Petra, Jordan – Is it an ancient Shiva Temple complex?
By Bibhu Dev Misra (IIT, IIM)

Bibhu Dev Misra is a graduate of the Indian Institute of Technology and the Indian Institute of Management and has been working as an Information Technology consultant for more than 12 years, for various organizations across the world. He is also an independent researcher and writer on topics related to ancient civilizations, myths, symbols, religion and spirituality and has travelled to many places of historical, religious and architectural importance. His articles have appeared in various internet websites and magazines. He can be contacted at bibhumisra@gmail.com and via his personal blog: http://bibhudev.blogspot.com

More articles by Bibhu Dev Misra:
Evolution by Catastrophe: Does it indicate Intelligent Design?, 5 May 2011
The Opet Festival of Ancient Egypt: Has it been derived from the Jagannatha Rathyatra of Puri, India?, 15 April 2011
A Day and Night of Brahma: The Evidence from Fossil Records, 15 April 2011

Petra, the ‘rose red city, half as old as time’, located in modern day Jordan, is undoubtedly one of the most dramatic archaeological sites of the world. In a recently conducted Internet poll, it was voted by internet users as one of the ‘seven wonders of the modern world’. In this abandoned city, which lies hidden behind impenetrable mountains and gorges, magnificent rock-cut temples and palaces have been carved into towering cliffs of red and orange sandstone. The most famous of these structures is the ‘Al Khasneh’ (or the ‘Treasury’), which was made famous in an Indiana Jones film.

Historians tell us that sometime during the 6^th – 4^th centuries BC, the Nabataeans, a nomadic tribe from north-western Arabia, entered the region of Petra, and established their cultural, commercial and ceremonial center at Petra. Petra was located strategically at the intersection of the overland Silk Route which connected India and China with Egypt and the Hellenistic world, and the Incense Route from Arabia to Damascus. It soon developed into a thriving commercial center. Sometime during the 3^rd century BC, the Nabataeans began to decorate their capital city with splendid rock-cut temples and buildings. Their economic prosperity and architectural achievements continued unabated even after they came under the control of the Roman Empire in 106 CE. The neglect and decline of Petra started soon after Emperor Constantine declared Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire in 324 CE. A series of earthquakes crippled the region in the 7^th – 8^th centuries and Petra disappeared from the map of the known world, only to be rediscovered centuries later in 1812, by a Swiss explorer named Johann Burckhardt.