Little Petra (Siq al-Barid) & Al Beidha – Just a Caravan Stop in the Cold Canyon
Just north of the Nabataean city of Petra, this canyon suburb remained hidden from foreigners long after the Swiss Jean Louis Burckhardt rediscovered Petra. Home to the desert Bedouin, this rocky filled landscape is also home to Al Beidha, one of the oldest inhabited regions in the world.
For more information on the Nabataeans and the city of Petra, this post should be reading conjunction with my post on the subject found here.
Table of Contents
Entry Into the Canyon and Al Beidha
Yeah the caravan is on its way
I can hear the merry gypsies play
Van the Man (Van Morrison)
Driving through the lunar landscape on the rocky plateau 1,040 metres (3,410 ft) above sea level, north of Wadi Musa, the main town outside of Petra, I wondered what it would be like to enter this land as an outsider some two thousand years ago. This distant suburb of Petra was built to house visiting traders on the Silk Road. After the decline of the Nabataeans, it fell vacant, used only by Bedouin nomads for centuries but what a comforting site it must have been for those caravanserai of times past to have seen the signs of civilization themselves carved into the rock. for centuries.
It was a rainy day in the desert, a rarity indeed and Petra had actually shut down due to the torrential downpour. Not wanting to waste a day, I figured I would bump up Little Petra and Montreal Castle (Shobak). The latter was closed as well, a thick fog having set over it and construction works baring access, so I was really pulling for the for Little Petra to be open. I made my way past the faux tourist “bedouin camp” as well as the modern village of Al Beidha and found out that luckily it was! Eventually the main road gave way to a dauntingly empty space near the Siq… empty but for the wind eroded stones themselves.
Off the road I saw the first signs of a ancient human presence, carved homes into the rockface! If you continue off the road south west from here you will come across the ancient village of Al Beidha.
Al Beidha (Bayda) is little more than a series of stone foundations. Discovered along the nearby Siq al-Barid by British archeologists Diana Kirkbride and Brian Byrd Neolithic, the traces of human occupation date as far back as the 8500 BC . What you see today is mixed with ruins from the Nabataean Era, when a short wall encircled this village of stone huts and terraced gardens. The ruins of the 65 homes on the site are important because they pinpoint the mark transition from a hunter-gatherer community to settled herder-agriculturalist one. East of the main site you will find what could be an ancient temple of a pre-Abrahamic religion.
Enjoy your view of the landscape while you are out here the rocks have a very interesting shape.
Little Petra (Siq al-Barid)
The Siq al-Barid is best known as Little Petra. At the entry of the canyon you will find first sign of Nabethean civilization, an ornate rock carved tomb just outside the canyon. One of the great things about this attraction is that you don’t need a ticket and there are no admission fees. Since it is a free attraction you should buy a coffee of a trinket from one of the the Bedouin stalls that are clustered at the end or at the start of the canyon.
The Siq is acceded via a narrow crack in the rocks, controlled by a single gate that is open during the day.
At the entrance is the Triclinium, the most stunning of the Neoclasically styled tombs carved into the sandstone walls of the canyon. It is believed that it was used as a temple but its use is still up for debate.
The name of the rock formation translates roughly to the Cold Canyon, a reference to the high walls of the Siq that often block out the sunlight.
You will find plenty of structures in the carved rock in the next sections of the canyon.
The inside of the tombs are barren but rather beautiful when observing the grain of the stone.
But beware the site is littered with stray dogs and cats that seem to emerge from the rock formations themselves.
Little Petra was founded in the 1st century A.D when nearby Pera and the Nabeatian Civilization was at its peak. That being said little is known about the site and like almost everything in the Siq its final abandonment is a mystery.
The canyon narrows and opens up again several times and it is believed that these open areas would have been used to entertain visiting merchants.
Make sure to check out the the Painted Biclinium, an ancient dining room for a look at one of the few surviving Nabetean mosaics, displaying the worship of a Dyonesian cult!
At the end of the Siq you will find a staircase leading up with a placard advertising best view in the world, this is a bit of an exaggeration, you will get a good look at some of the rock formations from above. However if you follow this road, it will eventually take you to Petra itself. This is not recommended without a guide as it is easy to get lost out in the desert and weather conditions can be brutal especially at night.
Conclusion
Although much smaller than Petra, this off the beaten path attraction will give you some time away from the Wadi Musa crowds as well as an insight into the lives of both the original inhabitants of the region as well as the nomadic bedouin. Siq al-Barid although similar to Petra is impressive, yet not derivative at all! The ornate canyon caves are beautiful in their own right and feel distinctive to the grandness of Petra.
