Petra royal kingdom of Jordan
Petra the capital of the Nabataeans and the center of their caravan trade. Enclosed by towering rocks and watered by a perennial stream, Petra not only possessed the advantages of a fortress, but controlled the main commercial routes which passed through it to Gaza in the west, to Bosra and Damascus in the north, to Aqaba and Leuce Come on the Red Sea, and across the desert to the Persian Gulf. The ability of the Nabataeans to control the water supply led to the rise of the desert city, creating an artificial oasis. The area is visited by flash floods and archaeological evidence demonstrates the Nabataeans controlled these floods by the use of dams, cisterns and water conduits. These innovations stored water for prolonged periods of drought, and enabled the city to prosper. Petra is usually identified with Sela which means a rock,or as "the cleft in the rock", referring to its entrance. Rekem was the native name and Rekem appears in the Dead Sea Scrolls[11] as a prominent Edom site .The only place in Petra where the name "Rekem" occurs was in the rock wall of the Wadi Musa opposite the entrance to the Siq. About twenty years ago the Jordanians built a bridge over the wadi and this inscription was buried beneath tons of concrete. Petra declined rapidly under Roman rule, . In 363 an earthquake destroyed many buildings, and crippled the vital water management system. The ruins of Petra were an object of curiosity in the Middle Ages and were visited by Sultan Baibars of Egypt towards the end of the 13th century. The first European to describe them was Johann Ludwig Burckhardt in 1812.
Size: 6144px × 4081px
Location: Petra Royal Kingdom Of Jordan
Photo credit: © moris kushelevitch / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
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Keywords: capital, caravan, conservation, formations, heritage, jordan, kingdom, nabatean, nabateans, petra, rekem, route, royal, sandstone, siq, site, spice, trade, treasury, unesco, water, world
