The real mists of time ...

Time has been a very limited thing for me over the past few weeks - low energy levels and lots to do has led to days flying by at a pace much faster than I'd like ... only 13 weekends left! Phew! But I had a trip this weekend to a place where a few weeks turned into the blink of an eye in comparison ...

While friends were visiting Petra last weekend (which as I'm sure I've mentioned is HUGE and not really ideal for a person of limited mobilty), I decided to finally make a visit to Little Petra - the name sounded appropriate i.e. LITTLE walks over LITTLE distances for a person who still gets sore legs a little too quickly compared to most.

I knew that compared to the main Petra site, Little Petra was going to be more compact and less majestic, but it was still a lovely place to wander around and imagine the hussle and bussle of life on one of the area's 'main streets' 2000 years ago. I ended up wandering around with a local guy called Khaled whose family used to live in one of the larger caves on the main drag, and he told me how their old home used to be a shop back in Nabatean times - and while his Dad missed the cave, he was far happier to be living somewhere with a TV and washing machine!


Little Petra does have its own unique side though - the only place that still has detailed paintings is in one of the larger caves, and it's a beautiful design of leaves, flowers and cherubs. Amazing how the desert heat and dryness can preserve things so well.

As an added bonus, Little Petra gets its Arabic name, Siq El Barid (the cold canyon) from the fact that it is mostly in the shade and so stays cool all day. This was very much appreciated when the general temperature in the Petra area was reaching 40 C in the middle of the day - I really felt for the guys on the main site sweltering and dodging from one small patch of shade to another.

But I did venture out for a short walk in the sun, and this was to see a true wonder - a neolithic village in the next valley called Al Bayda (above). This villlage is apparently MASSIVELY significant to archeologists and historians, as it dates right back to the very beginning of humanity properly settling into a sedentary life, growing crops and building houses - this village is dated to around 9,000 years ago! And unlike so many of these really old sites that I've seen before, it's not just a bump in the hill or a few piles of stones - you can see the remains of houses with different size rooms, different shaped buildings and corridors between them. Incredible!

Those lovely geeky archeologists have also handily worked out what the houses would have looked like, and built a couple of examples on the edge of the site so that you can look at the real village and imagine better what it would have looked like with rooves and all. And we tried out the building with the roof - it was amazingly cool in there compared to outside (did I mention it was 40 C?!), I guess having the gap between the top of the walls and the rook creates a kind of airflow system (although not sure about rainy season ...)


So, another site to add to the list of places that make Jordan great ... but I think also food for thought about life today compared to all those years ago - and how much life has stayed the same in some places while it's changed beyond belief in others. And maybe not always for the better ...

Stones for grinding wheat - proof of the first agriculture