The Forum

Petracita

The cover of your July/August 2000 issue, showing a camel and its rider on Petra’s colonnaded street, could easily have been one that we took during our visit in August 1999.

Joseph Basile’s “When People Lived at Petra” does not mention, however, that there is another Petra, a miniature version, about 3 miles north of the ancient city. Known as Siq al-Barid, Little Petra is not crowded and admission is free. It has tomb-temples, an extensive water system based on rain-capturing cisterns, and a fascinating painted house reached by climbing stairs obviously smoothed by thousands of ancient feet.

The Grandeur that Was Petra

Since the Nabataeans enjoyed regular, frequent trade and cultural exchange with the Hellenistic kingdoms of the Seleucids and Ptolemies (as well as with the Hellenized Jewish Hasmonean Kingdom in Jerusalem), it is easy to understand that the most impressive edifices of Petra—the Royal Tombs, el Deir and the magnificent Khasneh (Treasury)—reflect the glories of such urban centers as Alexandria and Antioch.