Unseen Things No.1 - Petra

Of all the things I have never experienced in person, there are some I have a chance of seeing, some that it is unlikely I will see and some that I will never see.

In terms of those that I will never see, it could be because they no longer exist, or because seeing them would involve more stamina, effort or energy than I currently have. Or in some case perhaps because they involve more danger than I care to accept as would be the case with some ruins I recall seeing on TV where you had to abseil down a cliff and do various mountain goat-type things to reach them, or where going to see them might damage or be bad for the things being seen.

The first on my list is perhaps one of the latter as, since listed as one of the New Seven Wonders of the World in 2007, it has been described as having "unsustainable levels of tourism" during a time when the monuments themselves are threatened by flood water damage, salt erosion and age.

This is Petra, in modern Jordan. The ancient capital of the Nabataeans, it was a fortress controlling ancient caravan trade routes to and from Gaza, Damascus, the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea.

It was approached by the Siq, the shaft, a narrow gorge in the sandstone with this impressive structure carved from the rockface at the end of it.

It has been used in several films and the place features as the setting for many books. Indiana Jones, gallops down the Siq in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Macro and Cato visit the city in Simon Scarrow's Roman legionary series in the book The Eagle in the Sand.

There are so many sights to be seen in that vicinity though and to date I have never been to the Holy Land. If I was there and had the chance to visit, perhaps I couldn't and shouldn't resist!

The photograph comes with grateful thanks from the Flickr collection of Mahmood Al-Yousif