AMMAN, 9 July 2007 — For Jordanians, the 7th of July 2007 will always remain a special day when their beloved ancient city of Petra was declared as one of the world’s new Seven Wonders.
Thousands of jubilant people took to the streets and fireworks hit the sky of Amman early yesterday as soon as the results were declared by the organizers of an international contest in a special ceremony that was held in Lisbon, Saturday midnight, and watched by around 1.6 billion people round the world. The 2000-year-old Nabatean-built city has been running for a spot in the international contest along with 20 other landmark sites around the world over the past 16 months.
According to officials, about 22 million votes out of almost 100 million were cast for Petra, which was officially listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1985.
The New Seven Wonders campaign was launched in 2000 by Swiss film producer, author and aviator Bernard Weber to select the seven new wonders of the world via the first global voting campaign.
The Great Wall of China, Rome’s Colosseum, Brazil’s Statute of Christ the Redeemer, Peru’s Machu Picchu, Mexico’s Chichen Itza pyramid and India’s Taj Mahal were named the other six wonders of the world. “We are proud of this result”, Queen Rania said in a telephone call to the state-run Jordan Television from Lisbon where she attended the ceremony along with the Minister of Tourism, Osama Dabbas. “His Majesty King Abdallah and I have been following closely the activities and efforts exerted to introduce the rose-red city” as one of the world’s new wonders, she said.
The ceremony was broadcast live on Jordan Television which devoted Saturday night airtime to a national celebration held in front of Petra’s main monument, the Treasury.
“We were thrilled by the results. We thought Petra will come third or fourth, but to our surprise it ranked second,” Dabbas said. “Jordanians have now to live up to their responsibilities as dictated by the position Petra now occupies on the world’s tourism map,” the minister said.
