Petra – Ruins

Petra is a historic and archaeological city with rock-cut architecture and water conduit system in the Jordan.  Established in the 6th Century BC as the capital city of the Nabataeans, it lies on the slope of Mount Hor. It is flood-prone and suffers from droughts.  It was the ability of the Nabataeans to control the water supply by the use of dams, cisterns and water conduits that led to the rise of the desert city, creating an artificial oasis that enabled the city to prosper.
According to the Bible, this part of the country was assigned to the Horites, the predecessors of the Edomites (Gen. 14:6, 36:20–30; Deut. 2: 12). Petra is usually identified with Sela which means a rock, (Judg. 1: 36; Isa. 16:1, 42:11); and Obad. 3 refer to it as "the cleft in the rock". In the parallel passage, however, Sela is understood to mean simply "the rock" (2 Chr. xxv. 12, see LXX).

The Nabataeans were polytheists who deified their kings. The Gospel found its way to Petra in the 4th century AD but after the Islamic conquest of 629–632 Christianity in Petra, as in most of Arabia, gave way to Islam.