Petra (ancient city)

(formerly Rekem, or Selah, in Jordan)

A city east of the Wadi Arabah, south of the Dead Sea. `It lies,’ as Strabo observed, `on a site which is otherwise smooth and level, but is fortified all round by a rock [which is the meaning of Selah]; the outside parts of the site being precipitous and sheer, and the inside parts having springs in abundance.’ The only access is by narrow gorges. Formerly the capital of the Edomites, and then a possession of the north Arabian kings of Dedan (Kebar)—whose expansion into the area drove the Edomites away—Petra became the capital of another Arabian kingdom, that of the Nabataeans (qv, by 312 BC), maintaining a flourishing caravan trade, which was maintained after their monarchs became clients of Rome.

Germanicus, nephew of the emperor Tiberius, presumably visited the city in AD 18, when we hear of a banquet given in his honor by the Nabataean king. Before the end of the first century, however, Petra had lost much of its commercial importance, owing to the exploitation of sea routes to Egyptian ports and the discovery of the monsoon in the Indian Ocean; and when Trajan annexed the Nabataean state in 106, he established the capital of his new province of Arabia (112) at Bostra (Busra Eski Sham) instead. However, Petra, adopting the additional name Hadriana in honor of a visit by Hadrian (130/31), remained an important intellectual and religious center. During the reign of Gallienus (253–68), according to Suidas, it became the capital of the province of Palaestina Tertia or Salutaris, and a local philosopher and physician of the late fifth century are mentioned by the same source.

Petra's elegant, eleborately decorated pink sandstone buildings (`a rose-red city half as old as time’ [J.W. Burgon]) are among the most impressive monuments of the ancient world. At the end of the Siq gorge, which is a mile and a half long and at some points only ten feet wide, appears the spectacular façade of what is known as the Khazneh (treasury), cut out of the rock; it resembles a Roman temple or palace, but contains a huge cross-shaped chamber which suggests that it should be regarded, instead, as the mausoleum of a Nabataean king, probably Aretas IV (9 BC–AD 39). Near the end of the valley, into which the gorge opens, the largest of Petra's theaters is to be seen; constructed during the second century, it has now been cleared, and provides significant information regarding the technological methods of the region during that period. Beyond the theater are the remains of the city itself, constructed on a series of hill terraces above a Roman colonnaded main street, which followed the course of a river bed (the Wadi Musa) and was spanned by a triple archway. South of the arch can be seen the ruins of the principal temple (the Qasr Firaun), dedicated to the most important Nabataean god, Dusares (Dhu Shares, identified with Dionysus); it contained, according to Suidas, a gold-plated sacred stone or baetyl, and its great monumental approach, on a rising series of walled platforms, has now been cleared and opened up. Nearby, a shrine of the god's consort Atargatis (Al-Uzza) has also been excavated, and farther to the west lies a further sacred precinct containing a temple (the Qasr el-Bint) that can be dated to the later first century BC.

The surrounding hills contain traces of Nabataean houses, but are chiefly notable for a remarkable number of rock tombs and shrines connected with the cult of the dead, including the burial places of the Nabataean dynasty. The façades of these structures range in style from various blends of Egyptian, Assyrian, Parthian and Greek motifs to sophisticated designs of a purely Greco-Roman character. One such tomb of the first century AD, shaped like a tall Doric urn, was converted into a Christian cathedral in 446.

See map ofSyria.