mausoleums were made, the remains of which still arrest the attention of the traveller: for, though the predomi- nant style of architecture is Egyptian, it is mixed with florid and overloaded Roman-Greek specimens, which are but slightly modified by the native artists. In the 4th century Petra is several times mentioned by Euse- bius and Jerome ; and in the Greek ecclesiastical Xotitirc of the 5th and Gth centuries it appears as the metropoli- tan see of the third Palestine (Reland, Palcest. p. 215, 217) ; the last named of the bishops is Theodorus, who was present at the Council of Jerusalem in A.D. 536 {Oi-iens Christ, iii, 725). From that time not the slight- est notice of Petra is to be found in any quarter; and as no trace of it as an inhabited site is to be met with in the Arabian writers, the probability seems to be that it was destroyed in some unrecorded incursion of the desert hordes, and was afterwards left unpeopled. It is true that Petra occurs in the writers of the aera of the Cru- sades; but they applied this name to Kerak. and thus introduced a confusion as to the true Petra which is not even now entirely removed. It was not until the re- ports concerning the wonderful remains in Wady Musa had been verified by Burckhardt that the latter travel- ler first ventured to assume the identity of the site with that of the ancient capital of Arabia Petraea. He ex- \ presses this opinion in a letter dated at Cairo, Sept. 12, , 1812, published in 1819, in the preface to his Travels in ' Nubia ; but. before its appearance the eminent geogra- ' pher Carl Ritter had suggested the same conclusion on | the strength of Seetzen's intimations {Erdkunde, ii, 217). Burckhardt's view was more amply developed in his Tram Is in Syria, p. 431, published in 1822. and received the high sanction of his editor, Col. Leake, who pro- duces in support of it all the arguments which have since been relied upon, namely, the agreement of the ancient descriptions with this site, and their inapplica- bility to Kerak ; the coincidence of the ancient specifi- cations of the distances of Petra from the Elanitic gulf and from the Dead Sea, which all point to Wady Musa, and not to Kerak ; that Josephus, Eusebius, and Jerome testify that the Mount Hor where Aaron died was in the vicinity of Petra; and that to this day the moun- tain which tradition and circumstances point out as the same still rears its lonely head above the vale of Wady Musa, while in all the district of Kerak there is not a single mountain which could in itself be regarded as Mount Hor; and even if there were, its position would be incompatible with the recorded journeying* of the Israelites (Leake's Preface to Burckhardt's Travels in Syria, p. vii-ix; Robinson's Palestine, ii, 57G-579, G53-659).
2. Description of the present Site.— -The ruined city lies in a narrow valley, surrounded by lofty and. for the most part, perfectly precipitous mountains. Those which form its southern limit are not so steep as to be impassable; and it is over these, or rather through
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RETRA
42
PETRA
them, along an abrupt and difficult ravine, that travellers from Sinai or Egypt usually wind their laborious way into the Bee t' magnifi- cent desolation. The ancient and mm-.- inter- esting entrance i- on the eastern Bide, through the deep narrow gorge called (he Sik, It is not easy to determine the precise limits ,.i the an- cient city, though the precipitous mountains by which the Bite is encompassed mark with perfect distinctness the boundaries beyond which ii never could have extended. I hese natural barriers seem to have constituted the real limits of the citj : and they give an extent of more than a mile in length, nearly from north to south, by a variable breadth of about half a mile. Several spurs from the surround- ing mountains encroach upon this aria: but, with inconsiderable exceptions, the « hole is tit for building on. The sides of the valley are walled ii|> by perpendicular rocks from lour hundred to six nr seven hundred feet high. The northern and southern harriers are neither bo lofty nor so steep, and they both admit the passage of camels. A great mans small recesses or side valleys open into the principal one. thus enlarging as well as varying almost
infinitely the outline. With only o r two
exceptions, however, they have no outlet, but come to a spei dy and abrupt termination among the overhanging dill'-, as precipitous as the natural bulwark that bounds the principal val- ley, including these irregularities, the whole circumference of Petra may he lour miles or more. The length of this irregular outline. though it gives no idea of tie- extent of the area within its embrace, is perhaps the Inst mens: ir.' of the extent of the excavations.
The valley of Wady Musa, which lea. I- to the ruins, in a general westerly direction, is about one hundred ami fifty feet broad at its entrance. ami is shut in by cliffs i f red sandstone, « hich gradually increase from a height of forty or fifty feet to two hundred or two hundred an fifty feet The valley gradually contracts tin at one spot it becomes only twelve feet broad, ami is so over- lapped by the perpendicular cliffs that the light of day is almost excluded. This is the ravine or Sik of Wady Musa, which extends, with many windings, tor a good English mile. This valley contains a wonderful necrop- olis hewn in the rocky walls. The tombs, which adjoin or surmount one another, exhibit now a front with' six Ionic columns, now with four slender pyramids, and by their mixture ol Creek. Roman, and < Iriental architect- ure remind the spectator of the remains found in the valley of Jehoshaphal near Jerusalem. The entrance of the ravine is Spanned by a bold arch, perhaps a tri- umphal one. with finely sculptured niches evidently in- tend d lor statue,-. This, like th her remains of