Surrounded by orange-red rocks, the city was carved out of the sandstone rocks by the Nabateans about 2000 years ago. The desert city is actually a valley full of rock temples, rock dwellings, sacrificial sites, tombs and an amphitheatre. Petra<\/strong> Before its decline, it was a hub for many trade caravans for centuries, after which the city fell into oblivion for centuries, until in 1812 a Swiss explorer accidentally rediscovered the ruins.<\/p>\n The siq<\/strong> is the spectacular entrance to the ancient city, a long, narrow gorge with a canal that supplied the city with water. Walking between the high, inscription-decorated gorge, finally looms Al Khazneh<\/strong> , the world famous treasury. The unique funerary monument was carved from the rock before the beginning of the era.<\/p>\n Opposite the amphitheater are the carved tombs, where the kings of the Nabateans were buried. A nice walk of approx. takes you to another, almost deserted highlight, Al Dayr.<\/strong> This monastery, because of its height even more impressive than the treasury, originally served as a temple and was given its new function during the Byzantine era.<\/p>\n A little further on is a smaller version of Petra: Little Petra<\/strong> . Also at this village, accessible via the short Siq al Berid<\/strong> gorge, various temples, dwellings, tombs and canals have been carved out of the rock.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Ancient Desert City Surrounded by orange-red rocks, the city was carved out of the sandstone rocks by the Nabateans about 2000 years ago. The desert city is actually a valley full of rock temples, rock dwellings, sacrificial sites, tombs and an amphitheatre. Petra Before its decline, it was a hub for many trade caravans for…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":310,"featured_media":286093,"parent":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"country":[645],"highlight_category":[600],"continent_category":[651],"class_list":["post-229545","highlights","type-highlights","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","country-jordan","highlight_category-hoogtepunt-en","continent_category-middle-east"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.untamedtravelling.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/highlights\/229545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.untamedtravelling.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/highlights"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.untamedtravelling.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/highlights"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.untamedtravelling.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/310"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.untamedtravelling.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=229545"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/staging.untamedtravelling.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/highlights\/229545\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":239881,"href":"https:\/\/staging.untamedtravelling.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/highlights\/229545\/revisions\/239881"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.untamedtravelling.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/286093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.untamedtravelling.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"country","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.untamedtravelling.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/country?post=229545"},{"taxonomy":"highlight_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.untamedtravelling.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/highlight_category?post=229545"},{"taxonomy":"continent_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.untamedtravelling.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/continent_category?post=229545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}