Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
mines in Wadi Araba, and transported by King Solomon's fleets to far-flung destinations.
Ceramics from China and coins from Ethiopia highlight the cosmopolitan nature of the
port throughout its early history. Thereafter the Egyptians, Nabataeans and Romans all
found their uses for 'Ayla', as it came to be known, and the discovery of a late-3rd-cen-
tury purpose-built church - one of the oldest in the world - is suggestive of a prosperous
community, embracing of change.
In AD 1068 the town's fortunes changed when a huge earthquake split the old city of
Ayla in two. The shifting of trade routes to Baghdad in the middle of the 16th century led
to the final eclipse of the port which dwindled to an insignificant fishing village for the
next 500 years.
Aqaba returned to the spotlight during the Arab Revolt in the early 20th century when
Ottoman forces were ousted after a raid by the Arabs (and TE Lawrence) in 1917. There-
after the British used the town as a supply centre from Egypt to support the assault on
Damascus.
After WWI, the border between Trans-Jordan and Saudi Arabia had not been defined,
so Britain arbitrarily drew a line a few kilometres south of Aqaba. The Saudis disputed the
claim but took no action. As the port of Aqaba grew, the limited coastline proved insuffi-
cient, so in 1965 King Hussein traded 6000 sq km of Jordanian desert for another 12km of
coastline with Saudi Arabia. Today, with the value of tourism to the gross national
product, that has proved to be a very foresighted deal.
