The American Museum Journal 



Volume XVI 



MAY, 1916 



Number 5 



The Ruins of Ancient Petra 



By LEE GARXETT DAY and JOSEPH WOOD, JR. 



IT was in the fall of 1912 that a 

 Erench archivoh^gist, with whom 

 we had unearthed some of the old 

 Punic ruins at Dugga, in Tunisia, spoke 

 to us of the ruins of Petra and their 

 curious situation in the mountains of the 

 Arabian desert. The idea of seeing a 

 city so strange and so seldom visited 

 appealed to us, and accordingly we soon 

 accomplished the first stages of the 

 joiu'ney to Beyrout and Damascus. 



About four hundred miles below 

 Damascus lies the village of El Maan. 

 Here we alighted from a pilgrim train 

 and, with the aid of a Syrian interpreter, 

 Teep l)y name, made arrangements with 

 the kaimakam to go on to Petra. Orders 

 were given tliat very night, and after a 

 few hotu's' sleep we arose at three in the 

 morning to set out. 



Our caravan of soldiers and Bedotiin 

 horse boys, extra pack animals and the 

 ancient Teep, was soon under wa\', and 

 we started into the desert. The cold was 

 intense and there was a bitter wind 

 blowing dust in our faces. Above, a full 

 moon and brilliant stars shed a baleful 

 light on the dreary w^astes around us. 

 The only soimds to be heard were the 

 tread of feet and hoofs, and occasion- 

 ally the howl of a scavenger dog of Maan. 



About one o'clock, we entered a 

 limestone canon two miles from the 

 entrance of Petra itself. From this 

 point we saw for the first time the 

 mysterious red and purple complex in 



whose labyrinths lies the forgotten city. 

 As we approached the purple moun- 

 tains they presented an extraordinary ap- 

 pearance, for the soft sandstone has been 

 carved by rain and wind-blown sand into 

 grotesque shapes — gigantic mushrooms, 

 spires and domes. Toward this riot of 

 colorful forms we headed, winding in and 

 out among the outlying ridges. 



The early history of the ancient city 

 of Petra is a matter of conjectin-e only, 

 and it is not even known with certainty 

 when that history began. From its 

 impregnable situation, protected on all 

 sides by practically unscalable moim- 

 tains, through which but one narrow 

 gorge makes a feasible means of entrance, 

 it seems probable that Petra was inhab- 

 ited from very early times. 



The steep and lofty moimtains among 

 which it lies flank the eastern side of the 

 Arabah, or El Ghor, a valley in Arabia 

 leading from the southern extremity of 

 the Red Sea to the northern end of the 

 Gulf of Akabah. The biblical Mount 

 Seir, of which Mount Hor is a peak, is 

 the principal mountain of the range, and 

 travelers approach Petra by a track 

 which leads around ]Moimt Hor and 

 enters the plain of Petra from the south. 



The Horites of the Bible may or may 

 not have had a city on this site, but 

 Petra was almost certainly the capital 

 city of the Edomites, and Edom as a 

 nation is recognized as older than Israel. 



The first recorded inhabitants of 



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