FAR-FLUNG FANS
Floating around the world there are now numerous
Pratchett-inspired T-shirts, scarves and other quality merchandise. It
turns up in the strangest of places. Here, we see that the ancient city
of Petra has not been spared exposure to Pratchett leisurewear. Michael
Grant explains how it came to be there.
The photograph shows me in front of the mausoleum called Al Khazneh
("The Treasury") which greets travellers' eyes as they
emerge from the siq. As is well known, this was where the climax of
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was filmed. Having an
interest in archaeology, I'd wanted to go to Petra for years, but
until recently it was illegal for me to enter the country, being
Jewish. Since the peace treaty between Jordan and Israel, though, that
has changed, and I finally visited Petra as part of the first Jewish
student Peace Process tour of Israel, Egypt and Jordan in the summer of
1995.
Petra is the ancient capital city of the Nabataeans, in Jordan.
Unlike the Romans the Nabataeans knew how to cross the deserts of Saudi
Arabia and, by getting goods from India to the Roman Empire five days
ahead of the Romans' ships, they cornered the market and became
filthily rich.
Petra is surrounded by high mountains on all sides, and is
accessible only via a very narrow, very deep canyon, called the siq,
and it resisted the Romans' attempts to conquer it for a long time.
The city was destroyed by an earthquake in the fourth century, but the
impressive mausoleums (mausolea) that were carved out of the
mountainside survived intact.
Petra remained unknown to the Western world, guarded jealously by
the Bedouins, until a German, posing as a Syrian businessman, risked
his life to go there last century on a pilgrimage to Jebel Haroun
(Mount Aaron).
Michael Grant
If you have any photographic evidence of Pratchett wear
finding its way to strange and wonderful places, why not send them to
us with an explanation of where it was discovered and who you are. The
most outrageous will receive a prize at the Convention in
1998.
Issues index.
Web pages designed by Derek Moody
December 1997
