International Travel Adventure

After writing the last two posts – about ‘time travel’ — I was struck by the relative definitions of “old”. How old is “old”? How old must something be before it is considered “ancient”? Places come to mind that might illustrate this point somewhat; yet, while possibly illustrating the idea of “old” versus “ancient”, they have similarities, as well. The places I have in mind are nearly half a world apart. And both are an adventure to visit, explore, and photograph.

In the southwest part of the United States is the state of Arizona. Amongst the relatively large number of “prehistoric” dwelling and artifact sites in Arizona is one known commonly as Montezuma Castle, fairly near the Sedona red rock region. (What a great region to explore - really!) While it’s not a castle, and Montezuma was never there, it is a very interesting “high-rise apartment building” of sorts; it is built into a natural limestone recess overlooking Beaver Creek, and is five stories high, comprising twenty to 60 rooms, depending on which part is being described. It is called “prehistoric”, which for North America, is basically anything older than around 500 years, since “historic” only pertains to time after Europeans began settling in the land. We know the Sinagua Indians built this cliff dwelling over 600 years ago. This was when ladders were more ‘en vogue’ than elevators… and presumably, sleep-walking was not yet invented (phew - it’s a good thing!).

While this is old – even “prehistoric” by modern North American standards, it is hardly ancient. Perhaps by standards of any of the rest of the world, it is barely even “old”.

So, ancient, by comparison, would easily describe Petra (meaning Rock), in Jordan. Some say it is half as old as time itself. At one time, it was even one of the wonders of the ancient world. Forgotten for centuries, it was rediscovered in 1812 by a Swiss explorer named Johann Ludwig Burckhardt. What he discovered, hidden at the end of a narrow mile-long passageway winding between four-story rock walls, is a two square mile fortress city essentially carved right out of the canyon’s rock. A prominent feature of this city, seen immediately upon nearing the end of the passageway, is the towering treasury temple, or “kaznah”, hewn right out of a 130-foot-high sheer cliff wall; this columned classic Greek style structure was very befitting a thriving trade city — which it was, in its time, dating from 56 B.C. Additionally, there are many other houses, temples, and tombs all carved by the city’s inhabitants.

So, we have two cliff-dwelling monuments half a world removed from each other, and separated by around 1,400 years on the time machine’s trip meter. One is considered “ancient”, while the other is merely “old”… right?

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International Travel Adventure

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008 at 12:15 am and is filed under Photos, Travel Talk. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.