE 27° Al-Shobak Dolmen* Burial Chamber or Dolmen
 23.8km N 3° Wadi Malaqa Petroglyphs* Carving
 24.5km N 3° Small Wadi Malaqa Petroglyph* Carving
 25.2km NNE 27° Shobak Castle* Hillfort
 27.0km W 275° Kipat 'Eshet rock shelter* Ancient Village or Settlement
 30.2km SSE 154° M'aan district* Carving
 31.6km WNW 287° Ramat Tsofar early Islamic settlement* Ancient Village or Settlement
 31.8km WSW 248° South of Lower Wadi Hayun Masseboth* Standing Stones
 31.8km NE 37° East of Dana Nature Reserve* Ancient Village or Settlement
 31.9km S 172° Big Circle J8 Misc. Earthwork
 33.2km NW 305° lower wadi 'Ashosh* Ancient Temple
 33.2km WSW 247° Beer-Menucha* Ancient Temple
 33.5km N 8° Wadi Feinan* Ancient Mine, Quarry or other Industry
 33.8km W 266° wadi Dmama open air sanctuaries* Ancient Temple
 35.0km WSW 258° Tsuky (cliff ) Hidud* Ancient Temple
 35.1km W 268° Mt. 'Eshet* Ancient Trackway
 35.3km WSW 243° Lower Wadi Hayun Massebah* Standing Stone (Menhir)
 35.4km W 270° Wadi Paran tributary camp site & Tumuli* Ancient Village or Settlement
View more nearby sites and additional images

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"Petra, Nabataean Town" | Login/Create an Account | 10 News and Comments
  
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Re: In 'Canyon of the Crescent Moon,' 2,000-Year-Old Paintings Re-Emerge by Anonymous on Thursday, 26 June 2014
Also see:

http://www.lovethesepics.com/2011/03/petra-rose-red-city-half-as-old-as-time-22-pics/
[ Reply to This ]

Re: Petra, Nabataean Town by FredWJ on Wednesday, 25 June 2014
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Thank you Alexhuger for allowing us who can not get to see for ourselves this most fantastic, amazing work of art and architecture
designed and built by "ancient people".
It was a great experience to merely see the pictures you have displayed. I'm sure the real thing is breathtaking.
[ Reply to This ]

Petra, Built for the Sun Gods? by bat400 on Friday, 20 June 2014
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Few ancient civilizations have left an architectural footprint quite as indelible as the Nabateans did in Petra, southern Jordan. Majestic temples, burial chambers and homes still stand, carved around 2,300 years ago from the rose-hued landscape.

Logic would dictate that the relics strewn throughout the 2.8 million square feet of Petra Archaeological Park would provide historians with a bounty of information about the ancient culture.

In fact, surprisingly little is known about ancient Nabatean life and traditions. An estimated 85% of the area has never been excavated, and there is precious little in the way of written records.

"I don't think we really understand what significance some of these structures truly had," says Megan Perry, an associate professor at East Carolina University's department of anthropology.

Recently, a team of archaeoastronomers sought to gain some insight into the function of these ancient structures by measuring their celestial alignments. Their findings, which were published in the Nexus Network Journal, suggests that the Nabateans purposefully built Petra's most sacred structures to align or light-up during celestial phenomena, including the summer and winter solstices and the equinoxes.

Juan Antonio Belmonte, the study's leader at the Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands (IAC), notes that the effect is particularly stunning at Ad Deir, also known as The Monastery -- one of Petra's most visited attractions.

"The lighting is spectacular; the sun setting through the gate perfectly illuminates the sacred areas of the deep interior," he says.

"Apart from the beauty of the situation itself, the effect -- which would have been observable only a week or so before and after the winter solstice -- also gives you information about the purpose of the building."

Indeed, there's been much debate in the archeology community over the exact function of Ad Deir. Why was it built? Was it a tomb? A temple? Prior to Belmonte's study, there haven't been any clear answers.

"With such an alignment, it's now clear that it was certainly a temple with an astral religious character," says Belmonte.

"This can help us understand the religious beliefs of the Nabateans, and also their way of controlling time. It shows they could monitor the lunar calendar by solar and lunar observation. We're really finding a lot of utility in these kind of measurements," he adds.

Perry, who was not involved in the study, but who co-heads The Petra North Ridge Project, says that while she finds the findings plausible, she's not entirely convinced by the methodology employed.

"I think the idea that the Nabateans could have done this is actually not that surprising; it sort of goes along with other aspects of their religion, and potentially their understanding of place and space," she says.

Perry has spent a lot of time studying the layout of monuments in Petra for clues as to whether the city was laid out organically, or -- as Belmonte suggest -- if it was planned.
"The tombs seem to be based on natural topography. Nothing in terms of their layout suggests a tie to any kind of solar orientation. If there was one, they'd all be facing the same way, but they surround the city and face in an infinite number of directions," she notes.

Belmonte, who measured the alignment of over 30 Nabatean monuments, both in Petra and at other sites throughout Jordan and Israel, says his measurements are too consistent to be a coincidence.
"When you study the alignments, you produce a histogram that has a certain credibility from a statistical point of view. If this is by chance, the probability is very small," he says.

Thanks to coldrum for the link. Source: edition.cnn.com.
[ Reply to This ]

Research Unearths Terrace Farming at Ancient Desert City of Petra by davidmorgan on Monday, 14 January 2013
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New archaeological research dates the heyday of terrace farming at the ancient desert city of Petra to the first century. This development led to an explosion of agricultural activity, increasing the city’s strategic significance as a military prize for the Roman Empire.

A team of international archaeologists including Christian Cloke of the University of Cincinnati is providing new insights into successful and extensive water management and agricultural production in and around the ancient desert city of Petra, located in present-day Jordan. Ongoing investigations, of which Cloke is a part, are led by Professor Susan Alcock of the Brown University Petra Archaeological Project (BUPAP).

Using a variety of tools and techniques, including high-resolution satellite imagery and optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating of soils, Cloke, a doctoral student in the Department of Classics at UC, and Cecelia Feldman, classics lecturer at UMass-Amherst, have suggested that extensive terrace farming and dam construction in the region north of the city began around the first century, some 2,000 years ago, not during the Iron Age (c. 1200-300 BC) as had been previously hypothesized. This striking development, it seems, was due to the ingenuity and enterprise of the ancient Nabataeans, whose prosperous kingdom had its capital at Petra until the beginning of the second century.

The successful terrace farming of wheat, grapes and possibly olives, resulted in a vast, green, agricultural “suburb” to Petra in an otherwise inhospitable, arid landscape. This terrace farming remained extensive and robust through the third century. Based on surface finds and comparative data collected by other researchers in the area, however, it is clear that this type of farming continued to some extent for many centuries, until the end of the first millennium (between A.D. 800 and 1000). That ancient Petra was under extensive cultivation is a testament to past strategies of land management, and is all the more striking in light of the area’s dry and dusty environment today.

Cloke and Feldman will present their findings Jan. 4 at the Archaeological Institute of America Annual Meeting in Seattle, in a paper titled “On the Rocks: Landscape Modification and Archaeological Features in Petra’s Hinterland.” Their research efforts are contributing to a growing understanding of the city, its road networks, and life in the surrounding area.

AGRICULTURAL SUCCESS FOLLOWED BY ANNEXATION
Dating the start of extensive terrace farming at Petra to the beginning of the common era has important historical implications, according to Cloke, because this date coincides closely with the Roman annexation of the Nabataean Kingdom in A.D. 106.

He explained, “No doubt the explosion of agricultural activity in the first century and the increased wealth that resulted from the wine and oil production made Petra an exceptionally attractive prize for Rome. The region around Petra not only grew enough food to meet its own needs, but also would have been able to provide olives, olive oil, grapes and wine for trade. This robust agricultural production would have made the region a valuable asset for supplying Roman forces on the empire’s eastern frontier.”

In other words, said Feldman, successful terrace farming and water management when Petra was at its zenith as a trading center added not only to the city’s economic importance but to its strategic military value as well, because there were limited options in the region for supplying troops with essential supplies.

TERRACES FOR FARMING AND DAMS FOR WATER MANAGEMENT
On large stretches of land north of Petra, inhabitants built complex and extensive systems to dam wadis (riverbeds) and redirect winter rainwater to hillside terraces used for farming.

Rainfall in the region occurs only between October and March, often in brief, torrential downpours, so it was important for P

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Geophysical investigations and ancient plumbing at Petra, Jordan by Andy B on Wednesday, 09 May 2012
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The ancient city of Petra, Jordan, was named a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1985. Lost to the western world until 1812, the 'rose-red city' with its stunning sandstone architecture carved directly into bedrock is truly impressive.

First constructed by the Nabataeans starting around 200 BC, and later controlled by the Romans (beginning in AD 106), this desert metropolis is noted for an elaborate water management system that allowed the city to thrive for centuries in an arid region while functioning as an important trading hub for the ancient world.

Recent non-destructive geophysical investigations of the so-called Upper Market area in the Petra city centre have revealed a range of previously unknown features likely to be related to the water management of the city. A thorough understanding of this system is crucial to knowing how and why the city emerged, expanded to a population of 20 000 residents, and eventually fell into decline.

More at
http://www.antiquity.ac.uk/projgall/urban331/
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Re: In 'Canyon of the Crescent Moon,' 2,000-Year-Old Paintings Re-Emerge by motist on Tuesday, 21 September 2010
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You right Ibex, it looks like a bombastic title of the journalist (see Reuters article) nothing to do with Siq Al Barid ,also no moon in the wall paintings
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Re: In 'Canyon of the Crescent Moon,' 2,000-Year-Old Paintings Re-Emerge by ibex on Monday, 20 September 2010
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So where did the name "Canyon of the Crescent Moon" come from? No Amareen Bedouin I know uses that name. "Siq al-Barid" means "the Cool Gorge."
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Re: In 'Canyon of the Crescent Moon,' 2,000-Year-Old Paintings Re-Emerge by motist on Friday, 17 September 2010
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EARLY VIEWS OF PETRA

http://www.jordanjubilee.com/history/earlyviews.htm
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In 'Canyon of the Crescent Moon,' 2,000-Year-Old Paintings Re-Emerge by davidmorgan on Tuesday, 14 September 2010
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From coldrum:

Conservation experts almost gave up when they first saw the severely damaged wall paintings they had come to rescue in the ancient city of Petra -- a site made famous in the final scene in the film, "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade."

Cloaked for centuries in grimy soot from bedouin camp fires, the blackened murals appeared beyond repair.

But three years of restoration revealed intricate and brightly-colored artwork, and some of the very few surviving examples of 2,000-year-old Hellenistic wall painting.

"It has actually been quite nerve-racking. We didn't actually realize that we could clean this painting and when we started we thought that would be impossible. It only emerged half way through," said conservation expert Stephen Rickerby, waving his hand at the decorated mural.

The spectacular paintings are located in the canyon of Siq al-Barid in Beidha, known as "Little Petra" about five km (three miles) from Petra itself.

3,000-year-old artifacts, the world's oldest disposable knife, a really, really old bakery, a Mayan tomb and more. The latest discoveries from the ancient world.

Petra enjoys fame for the carved rock ruins left by the Nabateans, an Arab civilization that arose centuries before Jesus and survived until Roman legions incorporated it into their vast empire.

The Nabateans flourished in the second century BC and dominated the long distance caravan trade that brought incense and aromatics from South Arabia to the Mediterranean.

Absorbing artistic influences from across their empire, they adopted Hellenistic styles in many of their cities and their newly restored paintings at Petra are some of the very few -- and most detailed -- remaining examples.

"Most paintings that survived were very simple. This is figurative. It's real art as opposed to decorative," said Rickerby, who restored the paintings alongside his colleague Lisa Shekede from London's Courtauld Institute of Art.

The most visible scenes that cover the vault and the walls of the cave complex are populated by winged putti -- or child-like figures -- who pick fruits or fight off birds pecking at the grapes, the conservationists said.

Petra's monumental ruins were originally painted, but centuries of exposure to the elements wore them down to reveal the "rose-red" stone for which the site is best known.

"Everybody knows Petra for its rock monuments. Very few people do realize that these monuments were painted," Rickerby said. "We have to imagine Petra as a painted city. This sight now gives us a glimpse of what the whole of Petra was like."

For the Amarin Bedouin of Beidah, the paintings offer hope that tourists will venture beyond Petra's ancient city center to explore some of its outlying secrets, many of which remain buried under collapsed buildings and drifting sands.

"I think it is going to be a new tourist attraction and it is already attracting more and more people," Rickerby agreed.

The cave where the paintings were found is among hundreds of elaborate tombs and temples, carved into the sandstone cliffs around the arid valleys of Petra.

"What we have accomplished has revealed a painting of stunning beauty and historic value and it tells us a lot about the culture of the Nabateans, their exceptional taste and their use of expensive pigments like gold," Rickerby said.

"We are seeing a high point of Nabatean art at this time."

The naturalistic intricacy of the Jordanian paintings is shown by flowers, birds and insects that can all be spotted. The scenes identify three different vines, grape ivy and bindweed, all associated with Dionysus, the ancient Greek god of wine.

"Hellenism is quite strong here ... in the figurative style of the painting and in the naturalism of the representations of the birds and the wines," Skekede said.

Read the rest of this post...
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    Re: In 'Canyon of the Crescent Moon,' 2,000-Year-Old Paintings Re-Emerge by motist on Friday, 17 September 2010
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    Soon i'l submit pages and photos on this sites

    Siq al-Barid - Little Petra and Beidha neolithic site
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