RP191 The Rose City

 RP191 The Rose City

Imagine walking through a narrow canyon in the desert, with steep rock walls on either side. You turn a corner and suddenly come face-to-face with an enormous building carved directly into the stone! Welcome to the ancient city of Petra.

Petra is located in the country of Jordan in the Middle East, and was already famous 2,000 years ago. The city was once an important location for trade. Many people had to pass through the area while carrying supplies between the West and the East. The citizens of Petra were especially good at storing water. This allowed their city to become prosperous even in one of the driest deserts in the world.

The reason Petra is so widely admired is its incredible buildings. The people who lived there carved thousands of structures, including temples, theaters, houses, and halls, directly into the surrounding rocks. Even more impressive is the fact that they did all of this work by hand! They did not have any of the power tools we would rely on today. The pink color of the stone buildings is especially beautiful, and gives Petra its nickname, the Rose City.

A huge earthquake in the year AD 363 put an end to Petra's strength and importance in trade. The city was mostly abandoned and forgotten over the following centuries, with just a few local tribes continuing to live there. However, in the early 1800s a Swiss explorer named Johann Burckhardt wrote about his visit. People from Europe and the rest of the world became curious about this mysterious place. Today Petra is a World Heritage Site, with half a million tourists coming every year! The Rose City has once again been placed on the map.