Today i went to the Petra: Lost City of Stone exhibit at Calvin College. My primary motivation was to receive extra credit for my mythology class. To get the points, i actually have to write a paper on how the exhibit relates to this class. Nevertheless, i did find the presentation interesting.
There were a lot of people there which surprised me; i figured its been going on for a while and thought that all the people who were interested in such things would have seen it by now. Petra was a jumpin' join back in the day because it lied along some of major trade routes of the area. It assimilated characteristics of many of the surrounding areas, including Greece, Arabia, Egypt and the Roman Empire. The residents carved elaborate structures into the great stone cliffsof the landscape. It was the entrance to the great Khazneh tomb which was featured in the last Indiana Jones movie (though they made no mention of that fact in the exhibit).
The word petra is Latin for rock. It's this root that brings us the word petrified. Even though the artifacts were a bunch of old stones, there was enough information there to make them feel alive. I suppose that's worth the cost of admission.
Posted by Matthew at July 30, 2005 10:50 PM