Jordan occupies a strategic position between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. In the seventh century B.C. the Nabataeans, a people of merchant nomads, settled here. They carved a city out of the pink and yellow sandstone of the cliff in the southern part of the country, at the meeting point of six caravan routes, and made it their capital. They called it Petra, the Greek word for “rock.” Through the trade of rare products (incense from Arabia, spices from India, gold from Egypt, silk from China, and ivory from Nubia) and taxation of caravan routes, Nabataean civilization extended its influence far beyond the trans-Jordan region before it fell to the Romans in 106 AD. Al-Dayr, standing at the top of the city, was built between the third and first centuries B.C. Due to its imposing stature (138 feet high and 148 feet wide, or 42 x 45 m), it dominates the approximately 800 monuments of Petra. After the decline of Nabataean civilization the monument was occupied by Byzantine

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