We are in Petra already, and after the visit to the Treasure, we will visit the Siq, which means the shaft in Arabic. The Siq is the main entrance to the ancient city of Petra. It is actually a narrow gorge that in some places is not larger than 3 m and 1.2 km long and ends in front of the Treasure. While we walk on this path, you might feel relatively little between these walls as they are pretty high. They are between 91 m and 182m, so you can feel little between them. This fantastic path wasn’t made by the water as most canyons. This one was made by tectonic forces. Just later, the water smoothed the path.
Going down history, you might see the caravans coming and going with merchants on this narrow path and see how the city was full of life.

On the entrance of the path is a massive dam. In 1963 and in 1991, the dam was reconstructed to reroute the waters of Wadi Musa. The Nabateans used to have a similar dam around I AD. When we enter, we can see the remains of a beautiful arch. Unfortunately, not much was preserved from it, but there are lithographs made by Matthew Boulby and David Roberts that you can look for to see how the arch used to look before the earthquake from 1896 when the arch collapsed.

Along the path, you may see some underground chambers, but nobody knows for what they were used. The possibility to be tombs was excluded, but they might be chambers for the guards that may have been defending the path for the merchants.

In 1998 the archeologist uncovered two giant statues that look like two merchants. They are twice as a living statue. They are a bit eroded by time, but they can still be seen.

I hope you enjoyed walking in the Siq with me and you didn’t feel like the path was too narrow. I also hope you follow me a bit in the history path.