Petra, Jordan

PETRA, JORDAN | "البتراء — The Rose-Red City Half as Old as Time"

Petra is the most extraordinary archaeological site in the Middle East — the rock-cut capital of the Nabataean Kingdom, carved from the rose-red sandstone cliffs of the Arabah highlands of southern Jordan between the 4th century BCE and the 2nd century CE, and unknown to the Western world until the Swiss explorer Johann Ludwig Burckhardt entered the city in disguise in 1812. The Nabataeans were the most sophisticated hydraulic engineers of the ancient world, cutting cisterns, dams, and channels into the sandstone to capture and store every drop of rain in one of the most arid environments in the Middle East, and the 800-plus monuments they carved from the living rock — the Treasury, the Royal Tombs, the Colonnaded Street, the Great Temple, and the High Place of Sacrifice — represent the most complete surviving example of a Nabataean city anywhere in the world. The approach to Petra through the Siq — a 1.2-kilometer narrow slot canyon whose walls rise to 80 meters above the path — is the most dramatic architectural approach in the ancient world, designed by the Nabataeans to reveal the Treasury facade at the precise moment of maximum emotional impact.

The colors of Petra are the extraordinary natural palette of wind-carved sandstone: the rose-red and amber of the Treasury facade in the morning light, the deep purple and lavender of the Royal Tombs at sunset, the warm ochre of the canyon walls in the Siq, and the specific deep gold of the sandstone at golden hour when the entire city turns the color of honey and the ancient facades glow with the warm light of late afternoon in a way that no artificial illumination could improve upon.