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Published: December 19th 2010
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The ’Treasury’ (Al Khazna), Petra
Used in "Indiana Jones & The Last Crusade" We landed in Amman, Jordan about 10:30am and were whisked into the city from the airport by taxi. This was going to be a whirlwind tour as we didn’t have that much time left on our travels.
I didn’t really know that much about Jordan before we arrived, but the sight of road signs displaying the distance to the
Iraqi border jolted me into reality pretty quick! God that would be an interesting place to visit – but not on this trip and not for another while after that either!
This part of the Middle East is getting into real religious territory, with over a hundred sites in Jordan alone being mentioned in the bible - all your favourite characters from
John-the-Baptist to
Moses, from
Abraham to
Jacob – are all said to have passed through here in Biblical times.
History of Jordan The country has fallen through the hands of the Assyrians, the Babylonians, and the Persians, (all early empires in the region), passing onto the Romans, and then the Arabs who came calling in the late 7th century.
In the 16th century Jordan submitted to Ottoman Turkish rule, which was later taken from them after
Temple of Hercules
The Citadel, Amman World War 1 by the British, who received a mandate to govern much of Middle East. The area known at the time as
Trans-Jordan, was separated from Palestine in 1920 under British mandate, and later became independent and was renamed Jordan.
Jordan lost the infamous “
West Bank” to Israel in 1967, and subsequently relinquished its claims to the territory in the late 1980’s, and furthermore signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1994.
The Middle East kingdom of Jordan is bordered on the west by
Israel, on the north by
Syria, on the east by
Iraq and to the south by
Saudi Arabia - what a bunch of neighbours to surround yourself with… nearly all of the major political players in the Middle East; or countries who have been embroiled in conflict in one way or another over the years!
Jordan unlike its bigger neighbours doesn’t have any great oil reserves itself, which ensure it continues to walk a tight-rope in all matters economic and political. Support for U.S. policy in the Middle East during the Iraq wars and peace with Israel, has come at a political price for
King Abdullah (as such policy was not widely
popular). Perhaps it’s fair to say that Egypt and Jordan (those Arab countries that recognise Israel) have been demonised in the rest of the Arab world.
Amman
We stayed downtown in Amman (the old town) which took some time to get used to. The city’s narrow roads are hectic and smothered with traffic congestion and this part of the city and its buildings really could do with some infrastructural investment.
The people in Amman were very friendly and constantly called out “welcome to Jordan” when they met us on the streets. Street snacks such as
Falafel (chick peas) or
Shwarma were the order of the day for lunch, and later after heading to the “new town”, that evening to get some food, we decided on an early night as we hadn’t really slept at all on the overnight flight here.
The following day we were out and about early – first port of call was the impressive
Citadel and the
Temple of Hercules overlooking the old part of the city.
Then it was onto the well preserved, but rather steep, outdoor
Roman Amphitheatre. Outside the gates, we were amused by an industrious local who was selling
old Iraqi notes and coins from the Saddam Hussein era, bearing his image.
Afterwards we graced the more modern side of the city with our presence, and passed an hour in Starbucks of all places!
The following day we hired a car to bring us down south of the country. Travel time here is reasonably short as the country is rather small. We visited:
• We first stopped in a town called
Madaba to see
St. Georges Church, where there is a mosaic map built into the floor, which is said to date back to the 6th century AD.
• We visited
Mount Nebo - on top of which the prophet
Moses died, as he caught sight of the
Promised Land for the first time.
• Then it was on to the west to get our first glimpse of
Jericho in Israel across the river – one of the earliest farming villages in the Middle East.
• Next we headed to the
Baptismal Site of Jesus where archaeologists have shown that it was on the east side of the
River Jordan that lies the spot where John the Baptist baptised Jesus.
This was
a strange visit. We were travelling very close (a stones throw away) to the border of Israel, so security of the area was very tight and we had to travel in the back of a convoy truck! I really didn’t feel like a pilgrim!
• Finally we floated in the
Dead Sea (said to be the lowest point on earth). This was really cool. There is a really high salt content in the water, due to the high evaporation of moisture and reduced water coming into the sea.
The increased salt and reduced water content means much improved buoyancy; so you will automatically float in the water. Basically it’s like sitting in the water propped up like a rubber duck. Care is advised as any nicks or cuts you have will sting to the high heavens, and maybe for the first time in your life, you will truly understand the phrase “rubbing salt in your wounds”.
Petra
The following day it was on to “the lost city” of Petra (one of the Seven Wonders of the World). Instead of getting the bus we negotiated a very good price from a taxi driver, who drove us there in
about two and a half hours, after which we spent most of the day wandering around this impressive ancient city.
The site itself is massive – Petra often called the
Rose-Red City was once home to 20,000 inhabitants, with its imposing facades of great temples and tombs, and an incredible legacy of the desert tribes which carved them.
The site has been used for countless movies, probably the most famous of which being “
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” (see first picture above).
The
Nabataeans (desert tribes who built the city) became rich; controlling and levying tax on this major trade artery in the Middle East. Petra acted as a trade junction handling logistics and the processing of goods for traders, before the goods (initially inbound from Saudi Arabia) were redirected across the Sinai desert to the ports of Gaza and Alexandria, to be shipped to European cities such as Greece and Rome.
Roman incursion, a re-direction of commercial trade via the
Red Sea, and two earth quakes in the 4th and 6th centuries, all contributed to Petra’s decline and it fading into insignificance as the centuries passed by.
It remained a lost city to
the outside world known only to the local
Bedouin people who didn’t reveal its existence, fearing western encroachment.
Finally in the early 19th century (over one thousand years later) a young Swiss explorer rode into the city disguised as a Muslim – and the rest as they say is history. His discovery was made just in time, as the west was being caught up in romantic notions with all things “Orient”.
In the early 20th century the first archaeologists arrived, and nearly one hundred years later they continue to unearth some of Petra’s secrets to this very day.
* * *
The following morning we hired the same driver to bring us to
King Hussein Bridge (border crossing) about an hour from Amman. This was so we could cross the border into the West Bank. After some minor delays we were stamped out and on our way into the
West Bank.
All in all we liked Jordan; yes the Middle East seems a bit harder work than some of the places we’ve been used to recently, but overall it was an enjoyable experience.
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