Petra in Jordania - cemetery and historic city of the Nabateans

Petra is not really a city, but rather a historic cemetery - there is no trace left of the local houses.

Currently, this place is considered to be the remains of tombs carved in the rock in the area of ​​900 meters above sea level. Some have distinctive Nabatean decorations and reveal the influence of Egyptian and Assyrian architectural styles, others have a classic shape.

Inner colonnades are a habit of naked, without decorations, and the façades are richly decorated.

Originally inhabited by the Nabataean people (whose homeland is Petra), he lived in tents and natural caves, creating a camp in the Wadi Musa valley. Over time, flat white buildings began to appear, which can be seen today.

During the period of greatest prosperity, when the city could live up to 40,000. inhabitants, the city was crossed by only one main street. In the vicinity of three large markets there were numerous shops, as well as temples and palaces.

Some of them were excavated in the rock (mainly tombs), and some were built in the valley (including temples, theater, fountain, swimming pools, palaces).

In 106, when Petra became part of the Roman Empire, it arrived: a forum, termy (public baths, huge and richly decorated building complexes), theater and other typical Buildings.

The most famous building of Petra is the treasury of el-Kasne, 40 meters high and 27 meters wide. The valley with the treasury shows numerous rock tombs carved in pale pink sandstone with veins in many other colors.

Ad-Dajr is a complex Petra structure, 47 meters high and 48 meters wide.

Only one route leads to the monument - a narrow isthmus of the As-Sik gorge.

For over 800 years the monument was hidden from tourists, only after the change of trade routes in the Middle East, thanks to the discovery by the Swiss explorer Johann Ludwig Burckhardt, the city was shown to the world in 1812.

Petra has been inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list and has been added to the list of seven new wonders of the world.

The building of Al-Khazna - called the "Pharaoh's Treasury" served in the film "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" as a temple protecting the Holy Grail.