The "valley of the moon", where the
wind-sculpted mountains, vast
desert vistas and clear sky in day
time creates and enchants suitable atmosphere for hiking and
spotting ancient rock for drawings, camel-trekking, jeep safaris or
in the night just camping under the stars and enjoying a cup of
spiced coffee in a Bedouin tent. A truly "out of this world"
experience and you will enjoy many other highlights which surpass
the expectations of any human being. In this
mystical atmosphere,
you will experience a peace of mind "Vast echoing and Godlike"
Lawrence of Arabia described Wadi Rum "Wadi Rum has some of the most
spectacular desert scenery anywhere in the world". Lawrence of
Arabia spent quite a bit of time here during the Arab Revolt and
many of the scenes from the film were shot here.
Don't expect sweeping sand dunes: Wadi Rum is a landscape of
bizarre, soaring rock formations, known as jebels. Although more and
more tourists are coming here, it hasn't lost any of its forbidding
majesty. The only residents of the area are around 4000 villagers
and Bedouin nomads and the only buildings are goat hair tents, a few
concrete shops and houses and the fort headquarters of the Desert
Patrol Corps.
Geologists think that this Wadi (the Arabic word for "valley")
resulted from a great crack in the surface of the earth caused by an
enormous upheaval, which shattered mammoth pieces of granite and
sandstone ridges from the mountains of the Afro-Arabian shield. Some
of the ridges are a thousand feet high and topped with domes worn
smooth by the desert winds. Surrounding you, in this timeless and
empty place, are indications of man's presence the earliest known
times. Archaeologists are certain that the Wadi Rum area was
inhabited in the Prehistoric periods, mainly the Neolithic period
between the 8th and 6th centuries B.C. and was known as Wadi Iram.
Fresh water springs made Rum a meeting center for caravans heading
towards Syria and Palestine from Arabia. Neolithic flints, Iron Age
pottery and Minaean graffiti indicate settlement of the area prior
to the Nabateans. Before Islam, it served as the gathering place for
the tribes in trade activities and monumental
achievements.
Recent excavations in the south have uncovered a
Caleolithic settlement dating from 4,500 B.C. On a hill, at the foot
of Jebel Rum, lies the Allat temple originally built by the Ad tribe
and remodeled by the Nabateans in the 1st Century B.C. The Nabatean
temple is a mere five minutes walk from the rest house. A small
village to the north west of the temple was founded by the Nabateans
including a bath complex. Thamudic inscriptions, at the foot of the
cliffs on both sides of the main Wadi, can be found in ancient stone
constructions.
