7 (Seven) Wonders of the World-Petra-Jordan

Petra in Jordan is probably the least recognised of the 7 Wonders of the World by name but is extremely well known from the movie starring Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones. Indian Jones and the Last Crusade.

This wonder of the world is an amazing cultural find which was lost util the 18th century and has been archealogically restored to some of its former glory.The word Petra stems from Greek and means "Rock" which is quite significant considering that the city of Petra is built primarily from sandstone into the face of a stretch of cliffs. The city was built by a civilisation called the Nabataeans who were a trading nation and inhabited the section of Peru located halfway between the Red Sea and the Dead Sea.

This meant that the Nabataeans were able to secure the trade routes between the two ports with ease and were highly proficient at maintaining order to the area through the use of the Petra city as the capital of Peru at the time.

You need to imagine what it must have been like to obtain water to survive and host a city of about 20 thousand inhabitants in some of the most dryist and arid countryside known to man. With neighbours such as Syria, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, it became evident to archeaologists that the fundamental establishment of the city of Petra between the first century BCE and the third century was a combination of various eastern influences and thereafter influenced by the Greeks and three centuries of Roman rule.

They ingeniously carved the city into the rock face keeping it hidden from raids of enemy infantry soldiers and were able to house large numbers of military personnel if necessaary as well as secure their wares and families alike in safety.

The other Wonders of the World are currently recognised as follows

Click on the name in the list to read more about it.

The Great Wall of China

Chichen Itsa of Mexico

The Colosseum of Italy

The Great Pyramids of Giza/Gizeh in Egypt

The Taj Mahal of India

Machu Picchu Peru

 The Nabataeans seems very much similar in nature to the other ancient civilisations in their ability to provide solutions to the problems they encountered in establishing their network of city infrastructure. This is evident in their sucees in creating a labyrinth of drainage canals and water catchment areas in cistern formats to transport large quantities of water ( roughly 12 million gallons of fresh springwater) every day to Petra. This is the equivalent of our modern needs ofr 100000 people. Thats a massive feat in itself.

The ability to hide a city amongst 2 cliff faces with only a 20 foot span for access between them is amazing. The city was self sufficient and had trading areas, living quarters and even over 3000 tombs for their deceased. It seems incredible for the Nabataeans to have mastered the engineering of the water systems and aquaducts for air circulation and still have the genius of mind to work stone tools and masonry into the sandstone cliffs. Never mind the fact that they were expert traders in spices and material cloth.

Well I have to say that if the archeaologists hadnt re-discovered the lost city of Petra in the 1800's, we would have lost and inspirational story of a small 20000 something population who carved a sucessful trade route into basically a desert if you can call it that.

Petra was one of the richest cities in its era and this is clearly evident by the architecture and statues attributed to the multitude of nations that ever travelled through this ancient trading post.

If you enjoyed reading this article, please rate it up and possibly read one of the articles on the other 7 Wonders of the World.

Thanks Dale