PETRA, which lay nearly half way between the Dead Sea and the head of the sElanitic Gulf, was one of the most important towns in the north of Arabia, and the capital of the Nabathrei. It is in all probnbihty the Sela of the Old Testament, which signifies, like the Greek word, a 'rock.' This town, which originally belonged to the Edomites, was taken by Amaziab, king of Judah, who changed its name into that of Joktheel (2 Kings, xiv. 7; compare Joseph., 'Antiq.,' ix. 9, § 1); but it seems in later times to have belonged to the Moabite'. (Isaiah xvi. 1.) Petra is described by Strabo (xvi. p. 779) and Pliny CHURL Nat.,' vi. 32) as situated on level ground about two miles in circumference, and surrounded by precipitous mountains, the principal one of which has been identified with Mount lior of the Old Testament. The town itself was well watered, but the surrounding country, and especially the part towards Judaea, was a complete desert. It was 600 Roman miles from Gaza, and three or four days journey from Jericho. In the time of Auguatns, Petra was a large and important town, and its greatness appears to have been principally owing to its situation, which caused it to be a great halting-place 'fur caravans. It main tained its independence against the attempts of the Greek kings of Syria (DiceL Sic., six. 95.97), and was governed by a native prince in the time of Strabo. It was taken by Trajan (Dion Cass., lxviii. 14); and It appears from coins that Iladriao called it after his own name.
The ruins of Petra still exist in the Wady Mum, two days' journey from the Dead Sea, and the same distance north-east of Akaba. Captains Irby and Mangles visited Petra in 1818, and gave a minuto description of the ruins, and from them and from M. Laborde, who published an account in 1838, we take the following notice :—The principal entrance to the town was through a narrow valley formed by the passage of a small rivulet through the rocks, which in some places only leaves room for the plumage of two horsemen abreast. This
narrow valley extends for nearly two miles; and on each aide of it there arc numerous toniba cot out of the rocks, which, as you approach the city, become more frequent on both 'idea, till at length nothing is seen but a continued street of tombs. Nearly at the tertninatiun of this valley there are the ruins of a magnificent temple, entirely cut out of the rock, "the minutest embellishments of which, wherever the hand of man has not purposely effaced them, are so perfect that it may be doubted whether any work of tbo ancients, excepting perhaps some on the banks of the Nile, have come down to our time ao little injured by the lapse of age. There is in fact scarcely a building of forty years' mending in England so well preserved in the greater part of its architectural decorations." After passing this temple, the valley conducts to the theatre, "and here the ruins of the city burst on the view in their full grandeur, abut in on their opposite sides by barren craggy precipices, from which numerous ravines and valleys, like those we had passed, branch out in all directions. The sides of the mountains, covered with an endless variety of excavated tombs and private dwellings, presented altogether the most singular scene we have ever behold, and we must despair of giving the reader an idea of the singular effect of rocks tinted with the most extraordinary hues, whose summits present to us nature in her most ravage and romantic form, while their bases are worked on in all the symmetry and regularity of art, with colonnade and pediments, and ranges of corridors adhering to the perpendicular surface."