Match me such Marvel
I’ve never been big on poetry, but my time in Jordan is remembered not by a collection of atmospheric photos and hastily scribbled travel notes but by the torn and tattered copy of a poem by John Burgon called “Petra”. The words still as arousing and confronting as they were when I first heard them whilst standing in front of “The Treasury”.
“It seems no work of Man’s creative hand,
by labour wrought as wavering fancy planned;”
It was one of most magnificent cities of its time. Cradled in the “Valley of Moses” and hidden in one of the driest places on earth within a canyon of red, yellow and blue limestone. An ancient version of Las Vegas, thriving in the time of Jesus and a place of conspicuous consumption featuring royal palaces, fountains and a lush green vegetation fed by an ingenious system of aqueducts and cisterns that captured and tamed the precious desert water. An architectural cacophony of Greek, Hellenistic and Egyptian styles, the columns and portals created a wonderland of coloured stone.
Unfortunately the ancient Nabataeans were forced to abandon their capital after a series of ruinous earthquakes and it lay forgotten and undiscovered for 1000 years until rediscovered by the West in 1812. It was the city that time forgot. Its entrance, a crack in the cliff face invisible to all passing travellers unless viewed from a certain angle.
Very few are left today of the original 30,000 inhabitants save a small group of 12 Bedouin families who eke out a meagre existence with their goats and donkeys in amongst the ancient architecture. The timeless echoing of the animals’ tin bells bounced off the limestone walls and reverberated around the entrances to the 800 odd tombs, amphitheatres and towers carved into the 70 meter high cliff faces.
The most famous building in Petra is the Treasury, made famous by Indiana Jones with its striking facade no less confronting than in the movie. It is the first thing that you see when you come out of the darkness of the “Siq” and through the great fissure in the rock into the city’s entranceway where the unfiltered sunlight makes the rose coloured frontage gleam and glow. The elaborately carved edifice surrounded by mythological deities and a classic pediment supported by tall columns is topped by an urn that shows the countless scars of gunshots. Rumoured to contain a treasure, its pock-marks proving…it doesn’t.
“…but from the rock as if by magic grown,
eternal, silent, beautiful, alone”
Most of the buildings on the floor of the valley can be viewed from the cliffs surrounding the Treasury. While our group meandered their way past the obsolete 6000 seat theatre and out towards the roman mosaic floors and temples in the distance, a couple of us escaped from the confines of the tour and climbed the 1000 steps up the escarpment overlooking the area. We shimmied on our bellies to lean out over the cliff to view from above, a very different perspective of the oft seen buildings. This was before we heard that half a dozen tourists a year perish doing just that.
On top of the cliff plateau was a simple stone hut that seemed incongruous considering the grand surroundings. Belonging to one of the few inhabitants left in the valley, the old Bedouin dweller invited us to sit and admire the view while he made us coffee over an open fire. A thick grainy blend, so strong and thick your spoon stood up in the metal mug. After our coffee he took us off-the-beaten-track to show us a tomb with carvings so sharp and clear they could have been carved the day before. Inside, his flock of goats rested from the heat of the strong desert sun.
By the time we clambered down the cliff it was dusk and there was a special event for our party being prepared at the base of the Treasury. Hundreds of candles and torches were set up along its base to create an ethereal glow on the limestone around us. The flickering light making the shadows and figures carved in the rock, come to life and dance. Whilst sitting and drinking in the cool of the desert evening, Burgon’s poetic monologue was delivered to us and the canyon seemed to take on just that bit more magic and mystery…
“Match me such marvel save in Eastern clime,
a rose red city half as old as time”.
And we think a 100 year old villa in Ponsonby is old.
Petra
It seems no work of Man's creative hand,
by labour wrought as wavering fancy planned;
- But from the rock as if by magic grown,
eternal, silent, beautiful, alone!
- Not virgin-white like that old Doric shrine,
where erst Athena held her rites divine;
- Not saintly-grey, like many a minster fane,
that crowns the hill and consecrates the plain;
- But rose-red as if the blush of dawn,
that first beheld them were not yet withdrawn;
- The hues of youth upon a brow of woe,
which Man deemed old two thousand years ago,
- match me such marvel save in Eastern clime,
a rose-red city half as old as time.
John Burgon 1845
0 Yorumlar