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Petra's Great Temple | Summer 2000 |
by Elizabeth J. Himelfarb |
Nabataeans | Photo Essay | Great Temple | Temple Plan | Who's Who | Virtual Petra | Surround Sound | Mystery Objects | Face Off | Star Spangled Banner | Bulletin Board | Map
![]() Nineteenth-century watercolor of Al Khazneh, the treasury, by David Roberts |
The Dead Sea clear and blue on my right, sandy peaks on my left, I wind my way through Jordan's rocky desert. There, for two weeks, I joined the group of Brown University archaeologists excavating the Great Temple of the ancient Nabataeans in the heart of the lost city of Petra. Rising with the sun, we stole the coolest hours of the day, working under makeshift tents, stopping once for breakfast of watermelon, eggs, and hummus and twice more for sugary, hot tea from a fire-blackened kettle. Ever-wary of scorpions, we inched our way closer to the past. The Bedouins, who do most of the digging while the archaeologists make careful notes, quickly became our friends. Many of them grew up in Petra's caves. They love this place and teach its secrets: the medicinal uses of herbs, the easiest route down a mountain, how to treat a scorpion bite. Together, we learned about the mysterious Nabataeans who were here before they were. |
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Visit the Brown excavation of the Great Temple online at
www.brown.edu/Departments/Anthropology/Petra/.
To purchase Petra: Great Temple--the thick, heavily illustrated volume chronicling the history of the Great Temple, its rediscovery, and the ongoing attempt to understand it--or the accompanying CD full of images and data bases, write to: |
![]() © 2000 by the Archaeological Institute of America archive.archaeology.org/online/features/jordan/ |
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