Discover the treasures of 'Indiana Jones'
Neal Bierling digs Petra.
He's sure other Americans would too - if only more of us knew what the heck it is.
That's why the Grand Rapids teacher and archeologist, known in some circles as "west Michigan's Indiana Jones," is determined to help pluck Petra from relative obscurity in the Jordanian desert and spark interest in the intriguing question:
How could such a thriving ancient metropolis - a center of international trade and culture that was literally carved out of red sandstone cliffs - fall through history's cracks, hiding its fascinating secrets for nearly 2,000 years?
Starting Monday, curious Michigan residents will get a chance to ponder that question when "Petra: Lost City of Stone," opens for a 19-week run at Calvin College in Grand Rapids.
A groundbreaking exhibition of more than 200 artifacts, including a massive one-ton bust of the Nabataean storm god, Dushara, it is a significant cultural exchange between the United States and Jordan. The show has appeared in only two other U.S. venues: the American Museum of Natural History in New York and the Cincinnati Art Museum. Both attracted blockbuster crowds.
In Grand Rapids, organizers expect between 50,000 and 75,000 visitors will view the multimedia installation by the time the exhibit closes Aug. 15 at Calvin's Prince Conference Center, which underwent major modifications to accommodate the exhibit.
Among the visitors will be busloads from Metro Detroit's Arab-American and Chaldean Council, school and church groups and other Metro Detroiters. Some already have reserved tickets for the exhibit, which is complemented by displays of contemporary photography and textiles, lectures and other education programs, festivals and a kid-pleasing outdoor archeological dig.
Even the Grand Rapids Ballet Company will perform a new work inspired by the Petra exhibit during a special weekend at the college, July 21-23.
"Petra (it means 'rock') is the most exotic site in the entire Middle East," says Bierling, who credits Steven Spielberg's 1989 movie "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" for introducing Petra to the film-going public.
The movie's closing scenes show Harrison Ford and Sean Connery riding horses through the Siq, a narrow entrance to the town formed by a split in the high, rose-colored cliffs. Suddenly, they round a bend in the mountain and view for the first time the elaborate facade of the Treasury, a royal tomb called the Khazneh. It's a jaw-dropping sight, as is the valley beyond.
"Here, in just one area, you have a concentration of hundreds of beautiful-beyond-belief buildings all carved out of solid rock," Bierling says. "This is one civilization that shouldn't have been ignored."
Now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Petra lies in present-day Jordan, north of Saudi Arabia and west of Iraq. Armed with his cameras, a small pick-ax and trowel, Bierling has visited Petra dozens of times since 1995 and helped unearth a sixth-century marble pulpit from the Blue Chapel, a Byzantine church.
It's among the highlights of the upcoming exhibit and illustrates how Petra's population shifted from pagan rituals to Christianity in later centuries, after a devastating earthquake in 363 A.D. from which the town never fully recovered.
The rose-hued ruins were rediscovered in the 1800s, an era represented in the exhibit by a selection of 19th-century paintings, drawings and prints.
Last year, Bierling approached Calvin College, his alma mater, to host the Petra show - and, by all accounts, the college jumped at the chance. Several professors, including Bert and Sally DeVries, have visited Petra many times, as has Calvin's president, Gaylen Byker.
"The first time you go in there, you are totally unprepared for the magnitude and the impressiveness of it," Byker says. "The pictures don't do it justice."
Bierling agrees.
"It's mind-boggling to see these huge examples of art and architecture and to realize that so many people, even teachers, have never even heard of this lost civilization," he says.
The members of that civilization, the Nabataeans, were a Nomadic Arabian tribe who settled in Petra several centuries before Christ's birth. Shrewd entrepreneurs, they capitalized on its strategic locale at the confluence of two ancient spice routes, exacting goods and fees from all who passed.
"Basically, they cornered the market on the incense and spice trade (on the Arabian Peninsula) and fed the appetite for spices of the Egyptians, Romans and Greek empires," says Joel Zwart, curator of Calvin College's Petra exhibit.
As Petra's residents shifted from desert Nomads to prosperous urban-dwellers, the city teemed with camel caravans and traders carrying ivory, silk, perfumes, incense, textiles, ceramics, precious metals and other exotic goods from India, China and Africa.
During the city's heyday, a century before and after Christ, Petra flourished as a cultural hub as well. Many of the exhibit's artifacts - stone sculptures, jewelry, a panther-handled marble vase and marble column tops adorned with Indian elephants - reflect Greek, Roman, Egyptian and other influences.
That's apparent, for example, in the Statue of Victory. In it, a winged Nike, the Greek goddess of Victory, is reunited with Tyche, goddess of prosperity, whose bust is framed by a zodiac disc. The object's two halves, mysteriously separated for more than 1,500 years, have been reunited for this exhibit.
The key to Petra's rich history was water. The Nabataeans, more than 20,000 strong, were masters of engineering and hydrology, creating a veritable oasis in the harsh Negev Desert.
"They diverted the scarce rainwater into cisterns, terraces and channels - they had troughs carved into the rocks," says Zwart, noting that sections of early Petra's interlocking pipe system are showcased in the exhibit. "They had public baths, water fountains --these people had a lot of water and they were in the middle of the desert."
Petra's aqueduct system is estimated to have carried about 12 million gallons of fresh spring water per day, enough to sustain a modern-day American population of more then 100,000.
While the Nabataeans were clearly savvy at commerce and engineering, in addition to their ingenious ways with water, they built a 6,000-seat stone amphitheater. Written records are rare, and there is no evidence of a library.
Regardless, Petra was visually impressive, with more than 800 tombs carved into the rose-colored cliffs towering over the plain. "They were basically surrounded by their ancestors," Zwart says of the residents.
Three large videoscapes cast panoramic images of the tombs, some rising hundreds of feet above the canyon floor, on the museum walls. They provide a moving backdrop to the Petra exhibit.
"It's quite dramatic," he says.
Khal Hanna, community relations manager for Metro Detroit's Arab American and Chaldean Council, says he and many of his constituents are eager to travel to Grand Rapids to explore the "lost city of stone."
Some 120 students in two of the council's summer youth groups will tour the Petra exhibit, and several Metro Detroit churches and mosques also plan Grand Rapids visits. The council, which partnered with Calvin College for the exhibit, also is spreading the word to Dearborn colleges and various social and cultural groups, Hanna says, adding that interest in the dramatic exhibition should stretch far beyond the Arab-American community.
"We're extremely excited about it," Hanna says. "It's not only the historic influence of this exhibit but, also, as far as the Middle Eastern community, it's such an incredible point of pride. ... I get goose bumps thinking about it."
You can reach Susan R. Pollack at (313) 222-2665 or srpollack@detnews.com.
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