PETRA

Arriving at
Petra

Walk
In

The
Siq

The Small
Siq

Treasury

Street of
Facades

Water
Works

The
Theater

The Royal
Tombs

High
Place

Colonnade
Street

Great
Temple

Temple of Al
Uzza

Temple of
Dushares

Museum

Dier

Habis

Biera

City of
Board Games

Snake
Monumnet

Sabara
Suburb

City
Walls/Map

Al
Beidha

Churches

Kubtha High
Place

Wadi
Nmeir

Small
Delights

The
Bedul

Petra
Today

Petra
Park

The Petra Archeological Park

In 1993, Jordan set aside a hundred odd square miles
of rugged canyon country as a national park. This park not only
contains the ancient city of Petra with it's priceless monuments,
but all through the park are steep walled canyons with old caravan
roads that once moved exotic eastern goods to the Egyptian, Greek
and Roman Empires.

A plan for safeguarding Petra and its
surroundings
Reprinted with permission from Heritage
Newsletter, English Version No. 2, June 1993

In 1991, UNESCO Director-General Federico Mayor responded favorably to
a request emanating from the highest level in Jordan for help with regard
to the site of Petra, inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1985. For
several years, even before its inscription on the List, Petra had
benefited from international co-operation. During the period 1960 to 1970,
studies were carried out by the World Bank, in collaboration with experts
from UNESCO, with a view to establishing a new residential areAto house
the peoples living in tombs dating back to the Nabatacan era and carved in
the rose-red rock of Petra.

The French National Geographic Institute (IGN), under contract to
UNESCO, had also made a number of photogrammetric surveys and restoration
missions had been sent to PetrAto try to consolidate the stucco
decorations adorning the Qasr Al Bint, one of the principal monuments of
the site.

In 1985, UNESCO had taken part in a seminar on Petra and the
caravan-route cities organized jointly by the Jordanian Department of
Antiquities and a group known as LIMC (Lexique Iconographique de la
Mythologie Classique). More recently UNESCO financed the scaffolding
erected for the restoration of the Palace Tomb.

Petra, however, had become one of the favorite destinations of tourists
visiting Jordan and the Holy Land and ad hoc restoration work was no
longer enough. The nature and complexity of the problems arising were
considered to be suffi- ciently important for UNESCO to give further
consideration to Jordanian concern about the site as expressed in letters
addressed to Mr. Mayor by Her Majesty Queen Noor.

It was evident that Petra, the ancient capital of the Nabataeans, was
facing inevitable further deterioration if an overall safe- guarding plan
was not rapidly set in motion.

In December 1991, a mission was sent to Jordan to identify the problems
and to suggest projects to remedy them. This was followed by the despatch
of a multidisciplinary group of experts which stayed in Petra from 24th
October to 24th November 1992.

This mission consisted of an architect/coordinator, Atown-planner with
specialist knowledge of problems of Saharan hydrology, an expert in
ecology and the management of national parks, a geomorphologist, two
experts on cultural tourism and touristic engineering, an anthropologist
and an archaeologist with specialized knowledge of Petra.

Following completion of their mission, the members of the UNESCO team
were received by their Majesties King Hussein of Jordan and Queen Noor to
whom they presented the broad lines of action they proposed for the
elaboration of a master plan covering the whole Petra region. Details of
the analysis made and conclusions reached by the experts were laid out in
Atwo-hundred-page report which was sent to UNESCO for reproduction in
April 1993. A first working copy had already been sent, in March 1993, to
the Jordanian authorities.

Like all visitors, the experts saw Petra as an archaeologically
fascinating city, unique both in its geographical situation and in the
quality of its natural environment.

Inhabited since Neolithic times, Petra entered its golden age when the
Nabatacans chose this site to be the royal scat of king Aretas in the
second century BC. From that time onwards, for several centuries, Petra
played a dominant role, flourishing as an economic and religious centre
and as a sacred funerary city.

Scattered around the city are hundreds of tombs and funerary vaults,
carved out of the rock and adorned with sculptures. The city also has its
share of civic buildings for it was once a major cross-roads for the
caravan routes that led to Sinai, the Red Sea, the Dead Sea, Egypt and
Syria.

The climate, which appears to have changed little since ancient times,
impelled the inhabitants to construct ingenious systems, veritable works
of art, to control the water that nature dispensed with a parsimonious
hand. Annual precipitation in the area averages between 50 and 250
millimeters a year, an amount characteristic of semi-desertic regions.
These climatological conditions, combined with the abandonment of the
ancient system of dams and irrigation channels has been one of the causes
of erosion of the soil and of the amplitude of the flooding when the area
is at times subjected to torrential rain. Access to the site of Petra is
through the narrow, two-kilometre-long Siq gorge, where, in April 1963, a
group of tourists was carried away by floodwater.

Two bodies, Electricité de France and SPOT Image, have offered to study
the hydrological conditions and to supply the information which will
enable the ancient system of dams and channels to be restored to use.

The monuments of Petra are under several forms of attack, not least
from erosion by:

the wind which carries sand particles from the crumbling sandstone rock
and which corrodes the lower sections of the facades of the tombs and
funerary vaults: the water which infiltrates into the rock by capillary
action and enables vegetation to grow in the interstices and to cause
fracturing of the rock or even rock fall.

Nature, however, is not the only aggressor; human activities also play
a preponderant role in the deterioration of the site.

The integrity and conservation of the site are seriously threatened by
the uncontrolled flow of tourists and the lucrative sideline activities
this engenders.

The first thing that strikes the visitor on arrival at Wadi Musa, a
village through which one passes to reach the archaeological site, is the
clear evidence of uncontrolled urban development.

Large numbers of hotels have sprung up, one of them located within an
areAthat should be designated as a "no building" zone. Recent
archaeological research shows that many vestiges of the ancient site have
still to be uncovered in the area stretching from the existing site up to
and including parts of the village of Wadi Musa, which, because of the
tourist influx, is rapidly developing into a bustling small town.

One of the most lucrative activities is the provision of horse and
camel rides to give tourists access to the ancient ruins. Exotic and
attractive as this may seem to tourists, the dust raised by the animals
becomes encrusted on the flanks of the Siq gorge and damages the excavated
ruins.

The pervasive smell from animal dropping is also most disagreeable.

On emerging from the gorge and reaching the archaeological site itself,
the visitor finds the path strewn with stalls selling tourist souvenirs.
The vast number of these rudimentary, temporary stalls seriously disturbs
the harmony of the site. Moreover, the pitches are shared out among the
various tribes living in the area and any re-allocation would have to and
equitable. This is why the master plan envisages Along-term strategy aimed
at involving the local population authorities concerned very closely
elaboration of a management plan the site.

An initial solution could be the creation a National Park within which
zone be selected for specific purposes. S Park would be administered by a
body having sufficiently broad responsibility management autonomy to
enable resolve the special problems peculiar to Petra.

The authors of the report put for number of proposals for action
relating to the training of conservation personnel, protection against
flooding, the restoration of the principal monuments (such as the Qasr Al
Bint), the installation of a sign system, control of the flow of tourists
and general supervision of the site.

It is to be hoped that the report will favour both with the Jordanian
author and with potential financial backers will be asked to support the
implementation of the proposed programme.

Nothing short of a joint effort by Jordan and the international
community will suffice to ensure the safeguard of PetrAthe delight of
future generations.

The World Heritage Newsletter is published by the UNESCO World
Heritage Centre, 7 place de Fontenoy, 75352 Paris 07 SP, FRANCE. Fax:
+33.1 45.68.55.70.
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This issue was edited by
Julie Hage and Peter Stott, with the editorial assistance of Sarah Titchen
and Laurence Lissac.
English-French translation: Sabine de
Valence.
Printed by UNESCO on recycled paper. ISSN: 1020-0614

Permission to Republish

"A plan for safeguarding Petra and its
surroundings", was published in the World Heritage Newsletter, issue
English Version No. 2, June 1993. It is reprinted courtesy of the
UNESCO World Heritage Centre. The World Heritage Newsletter is a free,
4-page, bi-monthly report on the latest events and activities linked to
the preservation of World Heritage. Published in French and in English
and available in three versions by subscription:

Print version-write to the UNESCO World Heritage
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