Cardo Maximus collonaded Street - The Great Temple with its Temenos Gate and Lower Temenos - Basin Museum of Petra - the way to The Ad- Dayr (the Monastery)
The 25th of January 2011
Before having had lunch we still had to walk down the Cardo Maximus sided by mountain ranges leading to the Temenos Gate, that marks the end of the commercial sector of Petra and the late first century BC Great Temple, that stands 25 metres above street level. The limestone sculpted elephant headed capitals on tumbled columns to be seen at the Lower Temenos were particularly impressive because of the detailed carving, though many of them had been severely eroded, but also impressive were the hexagonal paved stones.
Cardo Maximus (Left). The Temenos Gate (Right)
The hexagonal pavement stones (Left). The sculpted elephant head capitals (Right).
The small archeological Museum located close to the restaurant might have been visited before or after lunch, but most of us, (if not all) chose to visit it before and the fact that we managed to see the archeological artifacts in just a few minutes did not diminish its interest or the interest of some of the pieces being exhibited.
The whole afternoon would be spent exploring the whole remaining area on our own, so soon after lunch we took to the "long" route up to the Monastery and as the steps dragged on and the climb became more difficult (because it did at times), particularly if we looked down at some ravines, we came across some interesting people (Phillipino women visitors, bedouine vendors selling their handicraft pieces in small tents and stalls located along the way) and had the chance of seeing some amazing views.
Little Abdulah
The ad-Dayr emerged on a wide flat plateau as we looked right ... and we were speechless ...
No comments:
Post a Comment