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Kingdom of the Caravans, Petra.

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In the desert of southern Jordan,

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the Bedouin have made the ancient city of Petra

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a base for their nomadic life for generations.

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A deep and narrow passage runs through a crack in the rock.

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The 2,000-year-old city of Petra lies below.

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The gorge walls are 100 metres high.

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At the bottom runs a narrow corridor,

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one and a half kilometres long.

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Petra, meaning rock in Greek,

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was built in 200 BC as the capital of the Nabataean kingdom.

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The site was known only to the Bedouin

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until a Swiss scholar discovered it in 1812.

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There's a 30-metre tall monument at the end of the corridor.

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It's Petra's most elaborate monument,

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Al-Qazneh, the treasury of the king.

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Petra enjoyed the peak of its prosperity

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during the 1st century BC,

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when it had 30,000 inhabitants.

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The ancestors of the Nabataean people

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traded spices from the Arabian Peninsula and India

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to the Mediterranean and Egypt.

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The Nabataeans used their wealth to build this kingdom

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and rule the caravans of the desert.

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The monuments were sculpted from sandstone,

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ideal for detailed and elaborate sculpture work.

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The sculptures are a testimony to the various cultures

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that influenced the city.

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The Amazoness from the Greek legends

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and the Egyptian goddess Isis.

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There is also an Assyrian god.

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Around 500 or so royal tombs are hewn from the rock.

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Believing in life after death,

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the most powerful people competed with each other

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to build a tomb.

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The largest is on top of a 1,000-metre high mountain.

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The monument is said to be the place

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where the sun was worshipped.

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It tells us about the wealth and power of the kingdom.

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The city was later overtaken by the Romans,

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and the Petra that once was became history.

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All that remained were ruins that only the Bedouin knew about.