This month Kerri takes us to Petra, Jordan to marvel at the urban planning of one of the new Seven Wonders of the World.
As Indiana Jones famously stated in The Last Crusade, “Archaeology is the search for fact... not truth. If it's truth you're looking for, Dr. Tyree's philosophy class is right down the hall”. Indiana is the much like an urban economist – we both want to get to the hard facts about how an urban environment or society works, but he does his own stunts!! We are both interested in understanding how and why we live within the urban environment, what riches or treasures we can uncover in a community, what makes a community work, what can we learn and how we can apply this for the future. So in the footsteps of Indiana, this month’s Urban Excursion explores Petra, the Lost City, which famously featured in the 1989 movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, as well as in other more recent blockbusters such as Transformers, Revenge of the Fallen.
Nominated as one of the new Seven Wonders of the World on the 07/07/07, Petra is Jordan’s major tourist attraction, but was “lost” to the western world until 1812. Petra was an absolute highlight of our cruise from Barcelona to Dubai, and gauging by the number of the crew including the ship’s captain, disembarking from the ship to enjoy a daytrip to this awe inspiring ancient city, a treat was really in store for us.
The “truth” of Petra has been passed down through legends and stories for generations, and whilst archaeology has indeed provided us with some of the facts about the culture and evolution of this ancient city, much philosophical debate has surrounded the evolution of this city and its role in urban settlement.
Petra was established by the Nabataeans, a nomadic tribe in around the 6th Century BC and developed as a significant capital city for the Nabataeans and the centre of their caravan trade. Meaning rock in Arabic, Petra is quite literally a city carved into and out of the rock, accessed through a siq or natural split in the sandstone rock within the Wadi Araba, which stretches from the Dead Sea to the Gulf of Aqaba. It is quite impressive to walk the 2km or so trail through the siq and suddenly arrive at the Treasury, the famous temple and centrepiece of the rose city.
Hidden in the desert, the Nabataeans were necessarily innovative in their creation of this ancient city, developing unique natural cooling systems and bringing water into the desert; through the development of dams, cisterns and water conduits, the Nabaetaeans created an engineering marvel. Like planning for our modern cities, access to a reliable water source was central to Petra’s role as a thriving city. After the arrival of the Romans and then subjected to severe earthquakes which crippled the city’s water supplies, Petra was laid to waste and buried in the desert from which it had been hewn.
Today, Petra fascinates tourists as it once did the Romans who sought to explore and exploit the city’s riches. But unlike the other new Seven Wonders of the World such as the Great Wall of China, the Colosseum and the Taj Mahal, Petra (and the Machu Picchu site itself) retains a sense of exploration and discovery for visitors, without the clammer of persistent hawkers. (Urban Excursions has yet to tick off the remaining two New 7 wonders – Chicen itza in Mexico and Christ Redeemer in Brazil – watch this space!). Certainly there are a number of chain hotels in the township and the obligatory souvenir stores, retailing decorative sand displays etc, but this was all very low key. A few bedraggled children did try to sell tourists postcards, rocks or beads, but tourists were strongly discouraged from purchasing from them as part of the successful nation-wide program to increase literacy and school attendance.
At present, there are limited activities and facilities to cater for tourists wishing to extend their stay in the Petra area; an area which has experienced strong growth in tourism numbers, reportedly in excess of 62% between 2006 and 2008. Continued strong growth throughout 2009 and 2010 has fuelled ongoing debate as to the future sustainability of this world heritage site, including consideration of strategies such as regulating the number of visitors that can enter the site on a daily basis.
Whilst there is a call for an expansion of the range of activities and facilities to cater for tourists and to provide employment opportunities for the Wadi Musa community, like our own world heritage sites – Fraser Island, Kakadu, the Great Barrier Reef etc - there is a delicate balance between lovingly exploring Petra and loving it to death. The key, as always, is the effective management of economic, social and environmental outcomes.
Next month we continue our exploration of the new 7 Wonder of the World as Seema takes us to India and the Taj Mahal.
