Petra, Part 1

This is going to be a long one, folks. You might want to get comfortable.

                There are many places in the world, remnants of civilizations past, which stir the soul and excite the imagination. Petra, described by John William Burgon as “A rose-red city half as old as time,” is one such place. It’s appeared in movies (some better than others) and artwork for ages, a popular tourist destination that is definitely not for the faint of heart or weak of lung.

                Last weekend, I got to explore it for myself.

                About 100 metres from the gate is the Petra Moon Hotel. It’s a gorgeous establishment with amazing rooms, a sumptuous breakfast, dynamite service, and very, very cozy beds. They’re just finishing renovations, so our group of 21 got to be the first to try out the new rooms, sleeping in beds never before slept in, complete with down-filled duvets. It was glorious. (You wouldn’t think duvets would be comfortable in a desert country, but A/C is the great equalizer.)

                Next morning, just before 7:00, we headed for the gates, passing by a string of souvenir booths that had not yet opened. Their prey would not be at the watering hole this early in the day. Once inside, we made our way down a stretch of gravel path, watching men prepare some of Petra’s horses for the coming day of work. The handiwork of the Nabataeans was already in evidence, their tombs carved into the sandstone cliffs:

                Further down the trail, we entered the Siq, the high-walled passage leading into Petra. The sandstone was spectacular, colours and patterns and shapes flowing around us. Along the sides of the Siq could be seen the remnants of water channels; the Nabataeans were masters of collecting and conserving water. Here and there, small trees had taken root in crevices, clinging to the sandstone cliff face and reaching for the sun:

                The Treasury came into view at the end of the Siq as if revealed from behind stone curtains. Carved into the cliff, it is probably the best known of Petra’s monuments—it has been shot at by treasure-hunters, hidden the Holy Grail, and caused archaeologists everywhere to curse Michael Bay.

                Not to disappoint anyone, but not only is the Holy Grail not in there, but neither is anything else. It’s rather plain and empty on the inside. The outside, however, is spectacular.

                A few feet away stood the first of many men eager to take us for camel rides. It was a bit too early for that for my taste, but I wanted to get the requisite following-in-grandpa’s-footsteps photo, so I pulled my courage together and got on:

Yes, that look is somewhere between delighted, terrified, and trying to look at several people with cameras at once. The camel wasn’t the only one feeling that way!

                From there, we headed up to the High Place of Sacrifice. When they call it the High Place, they’re really not kidding. I have never climbed so many stairs in my life. It’s one of the highest points in Petra, taking about an hour to reach the top. The stairs are worn in many places and decidedly perilous in others. The view, however, is spectacular.

                The view from the top, while terrifying, is equally breathtaking.

                The climb down was pretty amazing as well, not to mention heart-stopping. Up is not so bad, since little looking down is required. Down, however, requires a great deal of looking down. Most of you probably know that I have a nigh-paralyzing fear of heights. I can’t so much as go up a stepladder without triggering a fight-or-flight response. Going up and coming back down was a challenge to myself, trying to overcome that. I hate being afraid of things.

                Some images from the way back down:

There were quite a few cats living at the site, all of them tiny and narrow and desperate for petting.

   

             At the foot of the stairs was The Tomb of the Roman Soldier.

             It sent a shiver down my spine. The worn and broken carvings still show elements of their strength and glory, reminding all who pass that the men who once lay within were lions in their own right, deserving of respect and remembrance.

     Stay tuned for part 2!

Halas business!

"Halas business!" That cry was a sign to everyone that the workday was over.

Today was the last day of excavation. Hopefully I’ll have a bit more time this week to catch up on writing this. 

It's been long, dirty, maddening, and fun. I've learned a lot, some of it about archaeology, some of it about myself. More on that later, though. First, Petra.

The Bedouin

                Students are a nigh-endless font of labour, but there just aren’t enough of us here to dig and haul away all the dirt at a reasonable pace. For that task, we have some of the local Bedouin. 

                In Jordan, Bedouin form up to 40% of the population. Within the cities, open spaces are left where they can camp and graze their livestock. Out in the country, they have semi-permanent settlements, often composed of tents and cobbled-together shacks made from whatever was available. It is not uncommon to see a Bedouin herder walking his goats across the street to get to better grazing land. They are a tribal people, and things can get sticky if the site employs too many from one family and not enough from another.

                The Bedouin who help out at the dig site have been working with the team for quite some years. Only the men come up to haul guffahs (baskets made from bolted-together sections of tire) but both boys and girls are allowed up on the tell to bring their fathers, brothers, and cousins second breakfast around 9:00 in the morning.

                Despite the language barrier—most of us know little Arabic, and they know little English—they manage to make wisecracks, banter with the men, ask the women if they have babies yet (and if not, would they like some?) and praise or chastise us for properly filling or overfilling the guffahs. The little Arabic we know allows us to communicate in a similar manner, and humour makes it through the cracks. There are joking requests to toss pottery (or other archaeologists) into the wadi ("fukar al wadi" or "Steve al wadi," for instance), but they know better than to toss the pottery. The jury is still out on the archaeologists. 

      Sometimes, language isn't needed at all; one of them was building a rather phallic monument this afternoon, using objects found in a nearby square.

                Our square’s Bedouin is Mifla (on the right, seen here with one of his relations). Adults and children alike love having their picture taken.

                One of the families has hereditary near-deafness, and so a type of sign-language has developed among the Bedouin near the tell. (At the time of writing, I am unaware of whether or not it is used outside that area.)  One fellow doesn‘t seem to care that he can hardly hear himself, let alone anything else. He takes the goats out onto a low hill, and shouts incoherently at the top of his lungs. We have no idea what he’s up to, but he seems to be having a great time.

                The braying of their donkeys and the raucous crowing of the roosters makes the morning a lively place at the tell as the sun rises. The goats don’t usually get obnoxious until a more reasonable hour.

                The camp is a ramshackle collection of livestock, mismatched tents, and buildings, but it has a single modern amenity: spotted by one of my co-excavators, there is, sitting on a stack of rocks next to one of the tents, a satellite dish.

Weekend trip #3: Central Jordan

                We visited three sites in Central Jordan today: Umm Ar Rasas, Wadi Mujib, and Dhiban.

                Umm Ar Rasas is the site of an ancient fortress and of at least sixteen churches, and contains Roman, Byzantine, and Muslim ruins. The site is massive, full of crumbling walls outlived by their arches, with church floors covered in sand and plastic to protect the mosaics beneath as restoration work creeps on.

                They were rather fond of their plaster detailing as well:

                Fascinating as the fortress was, neither it nor anything else seen on our tours thus far could compare to Wadi Mujib. It has been called Jordan’s Grand Canyon, and it is every bit deserving of the title.

                The pictures do not do justice to the majesty of the wadi. 

                After that, most of my photos of Dhiban, the site where the Mesha Stela was found, would be anticlimactic. That being the case, have some wild puppies in the ruins of one of Moab’s greatest cities:

                Finally, as promised, the hats:

City/City

Madaba is a beautiful place. The architecture, as I have mentioned before, is a blend of old and new, state-of-the-art banks and hotels next to quaint, ancient-looking houses. Surrounding walls are often topped with an Umayyad half-herringbone pattern of brickwork, a pattern that has stayed in use for hundreds of years.

The people are friendly, the streets managing a pace between meandering and bustling. Children wave and call out greetings from the balconies of flat-roofed homes; olive and fig trees spill over the tops of walls, and the countryside is full of young olive groves.  Bedouin tents sit side by side with internet cafes and restaurants, and nobody bats an eye at a man walking his goats next to the mechanic’s shop.

Our hotel is well-ventilated, pleasantly-appointed, with a sizable water tank on the roof (we’ve only run out twice since we’ve been here). The patio has a massive, ancient grapevine thicker around than my forearm, olive trees, and a fig tree off to one side. 

                The sun is bright, the sky cloudless (usually), and the wind brisk enough to take away sweat before people have a chance to become sticky. It is a beautiful city, and a gorgeous, rolling landscape with breathtaking vistas.

                But wait.

                Madaba is an ugly place. The windows of every building are barred, often above the second floor, even, and the shops, when closed, are shuttered with top-rolling garage doors. The streets are filled with trash; in the countryside, it is not unusual to see the wire fences of young olive groves plastered with errant plastic bags, a shock of black and white against the earth. In the early morning, garbage can sometimes be seen burning in its metal bins by the side of the road. 

The people know that we’re foreign and probably here with money, and will be as friendly as needed to get it. Children wave from the balconies of homes that are surrounded by six-foot-high walls, some of which are topped with barbed wire. 

The rampant poverty that affects so many is visible not so much in the tent cities of the Bedouin at the edges of town, but in the back-alley shacks roofed with whatever was handy, held down by rocks; it is visible in the rusted wire fencing, the broken windows, the laundry splayed across that same fence to dry. The smell of open sewer haunts these places, and not everyone has the luxury of a water tank, let alone one big enough to give the illusion that it’s running.

The sun is merciless, and it will suck the moisture from your flesh before you know it has left, the wind carrying away the sweat that might otherwise warn you of dehydration. Everything here, foliage included, is dangerous, poisonous, venomous, or capable of killing you in some other way. It is an unforgiving landscape with steep, treacherous hills and canyons as hazardous as they are beautiful.

There are two sides to every coin.

Thought for food

Clawfoot was right: sometimes the tastiest things come from a cart (or stand) at the side of the road. 

            There are two shwarma places within about five minutes of the hotel. They are both delicious, though the closer of the two is better. 

For those unfamiliar with shwarma, it goes something like this: Beef being a rarity here, most of the shwarma available is either chicken or lamb, usually chicken. The meat, whatever critter it comes from, is on a massive spit, liberally seasoned with the establishment’s own blend of spices. It cooks slowly all day, and the meat is sliced off thinly as needed. Tzatziki sauce, or a local variant, is spread on a thin, tortilla-like bread. Meat is added, and, depending on where you go, pickled [insert vegetables here]. It is then wrapped up and tossed on a grill, where it is crisped on both sides. It is incredibly delicious, and ridiculously cheap, costing around 1JD (equivalent to about $1.50 CDN).

Digging is going well; we should be getting into the really interesting stuff this week. Our north balk is down, rooms are clear and level. Time now, then, to boldly go where no man has gone for about 2000 years, give or take.

 This is going to be a wild ride.