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Talk:Naburimannu

Wikipedia Manual of Style: BC
Give me a break with these stupid B.C. or BC's, please. These are signs for civil or better Chrictian dates only. I don't know what is the right form to write here in. Do you have any international standard for that Mike? I think not. I found mostly periods within or perhaps I am already blind :-) I can write all dates in proleptic gregorian calendar if I want. How can you add days if you don't have a year 0? So don't speak by heart... --XJam 2 Tuesday [2002.03.19] (0)

In wikipedia the years A.D. are listed without any trailing abbreviation (100), while the years B.C. are listed as 100 BC with no periods. If you want the periods to show (which I prefer), you type [100 BC|100 B.C.]. MichaelTinkler

 * Yes Mike you are probably right. I've checked this out through wikipedia. So I shall follow your piece of advice to write dates before the year 1 as you prefer. Yes, you have also noticed my "bad" English in articles on Nabu-rimanni and Kidinu. You should also consider these are my translations from scratch and you're freely to correct them as much as you like but let the contents remains untouched at least in reasonable limits because I've spent a lot of time getting them together. --XJam 2 Tuesday [2002.03.19] (1st ed.)

MichaelTinkler
 * 1) the year thing is not my preference - the method of writing years before 1 without periods is Wikipedia. Typeset-English prefers periods, which is why we have to type them like [1 BC|1 B.C.].   My preference has nothing to do with it.
 * 2) On nomenclature, however, Michael is my preference. Please call me that.
 * 3) I'm revising your English to make it English. I'm not changing your astronomy (I changed one 'angulat' to 'angular' because I'm figured you mistyped an adjacent character). Trust me on that.

Van der Waerden
Is the "van der Waerden" to whom this article refers Bartel Leendert van der Waerden? If not, whom? In any event, it would be helpful to add a specific citation to van der Waerden's publication. —Finell (Talk) 01:52, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I got these citations from the book of Hermann Hunger and David Pingree: they quote papers and books on Babylonian astronomy by "van der Waerden, B.L." from 1940 to 1974; it looks like this is the mathematician mentioned in the Wikipedia article, but I find it odd that it does not mention anything of the apparently enduring and substantial work on early astronomy. I did not see the original papers.
 * Tom Peters 23:12, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Gotta be him. Bartel Leendert van der Waerden does mention his writing on science history, and an external link includes history of astronomy and ancient science among his writing topics. Finell (Talk) 19:54, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

VAT
To what source does VAT refer? —Finell (Talk) 04:46, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
 * VAT refers to the Vatican's collection of clay tablets (BM=British Museum etc.). Tom Peters 12:52, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks! Would it help to reference a guide to these citation forms, which are not familiar to the general reader? Is there one on Wikipedia that could be referenced? —Finell (Talk) 19:06, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I was mistaken. In Astronomical Cuneiform Textx, VAT is an abbreviation for Vorder-Asiatische Tontafelsammlung (Near-Asian Clay tablet collection) of the Staatliche Museen (National Musea) in Berlin. Tom Peters 22:38, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Neugebauer critisism
Does Neugebauer criticize Schnabel's interpretation of tersitu? —Finell (Talk) 04:51, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes. He writes skeptically on interpreting it in his History of Ancient Mathematical Astronomy part 2 IV A 4, 4.A "Schools and Astronomers" (pp. 611..12), and he quotes himself on tersitu for ACT pp.12..13 .  But his main issue with Schnabel was that the latter maintained that Kidinnu had discovered pecession; he reportedly wrote a paper against it in Journal of the American Oriental Society 70 pp.1..8 (1950). Tom Peters 23:47, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

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Amman

Amman (, ; عَمَّان, ) is the capital and the largest city of Jordan, and the country's economic, political, and cultural center. With a population of 4,061,150 as of 2021, Amman is Jordan's primate city and is the largest city in the Levant region, the fifth-largest city in the Arab world, and the tenth-largest metropolitan area in the Middle East.

The earliest evidence of settlement in Amman dates to the 8th millennium BC, in a Neolithic site known as 'Ain Ghazal, where the world's oldest statues of the human form have been unearthed. The city was known as Rabat Aman during the second millennium BC and served as the capital of the Ammonite Kingdom, centered at the Amman Citadel. In the 3rd century BC, the city was renamed Philadelphia and made a regional center of Hellenistic culture. Under Roman rule, Philadelphia was one of the ten Greco-Roman cities of the Decapolis. The Rashidun Caliphate conquered the city from the Byzantines in the 7th century AD, and renamed it Amman. Throughout most of the Islamic era, the city alternated between periods of devastation and abandonment and periods of relative prosperity as the center of the Balqa region. Amman was largely abandoned from the 15th century until 1878, when the Ottoman Empire authorities began settling Circassians there.

After the Ottomans inaugurated the Hejaz railway station in 1904, Amman became connected to other nearby cities, and the then mainly Circassian village witnessed growth that led to the establishment of its first municipal council in 1909. The city witnessed rapid growth after its designation as Transjordan's capital in 1921, receiving migrations from different Jordanian and Levantine cities, and later several successive waves of refugees: Palestinians in 1948 and 1967; Iraqis in 1990 and 2003; and Syrians since 2011. It was initially built on seven hills, but now spans over 19 hills combining 22 areas, which are administered by the Greater Amman Municipality. Areas of Amman have gained their names from either the hills (jabal) or the valleys (wadi) they occupy, such as Jabal al-Luweibdeh and Wadi Abdoun. East Amman is predominantly filled with historic sites that frequently host cultural activities, while West Amman is more modern and serves as the economic center of the city.

Approximately one million visitors arrived in Amman in 2018, which made it the 89th most-visited city in the world and the 12th most-visited Arab city. Amman has a relatively fast growing economy and it is ranked as a Beta− global city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network. Moreover, it was named one of the Middle East and North Africa's best cities according to economic, labor, environmental, and socio-cultural factors. The city is among the most popular locations in the Arab world for multinational corporations to set up their regional offices, alongside Doha and only behind Dubai. The city is served by the Amman Bus, the Amman Bus Rapid Transit and the Amman-Zarqa Bus Rapid Transit public transportation systems.

Etymology
Amman derives its name from the ancient people of the Ammonites, whose capital the city had been since the 13th century BC. The Ammonites named it Rabat ʿAmmān (𐤓𐤁𐤕 𐤏𐤌𐤍), with the term Rabat meaning the "Capital" or the "King's Quarters". In the Hebrew Bible, the town is referred to as Rabbaṯ Bənē ʿAmmōn (רַבַּת בְּנֵי עַמּוֹן) or simply Rabbā (רַבָּה), and it appears in English translations as "Rabbath Ammon". Ptolemy II Philadelphus, the Macedonian ruler of the Ptolemaic Kingdom who reigned from 283 to 246 BC, renamed the city "Philadelphia" (Φιλαδέλφεια; literally: "brotherly love"), after himself, after occupying it. By the Islamic era, the Rashidun Caliphate restored its ancient semitic name and called it Amman in the 7th century AD.

Neolithic period

The Neolithic site of ʿAin Ghazal today lies in the outskirts of Amman. At its height, around 7000 BC (9000 years ago), it had an area of 15 ha and was inhabited by ca. 3000 people (four to five times the population of contemporary Jericho). At that time, the site was a typical aceramic Neolithic village. Its houses were rectangular mud-bricked buildings that included a main square living room, whose walls were made up of lime plaster. The site was discovered in 1974 as construction workers were working on a road crossing the area. By 1982, when the excavations started, around 600 m of road ran through the site. Despite the damage brought by urban expansion, the remains of ʿAin Ghazal provided a wealth of information.

ʿAin Ghazal is well known for a set of small human statues found in 1983, when local archeologists stumbled upon the edge of a large pit containing them. These statues are human figures made with white plaster, with painted eyes. Thirty-two figures were found in two caches, fifteen of them full figures, fifteen busts, and two fragmentary heads. Three of the busts depicted two-headed characters, the significance of which is not clear.

Iron Age: the Ammonites

In the 13th century BC, Amman was the capital of the Ammonite Kingdom, and became known as "Rabat Amman". Rabat Amman provided several natural resources to the region, including sandstone and limestone, along with a productive agricultural sector that made it a vital location along the King's Highway, the ancient trade route connecting Egypt with Mesopotamia, Syria and Anatolia. As with the Edomites and Moabites, trade along this route gave the Ammonites considerable revenue. Milcom is named in the Hebrew Bible as the national god of Rabat Amman. Another ancient deity, Moloch, usually associated with the use of children as offerings, is also mentioned in the Bible as a god of the Ammonites, but this is probably a mistake for Milcom. However, excavations by archeologists near Amman Civil Airport uncovered a temple, which included an altar containing many human bone fragments. The bones showed evidence of burning, which led to the assumption that the altar functioned as a pyre and used for human sacrifice.

Amman is mentioned several times in the Hebrew Bible. According to the biblical narrative, the Ammonite king Hanun allied with Hadadezer, king of Aram-Zobah, against the United Kingdom of Israel. During the war, Joab, the captain of King David's army, laid siege to Rabbah, Hanun's royal capital, and destroyed it. David took a great quantity of plunder from the city, including the king's crown, and brought it to his capital, Jerusalem. Hanun's brother, Shobi, was made king in his place, and became a loyal vassal of David. Hundreds of years later, the prophet Jeremiah foresaw the coming destruction and final desolation of the city.

Several Ammonite ruins across Amman exist, such as Rujm Al-Malfouf and some parts of the Amman Citadel. The ruins of Rujm Al-Malfouf consist of a stone watchtower used to ensure the protection of their capital and several store rooms to the east. The city was later conquered by the Assyrians, followed by the Babylonians and the Achaemenid Persians.

Classical period

Conquest of the Middle East and Central Asia by Alexander the Great firmly consolidated the influence of Hellenistic culture. The Greeks founded new cities in the area of modern-day Jordan, including Umm Qays, Jerash and Amman. Ptolemy II Philadelphus, the Macedonian ruler of Egypt, who occupied and rebuilt the city, named it "Philadelphia" (Φιλαδέλφεια), evoking "brotherly love" in Greek. The name was given as an adulation to his own nickname, Philadelphus.

One of the most original monuments in Jordan, and perhaps in the Hellenistic period in the Near East, is the village of Iraq al-Amir in the valley of Wadi Al-Seer, southwest of Amman, which is home to Qasr al-Abd ('Castle of the Slave'). Other nearby ruins include a village, an isolated house and a fountain, all of which are barely visible today due to the damage brought by a major earthquake that hit the region in the year 362. Qasr al-Abd is believed to have been built by Hyrcanus of Jerusalem, who was the head of the powerful Jewish Tobiad family. Shortly after he began the construction of that large building, in c. 170-168 BC, upon returning from a military campaign in Egypt, Antiochus IV conquered Jerusalem, ransacked the Second Temple where the treasure of Hyrcanus was kept, and appeared determined to attack Hyrcanus. Upon hearing this, Hyrcanus committed suicide, leaving his palace in Philadelphia uncompleted. The Tobiads fought the Arab Nabateans for twenty years until they lost the city to them. After losing Philadelphia, the Tobiad family disappears from written sources.

The Romans conquered much of the Levant in 63 BC, inaugurating a period of Roman rule that lasted for four centuries. In the northern modern-day Jordan, the Greek cities of Philadelphia (Amman), Gerasa, Gedara, Pella and Arbila joined with other cities in Palestine and Syria; Scythopolis, Hippos, Capitolias, Canatha and Damascus to form the Decapolis League, a confederation linked by bonds of economic and cultural interest. Philadelphia became a point along a road stretching from Ailah to Damascus that was built by Emperor Trajan in AD 106. This provided an economic boost for the city in a short period of time.

Roman rule in Jordan left several ruins across the country, some of which exist in Amman, such as the Temple of Hercules at the Amman Citadel, the Roman Theatre, the Odeon, and the Nymphaeum. The two theaters and the nymphaeum fountain were built during the reign of Emperor Antoninus Pius around AD 161. The theatre was the larger venue of the two and had a capacity for 6,000 attendees. It was oriented north and built into the hillside, to protect the audience from the sun. To the northeast of the theatre was a small odeon. Built at roughly the same time as the theatre, the Odeon had 500 seats and is still in use today for music concerts. Archaeologists speculate that the structure was originally covered with a wooden roof to shield the audience from the weather. The Nymphaeum is situated southwest of the Odeon and served as Philadelphia's chief fountain. The Nymphaeum is believed to have contained a 600 m2 pool which was 3 m deep and was continuously refilled with water. During the late Byzantine period in the seventh century, several bishops and churches were based in the city.

Islamic era (7th–15th centuries)
In the 630s, the Rashidun Caliphate conquered the region from the Byzantines, beginning the Islamic era in the Levant. Philadelphia was renamed "Amman" by the Muslims and became part of the district of Jund Dimashq. A large part of the population already spoke Arabic, which facilitated integration into the caliphate, as well as several conversions to Islam. Under the Umayyad caliphs who began their rule in 661 AD, numerous desert castles were established as a means to govern the desert area of modern-day Jordan, several of which are still well-preserved. Amman had already been functioning as an administrative centre. The Umayyads built a large palace on the Amman Citadel hill, known today as the Umayyad Palace. Amman was later destroyed by several earthquakes and natural disasters, including a particularly severe earthquake in 747. The Umayyads were overthrown by the Abbasids three years later.

Amman's importance declined by the mid-8th century after damage caused by several earthquakes rendered it uninhabitable. Excavations among the collapsed layer of the Umayyad Palace have revealed remains of kilns from the time of the Abbasids (750–969) and the Fatimids (969–1099). In the late 9th century, Amman was noted as the "capital" of the Balqa by geographer al-Yaqubi. Likewise, in 985, the Jerusalemite historian al-Muqaddasi described Amman as the capital of Balqa, and that it was a town in the desert fringe of Syria surrounded by villages and cornfields and was a regional source of lambs, grain and honey. Its inhabitants he reports, at the time, were Shia Muslims. Furthermore, al-Muqaddasi describes Amman as a "harbor of the desert" where Arab Bedouin would take refuge, and that its citadel, which overlooked the town, contained a small mosque.

The occupation of the Citadel Hill by the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem is so far based only on interpretations of Crusader sources. William of Tyre writes in his Historia that in 1161 Philip of Milly received the castle of Ahamant, which is seen to refer to Amman, as part of the lordship of Oultrejordain. In 1166 Philip joined the military order of the Knights Templar, passing on to them a significant part of his fief including the castle of Ahamant or "Haman", as it is named in the deed of confirmation issued by King Amalric. By 1170, Amman was in Ayyubid hands. The remains of a watch tower on Citadel Hill, first attributed to the Crusaders, now are preferentially dated to the Ayyubid period, leaving it to further research to find the location of the Crusader castle. During the Ayyubid period, the Damascene geographer al-Dimashqi wrote that Amman was part of the province of al-Karak, although "only ruins" remained of the town.

During the Mamluk era (late 13th–early 16th centuries), the region of Amman was a part of Wilayat Balqa, the southernmost district of Mamlakat Dimashq (Damascus Province). The capital of the district in the first half of the 14th century was the minor administrative post of Hisban, which had a considerably smaller garrison than the other administrative centers in Transjordan, namely Ajlun and al-Karak. In 1321, the geographer Abu'l Fida, recorded that Amman was "a very ancient town" with fertile soil and surrounded by agricultural fields. For unclear, though likely financial reasons, in 1356, the capital of Balqa was transferred from Hisban to Amman, which was considered a madina (city). In 1357, Emir Sirghitmish bought Amman in its entirety, most likely to use revenues from the city to help fund the Madrasa of Sirghitmish, which he built in Cairo that same year. After his purchase of the city, Sirghitmish transferred the courts, administrative bureaucracy, markets and most of the inhabitants of Hisban to Amman. Moreover, he financed new building works in the city.

Ownership of Amman following Sirghitmish's death in 1358 passed to successive generations of his descendants until 1395, when his descendants sold it to Emir Baydamur al-Khwarazmi, the na'ib as-saltana (viceroy) of Damascus. Afterward, part of Amman's cultivable lands were sold to Emir Sudun al-Shaykhuni (died 1396), the na'ib as-saltana of Egypt. The increasingly frequent division and sale of the city and lands of Amman to different owners signalled declining revenues coming from Amman, while at the same time, Hisban was restored as the major city of the Balqa in the 15th century. From then until 1878, Amman was an abandoned site periodically used to shelter seasonal farmers who cultivated arable lands in its vicinity and by Bedouin tribes who used its pastures and water. The Ottoman Empire annexed the region of Amman in 1516, but for much of the Ottoman period, al-Salt functioned as the virtual political center of Transjordan.

Modern era (1878–present)
Amman began to be resettled in 1878, when several hundred Muslim Circassians arrived following their expulsion from the formerly Ottoman Balkans. Between 1878 and 1910, tens of thousands of Circassians had relocated to Ottoman Syria after being displaced by the Russian Empire during the events of the Russo-Circassian War. The Ottoman authorities directed the Circassian, who were mainly of peasant stock, to settle in Amman, and distributed arable land among them. Their settlement was a partial manifestation of the Ottoman statesman Kamil Pasha's project to establish a vilayet centered in Amman, which, along with other sites in its vicinity, would become Circassian-populated townships guaranteeing the security of the Damascus–Medina highway. The first Circassian settlers, who belonged to the Shapsug dialect group, lived near Amman's Roman theater and incorporated its stones into the houses they built. The English traveller Laurence Oliphant noted in his 1879 visit that most of the original Circassian settlers had left Amman by then, with about 150 remaining. They were joined by Circassians from the Kabardian and Abzakh groups in 1880–1892.

Until 1900 settlement was concentrated in the valley and slopes of the Amman stream and settlers built mud-brick houses with wooden roofs. The French Dominican priest Marie-Joseph Lagrange commented in 1890 about Amman: "A mosque, the ancient bridges, all that jumbled with the houses of the Circassians gives Amman a remarkable physiognomy". The new village became a nahiye (subdistrict) center of the kaza of al-Salt in the Karak Sanjak established in 1894. By 1908 Amman contained 800 houses divided between three main quarters, Shapsug, Kabartai and Abzakh, each called after the Circassian groupings which respectively settled there, a number of mosques, open-air markets, shops, bakeries, mills, a textile factory, a post and telegraph office and a government compound (saraya). Kurdish settlers formed their own quarter called "al-Akrad" after them, while a number of townspeople from nearby al-Salt and al-Fuheis, seeking to avoid high taxes and conscription or attracted by financial incentives, and traders from Najd and Morocco, had also moved to the town.

The city's demographics changed dramatically after the Ottoman government's decision to construct the Hejaz Railway, which linked Damascus and Medina, and facilitated the annual Hajj pilgrimage and trade. Operational in central Transjordan since 1903, the Hejaz Railway helped to transform Amman from a small village into a major commercial hub in the region. Circassian entrepreneurship, facilitated by the railway, helped to attract investment from merchants from Damascus, Nablus, and Jerusalem, many of whom moved to Amman in the 1900s and 1910s. Amman's first municipal council was established in 1909, and Circassian Ismael Babouk was elected as its mayor.

The First and Second Battle of Amman were part of the Middle Eastern theatre of World War I and the Arab Revolt, taking place in 1918. Amman had a strategic location along the Hejaz Railway; its capture by British forces and the Hashemite Arab army facilitated the British advance towards Damascus. The second battle was won by the British, resulting in the establishment of the British Mandate.

In 1921, the Hashemite emir and later king Abdullah I designated Amman instead of al-Salt to be the capital of the newly created state, the Emirate of Transjordan, which became the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in 1950. Its function as the capital of the country attracted immigrants from different Levantine areas, particularly from al-Salt, a nearby city that had been the largest urban settlement east of the Jordan River at the time. The early settlers who came from Palestine were overwhelmingly from Nablus, from which many of al-Salt's inhabitants had originated. They were joined by other immigrants from Damascus. Amman later attracted people from the southern part of the country, particularly al-Karak and Madaba. The city's population was around 10,000 in the 1930s.

The British report from 1933 shows around 1,700 Circassians living in Amman. Yet the community was far from insulated. Local urban and nomadic communities formed alliances with the Circassians, some of which are still present today. This cemented the status of Circassians in the re-established city.

Jordan gained its independence in 1946 and Amman was designated the country's capital. Amman received many refugees during wartime events in nearby countries, beginning with the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. A second wave arrived after the Six-Day War in 1967. In 1970, Amman was a battlefield during the conflict between the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Jordanian Army known as Black September. The Jordanian Army defeated the PLO in 1971, and the latter were expelled to Lebanon. The first wave of Iraqi and Kuwaiti refugees settled in the city after the 1991 Gulf War, with a second wave occurring in the aftermath of the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

On 9 November 2005, Al-Qaeda under Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's leadership launched coordinated explosions in three hotel lobbies in Amman, resulting in 60 deaths and 115 injured. The bombings, which targeted civilians, caused widespread outrage among Jordanians. Jordan's security as a whole was dramatically improved after the attack, and no major terrorist attacks have been reported since then. Most recently a wave of Syrian refugees have arrived in the city during the ongoing Syrian Civil War which began in 2011. Amman was a principal destination for refugees for the security and prosperity it offered.

During the 2010s, the city has experienced an economic, cultural and urban boom. The large growth in population has significantly increased the need for new accommodation, and new districts of the city were established at a quick pace. This strained Jordan's scarce water supply and exposed Amman to the dangers of quick expansion without careful municipal planning.

Geography
Amman is situated on the East Bank Plateau, an upland characterized by three major wadis which run through it. Originally, the city had been built on seven hills. Amman's terrain is typified by its mountains. The most important areas in the city are named after the hills or mountains they lie on. The area's elevation ranges from 700 to 1100 m. Al-Salt and al-Zarqa are located to the northwest and northeast, respectively, Madaba is located to the west, and al-Karak and Ma'an are to Amman's southwest and southeast, respectively. One of the only remaining springs in Amman now supplies the Zarqa River with water. Trees found in Amman include Aleppo pine, Mediterranean cypress and Phoenician juniper.

Climate
Amman features a hot-summer Mediterranean climate (Köppen: Csa) in its western and northern neighborhoods, while its eastern and southern neighborhoods experience a semi-arid climate (Köppen: BSh/BSk).

The summer season in Amman is moderately long, characterized by mild heat and refreshing breezes. However, occasional heatwaves may occur during this period. Spring is brief yet warm, with temperatures reaching highs of 28 °C (82 °F). This season typically commences between April and May, lasting for about a month. Winter usually sets in around the end of November, extending through early to mid-March. During winter, temperatures typically hover around or below 17 °C (63 °F), with sporadic snowfall occurring once or twice a year.

The average annual rainfall in Amman is around 385 mm (15 in), with great variations between different parts of the city. The western areas receive more than 500 mm (20 in) of rainfall, whereas the eastern areas receive less than 250 mm (10 in). Rainfall primarily occurs between November and April, and periodic droughts are not uncommon.

Amman experiences heavy fog on about 120 days each year. The city's diverse weather conditions are heavily influenced by differences in elevation. While snow might accumulate in the higher-altitude western and northern regions of Amman (with an average altitude of 1,000 m or 3,300 ft above sea level), the city center (at an elevation of 700 m or 2,300 ft) might experience rainfall simultaneously. This variation in elevation leads to extreme microclimates within Amman, with each district having its own distinct weather patterns.

Local government
Amman is governed by a 41-member city council elected in four-year term direct elections. All Jordanian citizens above 18 years old are eligible to vote in the municipal elections. However, the mayor is appointed by the king and not through elections. In 1909 a city council was established in Amman by Circassian Ismael Babouk who became the first-ever mayor of the capital, and in 1914 Amman's first city district center was founded.

The Greater Amman Municipality (GAM) has been investing in making the city a better place, through a number of initiatives. Green Amman 2020 was initiated in 2014, aiming to turn the city to a green metropolis by 2020. According to official statistics, only 2.5% of Amman is green space. In 2015 GAM and Zain Jordan started operating free-of-charge Wi-Fi services at 15 locations, including Wakalat Street, Rainbow Street, The Hashemite Plaza, Ashrafieh Cultural Complex, Zaha Cultural Center, Al Hussein Cultural Center, Al Hussein Public Parks and others.

Administrative divisions
Jordan is divided into twelve administrative divisions, each called a governorate. Amman Governorate divides into nine districts, five of which are divided into sub-districts. The Greater Amman Municipality has 22 areas which are further divided into neighborhoods.

The city is administered as the Greater Amman Municipality and covers 22 areas which include:

Banking sector
The banking sector is one of the principal foundations of Jordan's economy. Despite the unrest and economic difficulties in the Arab world resulting from the Arab Spring uprisings, Jordan's banking sector maintained its growth in 2014. The sector consists of 25 banks, 15 of which are listed on the Amman Stock Exchange. Amman is the base city for the international Arab Bank, one of the largest financial institutions in the Middle East, serving clients in more than 600 branches in 30 countries on five continents. Arab Bank represents 28% of the Amman Stock Exchange and is the highest-ranked institution by market capitalization on the exchange.

Tourism
Amman is the 4th most visited Arab city and the ninth highest recipient of international visitor spending. Roughly 1.8 million tourists visited Amman in 2011 and spent over $1.3 billion in the city. The expansion of Queen Alia International Airport is an example of the Greater Amman Municipality's heavy investment in the city's infrastructure. The recent construction of a public transportation system and a national railway, and the expansion of roads, are intended to ease the traffic generated by the millions of annual visitors to the city.

Amman, and Jordan in general, is the Middle East's hub for medical tourism. Jordan receives the most medical tourists in the region and the fifth highest in the world. Amman receives 250,000 foreign patients a year and over $1 billion annually.

Business
Amman is introducing itself as a business hub. The city's skyline is being continuously transformed through the emergence of new projects. A significant portion of business flowed into Amman following the 2003 Iraq War. Jordan's main airport, Queen Alia International Airport, is located south of Amman and is the hub for the country's national carrier Royal Jordanian, a major airline in the region. The airline is headquartered in Zahran district. Rubicon Group Holding and Maktoob, two major regional information technology companies, are based in Amman, along with major international corporations such as Hikma Pharmaceuticals, one of the Middle East's largest pharmaceutical companies, and Aramex, the Middle East's largest logistics and transportation company.

In a report by Dunia Frontier Consultants, Amman, along with Doha, Qatar and Dubai, United Arab Emirates, are the favored hubs for multinational corporations operating in the Middle East and North Africa region. In FDI magazine, Amman was chosen as the Middle Eastern city with the most potential to be a leader in foreign direct investment in the region. Furthermore, several of the world's largest investment banks have offices in Amman including Standard Chartered, Société Générale, and Citibank.

Demographics
The population of Amman reached 4,007,526 in 2015; the city contains about 42% of Jordan's entire population. It has a land area of 648.7 sqmi which yields a population density of about 2380 PD/km2. The population of Amman has risen exponentially with the successive waves of immigrants and refugees arriving throughout the 20th century. From a population of roughly 1,000 in 1890, Amman grew to around 1,000,000 inhabitants in 1990, primarily as a result of immigration, but also due to the high birthrate in the city. Amman had been abandoned for centuries until hundreds of Circassians settled it in the 19th century. Today, about 40,000 Circassians live in Amman and its vicinity. After Amman became a major hub along the Hejaz Railway in 1914, many Muslim and Christian merchant families from al-Salt immigrated to the city. A large proportion of Amman's inhabitants have Palestinian roots (urban or rural origin), and the two main demographic groups in the city today are Arabs of Palestinian or Jordanian descent. Other ethnic groups comprise about 2% of the population. There are no official statistics about the proportion of people of Palestinian or Jordanian descent.

New arrivals consisting of Jordanians from the north and south of the country and immigrants from Palestine had increased the city's population from 30,000 in 1930 to 60,000 in 1947. About 10,000 Palestinians, mostly from Safed, Haifa and Acre, migrated to the city for economic opportunities before the 1948 war. Many of the immigrants from al-Salt from that time were originally from Nablus. The 1948 war caused an exodus of urban Muslim and Christian Palestinian refugees, mostly from Jaffa, Ramla and Lydda, to Amman, whose population swelled to 110,000. With Jordan's capture of the West Bank during the war, many Palestinians from that area steadily migrated to Amman between 1950 and 1966, before another mass wave of Palestinian refugees from the West Bank moved to the city during the 1967 War. By 1970, the population had swelled to an estimated 550,000. A further 200,000 Palestinians arrived after their expulsion from Kuwait during the 1991 Gulf War. Several large Palestinian refugee camps exist around the center of Amman.

Because Amman lacks a deep-rooted native population, the city does not have a distinct Arabic dialect, although recently such a dialect utilizing the various Jordanian and Palestinian dialects, has been forming. The children of immigrants in the city are also increasingly referring to themselves as "Ammani", unlike much of the first-generation inhabitants who identify more with their respective places of origin.

Religion
Amman has a mostly Sunni Muslim population, and the city contains numerous mosques. Among the main mosques is the large King Abdullah I Mosque, built between 1982 and 1989. It is capped by a blue mosaic dome beneath which 3,000 Muslims may offer prayer. The Abu Darweesh Mosque, noted for its checkered black-and-white pattern, has an architectural style that is unique to Jordan. The mosque is situated on Jabal Ashrafieh, the highest point in the city. The mosque's interior is marked by light-colored walls and Persian carpets. During the 2004 Amman Message conference, edicts from various clergy-members afforded the following schools of thought as garnering collective recognition: Hanafi, Hanbali, Maliki, Shafi'i, Ja'fari, Zahiri, Zaydi, Ibadi, tassawuf-related Sufism, Muwahhidism and Salafism. Amman also has a small Druze community.

Large numbers of Christians from throughout Jordan, particularly from al-Salt, have moved to Amman. Nearby Fuheis is a predominantly Christian town located to the northwest of the city. A small Armenian Catholic community of around 70 families is present in the city. Ecclesiastical courts for matters of personal status are also located in Amman. A total of 16 historic churches are located in Umm ar-Rasas ruins in Al-Jeezah district; the site is believed to have initially served as Roman fortified military camps which gradually became a town around the 5th century AD. It has not been completely excavated. It was influenced by several civilizations including the Romans, Byzantines and Muslims. The site contains some well-preserved mosaic floors, particularly the mosaic floor of the Church of Saint Stephen.

Cityscape
Downtown Amman, the city center area (known in Arabic as Al-Balad), has been dwarfed by the sprawling urban area that surrounds it. Despite the changes, much remains of its old character. Jabal Amman is a tourist attraction in old Amman, where the city's largest souks, museums, ancient constructions, monuments, and cultural sites are found. Jabal Amman also contains the famous Rainbow Street and the cultural Souk Jara market.

Architecture
Residential buildings are limited to four stories above street level and if possible another four stories below, according to the Greater Amman Municipality regulations. The buildings are covered with thick white or beige limestone or sandstone. The buildings usually have balconies on each floor, with the exception of the ground floor, which has a front and back yard. Some buildings make use of Mangalore tiles on the roofs or on the roof of covered porches. Hotels, towers and commercial buildings are either covered by stone, plastic or glass.

High-rise construction and towers
Zahran district in west Amman is the location of the Jordan Gate, which is a high class commercial and residential project currently under construction in the Wadi Al-Seer district of Amman, Jordan, it consists of two high-rise buildings connected by a multi-storey podium.

New Abdali district hosts a mall, a boulevard along with several hotels, commercial and residential towers. Valued at more than US$5 billion with two main phases, the district created a new visible center for Amman and act as the major business district for the city.

The first phase, estimated at more than JD2.4 billion, and receiving about 20 million visitors annually, contains seven Itowers extending over an area of 1.03 million square metres. It attracts about 500 companies operating in 27 sectors, and provided a total of 15,000 job opportunities by 2023.

A second phase was announced in May 2024, which will cover an area of 1.2 million square meters and is anticipated to create over 3,000 job opportunities each year, were outlined in the statement. This phase involves the construction of a multi-use conference center with a capacity for 25,000 people, as well as two towers that will include hotels, residential apartments, commercial centers, and advanced medical facilities.

Museums

The largest museum in Jordan is The Jordan Museum. It contains much of the valuable archeological findings in the country, including some of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Neolithic limestone statues of 'Ain Ghazal, and a copy of the Mesha Stele. Other museums include the Duke's Diwan, Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts, Jordan Archaeological Museum, The Children's Museum Jordan, The Martyrs' Memorial and Museum, the Royal Automobile Museum, the Prophet Mohammad Museum, the Museum of Parliamentary Life, the Jordan Folklore Museum, and museums at the University of Jordan.

Lifestyle
Amman is considered one of the most liberal cities in the Arab world. The city has become one of the most popular destinations for expatriates and college students who seek to live, study, or work in the Middle East or the Arab world in general. The city's culinary scene has changed from its shawarma stands and falafel joints to embrace many popular international restaurants and fast-food outlets such as Asian fusion restaurants, French bistros and Italian trattorias. The city has become famous for its fine dining scene among Western expatriates and Persian Gulf tourists.

Large shopping malls were built during the 2000s in Amman, including the Mecca Mall, Abdoun Mall, City Mall, Al-Baraka Mall, Taj Mall, Zara Shopping Center, Avenue Mall, and Abdali Mall in Al Abdali. Wakalat Street ("Agencies Street") is Amman's first pedestrian-only street and carries a lot of name-label clothes. The Sweifieh area is considered to be the main shopping district of Amman.

Nightclubs, music bars and shisha lounges are present across Amman, changing the city's old image as the conservative capital of the kingdom. This burgeoning new nightlife scene is shaped by Jordan's young population. In addition to the wide range of drinking and dancing venues on the social circuit of the city's affluent crowd, Amman hosts cultural entertainment events, including the annual Amman Summer Festival. Souk Jara is a Jordanian weekly flea market event that occurs every Friday throughout the summer. Sweifieh is considered to be the unofficial red-light district of Amman as it holds most of the city's nightclubs, bars. Jabal Amman and Jabal al-Luweibdeh are home to many pubs and bars as well, making the area popular among bar hoppers.

Alcohol is widely available in restaurants, bars, nightclubs, and supermarkets. There are numerous nightclubs and bars across the city, especially in West Amman. , there were 77 registered nightclubs in Jordan (excluding bars and pubs), overwhelmingly located in the capital city. In 2009, there were 222 registered liquor stores in Amman.

Cuisine
Danielle Pergament of The New York Times described Ammani cuisine as a product of several cuisines in the region, writing that it combines "the bright vegetables from Lebanon, crunchy falafels from Syria, juicy kebabs from Egypt and, most recently, spicy meat dishes from Jordan's neighbor, Iraq. It's known as the food of the Levant – an ancient word for the area bounded by the Mediterranean Sea and the Arabian peninsula. But the food here isn't just the sum of its calories. In this politically, religiously and ethnically fraught corner of the world, it is a symbol of bloodlines and identity." However, the city's street food scene makes the Ammani cuisine distinctive.

Sports
Amman-based football clubs Al-Wehdat and Al-Faisaly, both former league champions, share one of the most popular rivalries in the local football scene. Amman hosted the 2016 FIFA U-17 Women's World Cup along with Irbid and Zarqa.

The 2007 Asian Athletics Championships and more than one edition of the IAAF World Cross Country Championships were held in the city. Amman also hosts the Jordan Rally, which form part of the FIA World Rally Championship, becoming one of the largest sporting events ever held in Jordan.

Amman is home to a growing number of foreign sports such as skateboarding and rugby; the latter has two teams based in the city: Amman Citadel Rugby Club and Nomads Rugby Club. In 2014, German non-profit organization Make Life Skate Life completed construction of the 7Hills Skatepark, a 650 square meter concrete skatepark located at Samir Rifai park in Downtown Amman.

Media and music
The majority of Jordan's radio stations are based in Amman. The first radio station to originate in the city was Hunna Amman in 1959; it mainly broadcast traditional Bedouin music. In 2000, Amman Net became the first de facto private radio station to be established in the country, despite private ownership of radio stations being illegal at the time. After private ownership was legalized in 2002, several more radio stations were created.

Most Jordanian newspapers and news stations are situated in Amman. Daily newspapers published in Amman include Alghad, Ad-Dustour, The Jordan Times, and Al Ra'i, the most circulated newspaper in the country. In 2011, Al Ra'i was ranked the 5th most popular newspaper in the Arab world by Forbes Middle-East report. Al-Arab Al-Yawm is the only daily pan-Arab newspaper in Jordan. The two most popular Jordanian TV channels, Ro'ya TV and JRTV, are based in Amman.

Aside from mainstream Arabic pop, there is a growing independent music scene in the city which includes many bands that have sizable audiences across the Arab world. Local Ammani bands along with other bands in the Middle East gather in the Roman Theater during the Al-Balad Music Festival held annually in August. Music genres of the local bands are diverse, ranging from heavy metal to Arabic Rock, jazz and rap. Performers include JadaL, Torabyeh, Bilocate, Akher Zapheer, Autostrad and El Morabba3.

Events
Many events take place in Amman, including Red Bull-sponsored events Soundclash and Soapbox race, the second part of Jerash Festival, Al-Balad Music Festival, Amman Marathon, Made in Jordan Festival, Amman Book Festival and New Think Festival. Venues for such cultural events often include the Roman and Odeon Theaters downtown, the Ras al Ain Hanger, King Hussein Business Park, Rainbow Theater and Shams Theater, the Royal Film Commission, Shoman libraries and Darat al Funun, and the Royal Cultural Center at Sports City. In addition to large-scale events and institutional planning, scholars point to tactical urbanism as a key element of the city's cultural fabric.

Airports

The main airport serving Amman is Queen Alia International Airport, situated about 30 km south of Amman. Much smaller is Amman Civil Airport, a one-terminal airport that serves primarily domestic and nearby international routes and the army. Queen Alia International Airport is the major international airport in Jordan and the hub for Royal Jordanian, the flag carrier. Its expansion was recently done and modified, including the decommissioning of the old terminals and the commissioning of new terminals costing $700M, to handle over 16 million passengers annually. It is now considered a state-of-the-art airport and was named 'the best airport in the Middle East' for 2014 and 2015 and 'the best improvement in the Middle East' for 2014 by Airport Service Quality Survey, the world's leading airport passenger satisfaction benchmark program.

Roads
Amman has an extensive road network. Eight roundabout "circles", which formerly marked neighborhoods, are used as landmarks. The road network includes many bridges and tunnels due to the mountainous nature of the terrain. A leading example is the Abdoun Bridge, which spans Wadi Abdoun and connects the 4th Circle to Abdoun Circle. It is considered one of Amman's many landmarks and is the first curved suspended bridge to be built in the country.

Successive waves of refugees to the city has led to the rapid construction of new neighborhoods, but Amman's capacity for new or widened roads remains limited despite the influx. This has resulted in increasing traffic jams, particularly during summer when there are large numbers of tourists and Jordanian expatriates visiting. In 2015, a ring road encompassing the city was constructed, which aims to connect the northern and southern parts of the city in order for traffic to be diverted outside Amman and to improve the environmental conditions in the city.

Bus and taxi
The city has frequent bus connections to other cities in Jordan, as well as to major cities in neighboring countries; the latter are also served by service taxis. Internal transport is served by a number of bus routes and taxis. Service taxis, which most often operate on fixed routes, are readily available and inexpensive. The two main bus and taxi stations are Abdali (near the King Abdullah Mosque, the Parliament and Palace of Justice) and the Raghadan Central Bus Station near the Roman theater in the city center. Popular Jordanian bus company services include JETT and Al-Mahatta. Taxis are the most common way to get around in Amman due their high availability and inexpensiveness.

The Amman Bus and the Amman Bus Rapid Transit public transportation systems currently serve the city. Construction work on the BRT system started in 2010, but was halted soon after amid feasibility concerns. Resuming in 2015, the first route of the BRT system was inaugurated in 2021, and the second in 2022. Another BRT route connecting Amman with Zarqa is also under construction and is expected to be operational by 2023.

The BRT system in Amman runs on 2 routes: the first from Sweileh in northwest Amman to the Ras Al-Ain area next to downtown Amman, and the second from Sweileh to Mahatta terminal in eastern Amman. Both routes meet at the Sports City intersection. The first route is currently served by three lines: 98, 99 and 100. Ticket price for all lines of Amman Bus and Amman BRT are bought either online via the Amman Bus mobile application or as a rechargeable card in major terminals. Passengers scan their cards or QR codes on phone when boarding the bus, where the price ticket is subtracted from the available balance. The buses are air-conditioned, accessible, monitored with security cameras and have free internet service.

Education

Amman is a major regional center of education. The Amman region hosts Jordan's highest concentration of education centers. There are 20 universities in Amman. The University of Jordan is the largest public university in the city. There are 448 private schools in the city attended by 90,000 students, including Jubilee School, Amman Baccalaureate School, Amman Academy, Amman National School, Modern American School, American Community School in Amman, and National Orthodox School.

Universities include:
 * University of Jordan
 * Al-Ahliyya Amman University
 * Al-Isra University
 * Al-Zaytoonah University of Jordan
 * Amman Arab University
 * Applied Science University
 * Arab Academy for Banking and Financial Sciences
 * Arab Open University
 * Columbia University: Amman Branch
 * German-Jordanian University: Amman Branch
 * Jordan Academy for Maritime Studies
 * Jordan Academy of Music
 * Jordan Institute of Banking Studies
 * Jordan Media Institute
 * Middle East University
 * University of Petra
 * Philadelphia University
 * Princess Sumaya University for Technology
 * Queen Noor Civil Aviation Technical College
 * World Islamic Sciences and Education University

Twin towns – sister cities
Amman is twinned with:

 * Muscat, Oman (1986)
 * Jeddah, Saudi Arabia (1988)
 * 🇪🇬 Cairo, Egypt (1988)
 * 🇲🇦 Rabat, Morocco (1988)
 * 🇾🇪 Sanaa, Yemen (1989)
 * 🇵🇰 Islamabad, Pakistan (1989)
 * 🇹🇷 Ankara, Turkey (1992)
 * 🇸🇩 Khartoum, Sudan (1993)
 * 🇶🇦 Doha, Qatar (1995)
 * 🇹🇷 Istanbul, Turkey (1997)
 * Algiers, Algeria (1998)
 * 🇷🇴 Bucharest, Romania (1999)
 * Nouakchott, Mauritania (1999)
 * 🇹🇳 Tunis, Tunisia (1999)
 * 🇧🇬 Sofia, Bulgaria (2000)
 * Beirut, Lebanon (2000)
 * Pretoria, South Africa (2002)
 * Tegucigalpa, Honduras (2002)
 * 🇺🇸 Chicago, United States (2004)
 * 🇮🇹 Calabria, Italy (2005)
 * 🇷🇺 Moscow, Russia (2005)
 * 🇰🇿 Astana, Kazakhstan (2005)
 * 🇧🇦 Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina (2006)
 * 🇧🇭 Central Governorate, Bahrain (2006)
 * 🇰🇬 Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan (2006)
 * 🇺🇸 San Francisco, United States (2010)
 * Sylhet, Bangladesh
 * 🇸🇬 Singapore, Singapore (2014)
 * 🇦🇲 Yerevan, Armenia (2015)
 * 🇺🇸 Cincinnati, United States (2015)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Amman


text:
Petra

Petra (ٱلْبَتْراء; Πέτρα, "Rock"), originally known to its inhabitants as Raqmu (Nabataean: or, *Raqēmō), is a historic and archaeological city in southern Jordan. Famous for its rock-cut architecture and water conduit system, Petra is also called the "Rose City" because of the colour of the sandstone from which it is carved. The city is one of the New 7 Wonders of the World and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The area around Petra has been inhabited from as early as 7000 BC, and was settled by the Nabataeans, a nomadic Arab people, in the 4th century BC. Petra would later become the capital city of the Nabataean Kingdom in the second century BC. The Nabataeans invested in Petra's proximity to the incense trade routes by establishing it as a major regional trading hub, which gained them considerable revenue. Unlike their enemies, the Nabataeans were accustomed to living in the barren deserts and thus were able to defend their kingdom. They were particularly skillful in agriculture, stone carving, and rainwater harvesting.

Petra flourished in the 1st century AD, when its Al-Khazneh structure, possibly the mausoleum of Nabataean king Aretas IV, was constructed, and its population peaked at an estimated 20,000 inhabitants. Nabataea fell to the Romans in 106 AD, who annexed and renamed it as Arabia Petraea. Petra's importance declined as sea trade routes emerged, and after an earthquake in 363 destroyed many structures. In the Byzantine era, several Christian churches were built, but the city continued to decline and, by the early Islamic era, it was abandoned except for a handful of nomads. It remained unknown to the western world until 1812, when Swiss traveller Johann Ludwig Burckhardt rediscovered it.

UNESCO has described Petra as "one of the most precious cultural properties of man's cultural heritage". Petra is a symbol of Jordan, as well as Jordan's most-visited tourist attraction. Tourist numbers peaked at 1.1 million in 2019, marking the first time that the figure rose above the 1 million mark. Tourism in the historical city was hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, but soon after started to pick up again, reaching 905,000 visitors in 2022.

Neolithic

By 7000 BC, some of the earliest recorded farmers had settled in Beidha, a Pre-Pottery Neolithic settlement just north of Petra.

Bronze Age
Petra is listed in Egyptian campaign accounts and the Amarna letters as Pel, Sela, or Seir.

Iron Age Edom
The Iron Age lasted between 1200 and 600 BC; in that time, the Petra area was occupied by the Edomites. The configuration of mountains in Petra allowed for a reservoir of water for the Edomites. This made Petra a stopping ground for merchants, making it an outstanding area for trade. Things that were traded here included wines, olive oil, and wood.

Initially, the Edomites were accompanied by Nomads who eventually left, but the Edomites stayed and made their mark on Petra before the emergence of the Nabataens. It is said that 10,000 men were thrown off of the mountain Umm el-Biyara, but this story has been debated by scholars.

The Edomite site excavated at the top of the Umm el-Biyara mountain at Petra was established no earlier than the seventh century BC (Iron II).

Emergence of Petra
The Nabataeans were one among several nomadic Bedouin tribes that roamed the Arabian Desert and moved with their herds to wherever they could find pasture and water. Although the Nabataeans were initially embedded in Aramaic culture, theories about them having Aramean roots are rejected by many modern scholars. Instead, archaeological, religious and linguistic evidence confirm that they are a northern Arabian tribe. Current evidence suggests that the Nabataean name for Petra was Raqēmō, variously spelled in inscriptions as rqmw or rqm.

The Jewish historian Josephus (ca. 37–100 AD) writes that the region was inhabited by the Midianites during the time of Moses, and that they were ruled by five kings, one of whom was Rekem. Josephus mentions that the city, called Petra by the Greeks, "ranks highest in the land of the Arabs" and was still called Rekeme by all the Arabs of his time, after its royal founder (Antiquities iv. 7, 1; 4, 7). The Onomasticon of Eusebius also identified Rekem as Petra. Arabic raqama means "to mark, to decorate", so Rekeme could be a Nabataean word referring to the famous carved rock façades. In 1964, workmen clearing rubble away from the cliff at the entrance to the gorge found several funerary inscriptions in Nabatean script. One of them was to a certain Petraios who was born in Raqmu (Rekem) and buried in Garshu (Jerash).

An old theory held that Petra might be identified with a place called sela in the Hebrew Bible. Encyclopædia Britannica (1911) states that the Semitic name of the city, if not Sela, would remain unknown. It nevertheless cautioned that sela simply means "rock" in Hebrew, and thence might not be identified with a city where it occurs in the biblical text in the book of Obadiah. It is possible that the city was part of the nation of Edom.

The passage in Diodorus Siculus (xix. 94–97) which describes the expeditions which Antigonus sent against the Nabataeans in 312 BC, was understood by some researchers to throw some light upon the history of Petra, but the "petra" (Greek for rock) referred to as a natural fortress and place of refuge cannot be a proper name, and the description implies that there was no town in existence there at the time.

Roman period

In AD 106, when Cornelius Palma was governor of Syria, the part of Arabia under the rule of Petra was absorbed into the Roman Empire as part of Arabia Petraea, and Petra became its capital. The native dynasty came to an end but the city continued to flourish under Roman rule. It was around this time that the Petra Roman Road was built. A century later, in the time of Alexander Severus, when the city was at the height of its splendor, the issue of coinage came to an end. There was no more building of sumptuous tombs, owing apparently to some sudden catastrophe, such as an invasion by the neo-Persian power under the Sassanid Empire.

Meanwhile, as Palmyra (fl. 130–270) grew in importance and attracted the Arabian trade away from Petra, the latter declined. It appears, however, to have lingered on as a religious center. Another Roman road was constructed at the site. Epiphanius of Salamis (c.315–403) writes that in his time a feast was held there on December 25 in honor of the virgin Khaabou (Chaabou) and her offspring Dushara. Dushara and al-Uzza were two of the main deities of the city, which otherwise included many idols from other Nabataean deities such as Allat and Manat.

Between 111 and 114 Trajan built the Via Traiana Nova, running from the Syrian border to the Red Sea through Petra. This road followed the old routes of Nabataean caravans. In the shadow of the Pax Romana, this route revived trade between Arabia, Syria, and Mediterranean harbors. In 125 AD, one of Emperor Hadrian's administrators left marks in Petra, pointed out by documents found at the Dead Sea. In 130 AD, Hadrian visited the former Nabataean capital, giving it the name of Hadriānī Petra Metropolis, imprinted on his coins. His visit, however, did not lead to any boom in development and new buildings as it did in Jerash. The province's governor, Sextius Florentinus, erected a monumental mausoleum for his son near the end of the al-Hubta (King's Wall) tombs, which had been generally reserved during the Nabataean period for the royal family.

The interest that Roman emperors showed in the city in the 3rd century suggests that Petra and its environs remained highly esteemed for a long time. An inscription to Liber Pater, a god revered by Emperor Septimius Severus, was found in the temenos of the temple known as Qasr al-Bint, and Nabataean tombs contained silver coins with the emperor's portrait, as well as pottery from his reign. Emperor Elagabalus declared Petra to be a Roman colony, when he reorganized the Roman Empire towards the end of the 3rd century. The area from Petra to Wadi Mujib, the Negev, and the Sinai Peninsula were annexed into the province of Palaestina Salutaris. Petra may be seen on the Madaba mosaic map from the reign of Emperor Justinian.

Byzantine period

Petra declined rapidly under Roman rule, in large part from the revision of sea-based trade routes. In 363, an earthquake destroyed many buildings and crippled the vital water management system. The old city of Petra was the capital of the Byzantine province of Palaestina III and many churches from the Byzantine period were excavated in and around Petra. In one of them, the Byzantine Church, 140 papyri were discovered, which contained mainly contracts dated from 530s to 590s, establishing that the city was still flourishing in the 6th century. The Byzantine Church is a prime example of monumental architecture in Byzantine Petra.

The last reference to Byzantine Petra comes from the Spiritual Meadow of John Moschus, written in the first decades of the 7th century. He gives an anecdote about its bishop, Athenogenes. It ceased to be a metropolitan bishopric sometime before 687 when that function had been transferred to Areopolis. Petra is not mentioned in the narratives of the Muslim conquest of the Levant, nor does it appear in any early Islamic records.

Crusaders and Mamluks

In the 12th century, the Crusaders built fortresses such as the Alwaeira Castle, but were forced to abandon Petra after a while. As a result, the location of Petra was lost until the 19th century.

Two further Crusader-period castles are known in and around Petra: the first is al-Wu'ayra, situated just north of Wadi Musa. It can be viewed from the road to Little Petra. It is the castle that was seized by a band of Turks with the help of local Muslims and only recovered by the Crusaders after they began to destroy the olive trees of Wadi Musa. The potential loss of livelihood led the locals to negotiate a surrender. The second is on the summit of el-Habis, in the heart of Petra, and can be accessed from the West side of the Qasr al-Bint.

The ruins of Petra were an object of curiosity during the Middle Ages and were visited by Baibars, one of the first Mamluk sultans of Egypt, towards the end of the 13th century.

19th and 20th centuries

The first European to describe them was the Swiss traveler Johann Ludwig Burckhardt during his travels in 1812. At that time, the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem operated a diocese in al-Karak named Battra (باطره, Πέτρας) and it was the opinion among the clergy of Jerusalem that Kerak was the ancient city of Petra.

Burckhardt already spoke Arabic fluently, and was on his way to explore the Niger River when he heard stories of a dead city that held the tomb of the Prophet Aaron, and became fascinated with finding the city. He then dressed himself up as a local, and only spoke in Arabic, bringing a goat with him with the intent of sacrificing it in honor of Aaron's Tomb. After one day of exploring, he was convinced that he had found the lost city of Petra.

Léon de Laborde and Louis-Maurice-Adolphe Linant de Bellefonds made the first accurate drawings of Petra in 1828. The Scottish painter David Roberts visited Petra in 1839 and returned to Britain with sketches and stories of the encounter with local tribes, published in The Holy Land, Syria, Idumea, Arabia, Egypt, and Nubia. Frederic Edwin Church, the leading American landscape painter of the 19th century, visited Petra in 1868, and the resulting painting El Khasné, Petra is among his most important and well-documented. Missionary Archibald Forder published photographs of Petra in the December 1909 issue of National Geographic.

Because the structures weakened with age, many of the tombs became vulnerable to thieves, and many treasures were stolen. In 1929, a four-person team consisting of British archaeologists Agnes Conway and George Horsfield, Palestinian physician and folklore expert Tawfiq Canaan and Ditlef Nielsen, a Danish scholar, excavated and surveyed Petra.

The archaeologist Philip Hammond from the University of Utah visited Petra for nearly 40 years. He explained that the local folklore says it was created by the wand of Moses, when he struck the rock to bring forth water for the Israelites. Hammond believed the carved channels deep within the walls and ground were made from ceramic pipes that once fed water for the city, from rock-cut systems on the canyon rim.

In the 1980s, the Bedul Bedouin, once inhabitants of Petra, were relocated by the Jordanian government to the nearby settlement of Umm Sayhoun, a process spanning two decades. This move was part of broader initiatives aimed at settling Bedouin communities and promoting tourism in Petra. With a name meaning "the changing ones" and oral traditions recounting a conversion narrative, the Bedul Bedouins are believed to have adopted Islam later in their history, possibly with Jewish or Nabatean origins. Today, alongside their traditional activities, they engage in local tourism, alongside the more prominent Liyathnah tribe.

Numerous scrolls in Greek and dating to the Byzantine period were discovered in an excavated church near the Temple of the Winged Lions in Petra in December 1993.

21st century
In December 2022, Petra was hit by heavy flooding.

Layout

Petra is adjacent to the mountain of Jabal Al-Madbah, in a basin surrounded by mountains forming the eastern flank of the Arabah valley running from the Dead Sea to the Gulf of Aqaba.

Excavations have demonstrated that it was the ability of the Nabataeans to control the water supply that led to the rise of the desert city, creating an artificial oasis. The area is visited by flash floods, but archaeological evidence shows that the Nabataeans controlled these floods by the use of dams, cisterns, and water conduits. These innovations stored water for prolonged periods of drought and enabled the city to prosper from its sale.

In ancient times, Petra might have been approached from the south on a track leading across the plain of Petra, around Jabal Haroun ("Aaron's Mountain"), the location of the Tomb of Aaron, said to be the burial place of Aaron, brother of Moses. Another approach was possibly from the high plateau to the north. Today, most modern visitors approach the site from the east. The impressive eastern entrance leads steeply down through a dark, narrow gorge, in places only 3 – wide, called the Siq ("shaft"), a natural geological feature formed from a deep split in the sandstone rocks and serving as a waterway flowing into Wadi Musa.

Hellenistic architecture

Petra is known primarily for its Hellenistic architecture. The facades of the tombs in Petra are commonly rendered in Hellenistic style, reflecting the number of diverse cultures which the Nabataens traded, all of which were in turn influenced by Greek culture. Most of these tombs contain small burials niches carved into the stone.

Perhaps the best example of the Hellenistic style is seen in the Treasury, which is 24 meters wide and 37 meters tall and references the architecture of Alexandria. The facade of the Treasury features a broken pediment with a central tholos inside, and two obelisks appear to form into the rock at the top. Near the bottom of the Treasury are the twin Greek gods Castor and Pollux, who protect travellers on their journeys. Near the top of the Treasury, two victories are seen standing on each side of a female figure on the tholos. This female figure is believed to be the Isis-Tyche, Isis and Tyche being the Egyptian and Greek goddesses, respectively, of good fortune.

Another prime example of Hellenistic architecture featured in Petra is its Monastery, which stands at 45 meters tall and 50 meters wide; this is Petra's largest monument and is similarly carved into the rock face. The facade of this again features a broken pediment, similar to the Treasury, as well as another central tholos. The Monastery displays more of a Nabataen touch while at the same time incorporating elements from Greek architecture. Its only source of light is its entrance standing at 8 meters high. There is a large space outside of the Monastery, which is purposefully flattened for worship purposes. Formerly, in the Byzantine period, this was a place for Christian worship, but is now a holy site for pilgrims to visit.

City centre

At the end of the narrow gorge, the Siq, stands Petra's most elaborate ruin, popularly known as Al-Khazneh ("the Treasury"), hewn into the sandstone cliff. While remaining in remarkably preserved condition, the face of the structure is marked by hundreds of bullet holes made by the local Bedouin tribes that hoped to dislodge riches that were once rumoured to be hidden within it. A little farther from the Treasury, at the foot of the mountain called en-Nejr, is a massive theatre, positioned so as to bring the greatest number of tombs within view. At the point where the valley opens out into the plain, the site of the city is revealed with striking effect. The theatre was cut into the hillside and into several of the tombs during its construction. Rectangular gaps in the seating are still visible. Almost enclosing it on three sides are rose-coloured mountain walls, divided into groups by deep fissures and lined with knobs cut from the rock in the form of towers. The theatre was said to hold around 8,500 people. The performances that audiences were able to attend here were poetry readings and dramas. Gladiator fights were also said to be held here and attracted the most audience, although no gladiator was able to gain any momentum or fame due to the heavy mortality rate that came with it. The theatre was one of many structures in Petra that took significant damage due to the 363 Galilee earthquake.

The Petra Pool and Garden Complex is a series of structures within the city center. Originally said to be a market area, excavations at the site have allowed scholars to identify it as an elaborate Nabataean garden, which included a large swimming pool, an island-pavilion, and an intricate hydraulic system.

Ahead of the Petra Pool and Garden Complex lies Colonnaded street, which is among few artifacts of Petra that was constructed rather than natural. This street used to hold a semi-circle nymphaeum, which is now in ruins due to flash flooding, and used to hold Petra's only tree. This was intended to be a symbol for the peaceful atmosphere that the Nabataens were able to construct in Petra. Once the Romans took control of the city, Colonnaded street was narrowed to make room for a side walk, and 72 columns were added to each side.

High Place of Sacrifice
The High Place of Sacrifice is perched atop Jebel Madbah Mountain. The beginning of the hike is near Petra's theatre. From there, the site of The High Place of Sacrifice is around an 800-step hike. One commonly believed sacrifice that took place there was libation. Another common form of sacrifice that took place there was animal sacrifice; this is due to the belief that the tomb of the Prophet Aaron is located in Petra, which is a sacred site for Muslims. In honor of this, a goat was sacrificed annually. Other rituals also took place there, including the burning of frankincense.

Royal Tombs

The Royal Tombs of Petra are in the Nabatean version of Hellenistic architecture, but their facades have worn due to natural decay. One of these tombs, the Palace Tomb, is speculated to be the tomb for the kings of Petra. The Corinthian Tomb, which is right next to the Palace Tomb, has the same Hellenistic architecture featured on the Treasury. The two other Royal Tombs are the Silk Tomb and the Urn Tomb; the Silk Tomb does not stand out as much as the Urn Tomb. The Urn Tomb features a large yard in its front, and was turned into a church in 446 AD after the expansion of Christianity.

Exterior platform
In 2016, archaeologists using satellite imagery and drones discovered a very large, previously unknown monumental structure whose beginnings were tentatively dated to about 150 BC, the time when the Nabataeans initiated their public building programme. It is located outside the main area of the city, at the foot of Jabal an-Nmayr and about 0.5 mi south of the city centre, but is facing east, not towards the city, and has no visible relationship to it. The structure consists of a huge, 184 by platform, with a monumental staircase along its eastern side. The large platform enclosed a slightly smaller one, topped with a comparatively small building, 28 by, which was facing east toward the staircase. The structure, second in size only to the Monastery complex, probably had a ceremonial function of which not even a speculative explanation has yet been offered by the researchers.

Religious importance

Pliny the Elder and other writers identify Petra as the capital of the Nabataean Kingdom and the centre of their caravan trade. Enclosed by towering rocks and watered by a perennial stream, Petra not only possessed the advantages of a fortress, but controlled the main commercial routes which passed through it to Gaza in the west, to Bosra and Damascus in the north, to Aqaba and Leuce Come on the Red Sea, and across the desert to the Persian Gulf.

The Nabataeans worshipped Arab gods and goddesses during the pre-Islamic era as well as a few of their deified kings. One, Obodas I, was deified after his death. Dushara was the primary male god accompanied by his three female deities: Al-‘Uzzā, Allat and Manāt. Many statues carved in the rock depict these gods and goddesses. New evidence indicates that broader Edomite, and Nabataean theology had strong links to Earth-Sun relationships, often manifested in the orientation of prominent Petra structures to equinox and solstice sunrises and sunsets.

A stele dedicated to Qos-Allah 'Qos is Allah' or 'Qos the god', by Qosmilk (melech: king) is found at Petra (Glueck 516). Qos is identifiable with Kaush (Qaush) the God of the older Edomites. The stele is horned and the seal from the Edomite Tawilan near Petra identified with Kaush displays a star and crescent (Browning 28), both consistent with a moon deity. It is conceivable that the latter could have resulted from trade with Harran (Bartlett 194). There is continuing debate about the nature of Qos (qaus: bow) who has been identified both with a hunting bow (hunting god) and a rainbow (weather god) although the crescent above the stele is also a bow.

Nabataean inscriptions in Sinai and other places display widespread references to names including Allah, El and Allat (god and goddess), with regional references to al-Uzza, Baal and Manutu (Manat) (Negev 11). Allat is also found in Sinai in South Arabian language. Allah occurs particularly as Garm-'allahi: "god decided" (Greek Garamelos) and Aush-allahi: "gods covenant" (Greek Ausallos). We find both Shalm-lahi "Allah is peace" and Shalm-allat, "the peace of the goddess". We also find Amat-allahi "she-servant of god" and Halaf-llahi "the successor of Allah".

Recently, Petra has been put forward as the original direction of Muslim prayer, the Qibla, by some in the revisionist school of Islamic studies, namely that the earliest mosques faced Petra, not Jerusalem or Mecca. This view is also shared by Abdullah Hashem, the self-proclaimed Qa'im of the Ahmadi Religion of Peace and Light. However, others have challenged the notion of comparing modern readings of Qiblah directions to early mosques’ Qiblahs as they claim early Muslims could not accurately calculate the direction of the Qiblah to Mecca and so the apparent pinpointing of Petra by some early mosques may well be coincidental.

The Monastery, Petra's largest monument, dates from the 1st century BC. It was dedicated to Obodas I and is believed to be the symposium of Obodas the god. This information is inscribed on the ruins of the Monastery (the name is the translation of the Arabic Ad Deir).

The Temple of the Winged Lions is a large temple complex dated to the reign of King Aretas IV (9 BC–40 AD). The temple is located in Petra's so-called Sacred Quarter, an area situated at the end of Petra's main Colonnaded Street consisting of two majestic temples, the Qasr al-Bint and, opposite, the Temple of the Winged Lions on the northern bank of Wadi Musa.

Christianity found its way to Petra in the 4th century AD, nearly 500 years after the establishment of Petra as a trade centre. The start of Christianity in Petra started primarily in 330 AD when the first Christian Emperor of Rome took over, Constantine I, otherwise known as Constantine The Great. He began the initial spread of Christianity throughout the Roman Empire. Athanasius mentions a bishop of Petra (Anhioch. 10) named Asterius. At least one of the tombs (the "tomb with the urn"?) was used as a church. An inscription in red paint records its consecration "in the time of the most holy bishop Jason" (447). After the Islamic conquest of 629–632, Christianity in Petra, as of most of Arabia, gave way to Islam. During the First Crusade Petra was occupied by Baldwin I of the Kingdom of Jerusalem and formed the second fief of the barony of Al Karak (in the lordship of Oultrejordain) with the title Château de la Valée de Moyse or Sela. It remained in the hands of the Franks until 1189. It is still a titular see of the Catholic Church.

According to Arab tradition, Petra is the spot where Musa (Moses) struck a rock with his staff and water came forth, and where Moses' brother, Harun (Aaron), is buried, at Mount Hor, known today as Jabal Haroun or Mount Aaron. The Wadi Musa or "Wadi of Moses" is the Arab name for the narrow valley at the head of which Petra is sited. A mountaintop shrine of Moses' sister Miriam was still shown to pilgrims at the time of Jerome in the 4th century, but its location has not been identified since.

Climate
In Petra, there is a semi-arid climate. Most rain falls in the winter. The Köppen-Geiger climate classification is BSk. The average annual temperature in Petra is 15.5 °C. About 193 mm of precipitation falls annually.

Conservation

The Bedul (Petra Bedouin) were forcibly resettled from their cave dwellings in Petra to Umm Sayhoun/Um Seihun by the Jordanian government in 1985, prior to the UNESCO designation process. They were provided with block-built housing with some infrastructure including in particular a sewage and drainage system. Among the six communities in the Petra Region, Umm Sayhoun is one of the smaller communities. The village of Wadi Musa is the largest in the area, inhabited largely by the Layathnah Bedouin, and is now the closest settlement to the visitor centre, the main entrance via the Siq and the archaeological site generally. Umm Sayhoun gives access to the 'back route' into the site, the Wadi Turkmaniyeh pedestrian route.

On December 6, 1985, Petra was designated a World Heritage Site. In a popular poll in 2007, it was also named one of the New 7 Wonders of the World. The Petra Archaeological Park (PAP) became an autonomous legal entity over the management of this site in August 2007.

The Bedoul belong to one of the Bedouin tribes whose cultural heritage and traditional skills were proclaimed by UNESCO on the Intangible Cultural Heritage List in 2005 and inscribed in 2008.

In 2011, following an 11-month project planning phase, the Petra Development and Tourism Region Authority in association with DesignWorkshop and JCP s.r.l published a Strategic Master Plan that guides planned development of the Petra Region. This is intended to guide planned development of the Petra Region in an efficient, balanced and sustainable way over the next 20 years for the benefit of the local population and of Jordan in general. As part of this, a Strategic Plan was developed for Umm Sayhoun and surrounding areas.

The process of developing the Strategic Plan considered the area's needs from five points of view:

 * A socio-economic perspective
 * The perspective of Petra Archaeological Park
 * The perspective of Petra's tourism product
 * A land use perspective
 * An environmental perspective

The site suffers from a host of threats, including collapse of ancient structures, erosion due to flooding and improper rainwater drainage, weathering from salt upwelling, improper restoration of ancient structures, and unsustainable tourism. The last has increased substantially, especially since the site received widespread media coverage in 2007 during the New7Wonders of the World Internet and cellphone campaign. Tourism has steadily grown, with Petra receiving 1.2 million total visitors in 2019.

In an attempt to reduce the problems, the Petra National Trust (PNT) was established in 1989. It has worked with numerous local and international organisations on projects that promote the protection, conservation, and preservation of the Petra site. Moreover, UNESCO and ICOMOS recently collaborated to publish their first book on human and natural threats to the sensitive World Heritage sites. They chose Petra as its first and the most important example of threatened landscapes. The presentation Tourism and Archaeological Heritage Management at Petra: Driver to Development or Destruction? (2012) was the first in a series to address the very nature of these deteriorating buildings, cities, sites, and regions.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) released a video in 2018 highlighting the abuse of working animals in Petra. PETA claimed that animals are forced to carry tourists or pull carriages every day. The video showed handlers beating and whipping working animals, with beatings intensifying when animals faltered. PETA also showed some wounded animals, including camels with fly-infested, open wounds. The Jordanian authority running the site responded by proposing a veterinary clinic, and by undertaking to spread awareness among animal handlers. In 2020, more video released by PETA indicated that conditions for the animals had not improved and, in 2021, the organization was running what appeared to be the only veterinary clinic in the area.

Petra is a site at the intersection of natural and cultural heritage forming a unique cultural landscape. Ever since Johann Ludwig Burckhardt aka Sheikh Ibrahim had re-discovered the ruin city in Petra, Jordan, in 1812, the cultural heritage site has attracted different people who shared an interest in the ancient history and culture of the Nabataeans such as travellers, pilgrims, painters and savants. However, it was not until the late 19th century that the ruins were systematically approached by archaeological researchers. Since then regular archaeological excavations and ongoing research on the Nabataean culture have been part of today's UNESCO world cultural heritage site Petra. Through the excavations in the Petra Archaeological Park an increasing number of Nabataean cultural heritage is being exposed to environmental impact. A central issue is the management of water impacting the built heritage and the rock hewn facades. The large number of discoveries and the exposure of structures and findings demand conservation measures respecting the interlinkage between the natural landscape and cultural heritage, as especially this connection is a central challenge at the UNECSO World Heritage Site.

In recent years different conservation campaigns and projects were established at the cultural heritage site of Petra. The main works first focussed on the entrance situation of the Siq to protect tourists and to facilitate access. Also, different projects for conservation and conservation research were conducted. Following is a list of projects, to be continued.

 * 1958 Restoration of the third pillar of the Treasury building (Al-Khazneh). This project was funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)
 * 1974–1990 Conservation work in the excavated area of the Winged Lions Temple
 * 1981 Different restoration works by the Department of Antiquities of Jordan
 * 1985 Restoration works at the Qasr El Bint Temple by the Department of Antiquities of Jordan
 * 1990–1998 Excavation and Conservation of the Byzantine Church by the American Centre of Research (ACOR)
 * 1992–2002 Conservation and Restoration Center in Petra CARCIP, German GTZ Project.
 * 1993–2000 Excavation, conservation and restoration of the Great Temple, funded by the Brown University, USA.
 * 1996 onwards, Restoration of the Siq and rehabilitation of the Siq floor by the Petra National Trust foundet by the Jordanian-Swiss counterpart Fund, the Swiss Agency for Development and the World Monuments Fund.
 * 2001 Restoration of the altar in front of the Casr Bint Firaun by UNESCO
 * 2003 Development of a conservation and maintenance plan of the ancient drainage systems to protect the rock-cut facades
 * 2003–2017 Evaluation of desalination and restoration at the tomb facades
 * 2006–2010 Preservation and consolidation of the Wall Paintings in Siq al Barid by the Petra National Trust in cooperation with the Department of Antiquities of Jordan and the Courtauld Institute of Art (London).
 * 2009 onwards, renewed effort to preserve and rehabilitate the Winged Lions Temple by The Temple of the Winged Lions Cultural Management (TWLCRM) Initiative, the Petra Archaeological Park (PAP) and the Department of Antiquities of Jordan
 * 2016–2019 Characterisation and Conservation of Paintings on Walls and Sculpture from Nabataean Petra "The Petra Painting Conservation Project (PPCP)", funded by the German Research Foundation (Project number 285789434).

Popular culture

 * In 1845, British poet John William Burgon won Oxford University's Newdigate Prize for his poem "Petra", containing the description "...a rose-red city half as old as time".
 * Petra appeared in the novels Bartleby";"Left Behind Series; Appointment with Death; The Eagle in the Sand; The Red Sea Sharks, the nineteenth book in The Adventures of Tintin series; and in Kingsbury's The Moon Goddess and the Son. It played a prominent role in the Marcus Didius Falco mystery novel Last Act in Palmyra, and is the setting for Agatha Christie's Appointment With Death. In Blue Balliett's novel, Chasing Vermeer, the character Petra Andalee is named after the site.
 * In 1979 Marguerite van Geldermalsen from New Zealand married Mohammed Abdullah, a Bedouin in Petra. They lived in a cave in Petra until the death of her husband. She authored the book Married to a Bedouin.
 * An Englishwoman, Joan Ward, wrote Living With Arabs: Nine Years with the Petra Bedouin documenting her experiences while living in Umm Sayhoun with the Petra Bedouin, covering the period 2004–2013.
 * The playwright John Yarbrough's tragicomedy, Petra, debuted at the Manhattan Repertory Theatre in 2014 and was followed by award-winning performances at the Hudson Guild in New York in 2015. It was selected for the Best American Short Plays 2014-2015 anthology.
 * The site appeared in films such as Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Arabian Nights, Passion in the Desert, Mortal Kombat Annihilation, Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger, The Mummy Returns, Krrish 3, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Samsara and Kajraare.
 * Petra appeared in an episode of Time Scanners, made for National Geographic, where six ancient structures were laser scanned, with the results built into 3D models. Examining the model of Petra revealed insights into how the structure was built.
 * Petra was the focus of an American PBS Nova special, "Petra: Lost City of Stone", which premiered in the US and Europe in February 2015.
 * Petra is central to Netflix's first Arabic original series Jinn, which is a young adult supernatural drama about the djinn in the ancient city of Petra. They must try and stop the demons from destroying the world. The show is shot in Jordan and has five episodes.
 * Six months after a deadly hike by two Israelis in 1958, Haim Hefer wrote the lyrics for a ballad called HaSela haAdom ("The Red Rock")
 * In 1977, the Lebanese Rahbani brothers wrote the musical Petra as a response to the Lebanese Civil War.

title: Petra