We got an early start this
morning. Immediately after breakfast we
walked down to the site of Petra. The
walk through the entrance and up to the Treasury was an adventure in and of
itself. We passed an Indiana Jones shop,
which reminded me of the cinematic significance of Petra, but the shop didn’t
seem to have any great Indian Jones paraphernalia. Beyond the point where an admission fee must
be paid there was a winding road with tombs on either side. As we walked I noticed that there were two
roads, one for walking, and the other, separated by what seemed to be the base
of a wall, contained different gravel and seemed to be used for riding
donkeys/camels/horses. I encountered my
first Nabatean tomb at Petra on that road, although we weren’t actually in
Petra proper yet. The design was quite exquisite and what I had heard about
this lost city matched well with reality. The road to Petra then continued on in between
two tall uprising cliff faces, creating a relatively narrow passage. This passage had small water channels carved
into both sides of the walls. These
water channels were about elbow height.
When we finally reached the end of the passage, the treasury was
standing before us, magnificently preserving a glimpse into the ancient world
in a way that almost no other site does.
Once
we were in the ancient city of Petra, the group began to split up and several
of us climbed up to the high place, an area containing an altar used for ritual
sacrifice. The view from the top was truly
something to take in. We sat there for a
while, resting from the hike up and discussing where to go next. The path down from the high place was a
little bit confusing. We travelled in
several direction before returning to a junction that we had previously passed
by and getting down to the main part of the lower valley from there. We ended up passing several water canals that
appeared to link several fountains in a complex fashion. So much thought and planning had to have been
put into the building of this site. We
passed several ornate tombs descending into a wadi that carried us out into
main valley. There were also some caves
that appeared to be living spaces, one of which had a pick-up truck parked
inside as if it were a garage.
We
had intended to climb up to a lookout point called the Monastery, but we had
used up much of our four hours at the site and decided that it would be wise
not to go so far off and miss the rendezvous time. We explored almost half way up the ascent of
the Monastery and around the Roman ruins before making our way back to the
larger main corridor that led back to the Treasury and out to the exit.
After
eating a refreshing lunch at a restaurant with a great view, we had a long and
restful bus ride to Bozrah. Bozrah was
once an important Edomite city, surrounded on three sides with deep wadis,
giving the site a sort of desert peninsula shape. The drop from the city to the bottom of the
wadis was quite dramatic, and we discussed the significance of the sites’
strategic advantages. The tension that
existed between the kingdom of Edom and the kingdom of Judea was largely
focused on the territory of the Negev.
After the Babylonian exile, the Edomites were free to expand into the
Negev. In fact, several hundred years later
they appear in the New Testament, known as Idumeans, inhabiting the Shephelah;
some Idumeans even lived as far as Hebron.
The site of Bozrah was only slightly excavated and the overall
impression was a very desolate.
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