MONTREAL -- The most comprehensive exhibition ever presented reflecting the ancient city of Petra, and its creators, the Nabataeans, has arrived at the Canadian Museum of Civilisation, Canada's largest and most popular cultural institution.
Featuring over 200 exceptional objects, many on display for the first time in North America, the exhibition, "Petra: Lost City of Stone," will conclude its North American tour in Canada's capital.
This exhibition is the most complete portrait ever mounted of the amazing and mysterious city of Petra.
Scheduled to run from April 10 to Sept. 3, 2006, the exhibits include stone sculptures, reliefs, ceramics, metalwork, architectural elements, ancient water pipes, artworks in various media and much more. All are on loan from collections in Jordan, Europe and the United States.
The exhibition at Ottawa/Gatineau tells the story of this once-thriving metropolis at the crossroads of the ancient world's major trade routes, recreating many aspects of the impressive natural and human setting of Petra by the use of artworks, photographs, and actual architectural elements, to tell the fascinating story of life in this ancient city.
Visitors to the exhibition will have an opportunity to view an eight-minute video illustrating the tremendous ingenuity the Nabataean inhabitants of Petra used to address their water, irrigation and other issues.
Under the patronage of Her Majesty Queen Rania and organised by the American Museum of Natural History and the Cincinnati Art Museum, "Petra: Lost City of Stone" is the first major cultural collaboration between Jordan and the United States -- its spill-over into Canadian museums also benefiting Canada.
After 10 years in the planning, the exhibition opened in New York City in October 2003 at the American Museum of Natural History for a nine-month showing.
The Petra treasures then travelled to Cincinnati and were exhibited at the Cincinnati Art Museum from Sept. 14, 2004 to Jan. 30, 2005.
The exhibition then travelled to Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Michigan where these ancient treasures were on exhibit from April 4 to Aug. 15, 2005. This was the third and final leg of its US journey after which they went on their way to Canada.
From Oct. 29, 2005 to Feb. 20, 2006, they were on display at the Glenbow Museum in Calgary after which they came to the Canadian Museum of Civilisation. After the exhibition ends on Sept. 3, the artefacts will be returned to their permanent homes in Jordan and the US.
Before it is all over, many Canadians will have seen another face of the Middle East, today tormented by strife. It will be a sample of a civilisation that has left us one of the world's most spectacular archaeological sites, combining an extraordinary natural landscape and monumental mountainside buildings carved out of stone.
Petra was a geographically important city situated between trade routes between India and Rome. The Nabataeans, whose talented stone cutters carved out ancient Petra, have left us a legacy that will be forever remembered thanks, not only to their stone carved rose-coloured structures, but for also the treasures they left behind -- some of which will be on display in the exhibition at the Canadian Museum of Civilisation.
The Nabataeans dominated a large region that at times stretched from mid-Saudi Arabia in the south to Palmyra in the north. They were noted for their business acumen, excellent agricultural and engineering skills as well as their remarkable achievements in stone carving. Once Arab nomads, while building Petra, they took, at the same time, control of the vital spice trade route, bringing them tremendous fortunes.
They built Petra because of the natural defences of the site -- a hidden valley accessible through the encircling sandstone mountains by a narrow one-mile long passageway. Undaunted by the harsh desert environment and the many problems that arose, the Nabataeans created one of the great urban complexes of the ancient world entirely out of stone -- an everlasting monument to their technological genius and artistry. It is a project, virtually impossible in ancient times, and would not be easy even during our technologically advanced age.
Thanks to its location at the crossroads of the Silk Road and the spice routes that connected China, India and Arabia with markets in Greece, Rome, Egypt and Syria, Petra became a wealthy city. This wealth attracted Roman Emperor Trajan who took control of Petra in 106AD. The Romans brought with them their gods and introduced their structures, adding to the kaleidoscope of cultural influences on Petra. This Roman influence is evident in some of the exhibits on display, such as the Roman Marble Vase -- one of the highlights of the exhibition.
Outside the bedouin world, Petra was lost for hundreds of years until 1812 when it was rediscovered thanks to the curiosity of Johann Ludwig Burckhardt who had heard tales of "a lost city." It was the rediscovery of this lost civilisation. This once vanished city is today the most popular tourist site in Jordan. When either the early morning or late afternoon visitors view the red glowing sandstone, they are usually awe-struck and rave about it when they return home.
From April 10 to Sept. 3, 2006 people need not travel to Jordan to be at least somewhat enthralled. The "Petra: Lost City of Stone" exhibit at the Canadian Museum of Civilisation will give them a taste of that breathtaking once lost city and, perhaps, a yearning to travel to that city of mystery and romance. Many of the people who visited the exhibitions in the previous cities were overwhelmingly positive about the experience.
No doubt the ones who travel to that mysterious city will appreciate the words of John William Burgon who wrote as part of epic poem about Petra:
"Not virgin white -- like that old Doric shrine
Where once Athena held her rites divine:
But rosy-red, as if the blush of dawn
Which first beheld them were not yet withdrawn;
The hues of youth upon a brow of woe,
Which men called old two thousand years ago!
Match me such marvel, save in Eastern clime,
A rose-red city `half as old as Time'!"
By Habeeb Salloum
© Jordan Times 2006
