PREFACE.
Greeks by the name of Arce (Agxi), a corruption perhaps of the
Hebrew Rekem.* To Wady Mousa, although of a very different
aspect from Kerek, the name Petra was equally well adapted ;
and Kerek then became distinguished among the Greeks by its indigenous ¬
name, in the Greek form of Charax, to which the Romans
added that of Omanorum, or Kerek of Ammon, to distinguish it
from another Kerek, now called Kerek el Shobak. The former Kerek -
was afterwards restored by the Christians to the Jewish division
of Moab, to which, being south of the river Arnon, it strictly belonged, ¬
and it was then called in Greek Charagmoba, under which
name we find it mentioned as one of the cities and episcopal dioceses ¬
of the third Palestine.
When the stream of commerce which had enriched the Nabatæi
had partly reverted to its old Egyptian channel, and had partly
taken the new course, which created a Palmyra in the midst of a
country still more destitute of the commonest gifts of nature, then
Arabia Petræa,§ Wady Mousa was gradually depopulated. Its river,
however, and the intricate recesses of its rocky valleys, still attract
and give security to a tribe of Arabs; but the place being defensible ¬
only by considerable numbers, and being situated in a less
fertile country than Kerek, was less adapted to be the chief town of
the Nabatæi, when they had returned to their natural state of divided -
wanderers or small agricultural communities. The Greek
bishopricks of the third Palestine were obliterated by the Musulman ¬
conquest, with the sole exception of the metropolitan Petra,
whose titular bishop still resides at Jerusalem, and occasionally
visits Kerek, as being the only place in his province which contains
* Plin. Hist. Nat. 1.6, c. 28.
* Joseph. Antiq. Jud. 1. 4, c. 4.
t Hierocl. Synecd. —Notit. Episc. Græc.
§ A comparison of the architecture at Wady Mousa, and at Tedmour, strengthens the
opinion, that Palmyra flourished at a period later than Petra.
