Hidden within the rose-red sandstone mountains of southern Jordan, the ancient city of Petra has captivated travelers, archaeologists, and historians for two centuries since its rediscovery by a Swiss explorer in 1812. Originally known to its Nabataean builders as Raqemu, it was one of antiquity's most remarkable urban achievements, a city carved directly into cliffs of multicolored sandstone by a nomadic people who became wealthy masters of the desert trade routes, controlling commerce between Arabia, Egypt, and the Mediterranean world.
The area around Petra has a human history stretching back to 7000 BC, when some of the earliest known farmers established the Pre-Pottery Neolithic settlement of Beidha just to the north of the site. Ancient Egyptian campaign records and the diplomatic correspondence of the Amarna letters reference a place called Pel, Sela, or Seir in the region, indicating awareness of the location's strategic importance across several millennia. During the Iron Age, between roughly 1200 and 600 BC, the Petra area was occupied by the Edomites, a people who made use of the natural water-collecting properties of the surrounding mountain formations to establish a reliable supply in an otherwise arid landscape. This water security made Petra a natural stopping point for merchants, and trade in wines, olive oil, and timber passed through even in these earliest periods.
The Nabataeans, a northern Arabian tribal people with roots in the Arabian Desert, settled in the Petra region in the fourth century BC, displacing or absorbing the earlier Edomite inhabitants. Although initially nomadic herders who moved their flocks in search of pasture and water, the Nabataeans demonstrated a remarkable ability to adapt to and master their desert environment. They developed sophisticated systems for collecting, storing, and distributing rainwater through a network of cisterns, channels, and pipes carved into the rock and built across the mountains. This engineering achievement allowed them to sustain a substantial urban population in a place where water was scarce and unpredictable.
By the second century BC, Petra had become the capital of the Nabataean Kingdom and one of the most important trading hubs in the ancient world. Its location at the crossroads of the incense trade routes connecting southern Arabia with the Mediterranean gave the Nabataeans unparalleled leverage over commerce in luxury goods. Caravans carrying frankincense, myrrh, spices, silk, and other high-value commodities passed through Petra on their way north and west, and the Nabataeans charged tolls and provided services that generated extraordinary wealth. The Jewish historian Josephus, writing in the first century AD, noted that the city ranked highest in the land of the Arabs and was known to the Arabs of his time by its Nabataean name Rekeme, after its royal founder.
The most celebrated period of Petra's development came in the first century AD, when the city's population reached an estimated 20,000 inhabitants and its most iconic monument, the Al-Khazneh or Treasury, was constructed. This monumental facade, rising nearly 40 meters high and carved directly into the face of a rose-red sandstone cliff at the end of the narrow Siq gorge, is believed to have served as the mausoleum of the Nabataean king Aretas IV. Its Hellenistic architectural vocabulary blended with Eastern decorative elements demonstrates how thoroughly the Nabataeans had absorbed and adapted the cultural influences flowing through their city along the trade routes. Hundreds of other tombs, temples, colonnaded streets, a Roman-style theater, and elaborate civic buildings were similarly carved from the living rock or constructed from the local sandstone.
Nabataea fell to the Roman Empire in 106 AD when Emperor Trajan annexed it and renamed it Arabia Petraea. While Petra initially remained prosperous under Roman administration, its commercial importance declined as sea trade routes through the Red Sea emerged as more efficient alternatives to the overland caravan routes on which the city's economy had depended. An earthquake in 363 AD destroyed many of its structures and further accelerated its decline. During the Byzantine era, several Christian churches were constructed within the city, but the overall population continued to shrink. By the early Islamic period, Petra had been essentially abandoned except for a small number of nomadic inhabitants who sheltered in its caves and rock-cut chambers.
The city remained unknown to the western world for nearly a thousand years until 1812, when the Swiss traveler Johann Ludwig Burckhardt, disguised as an Arab Muslim on pilgrimage, persuaded a local guide to lead him to the site. He became the first European in modern times to enter the Siq and stand before the Treasury, reporting his discovery to the western scholarly world and initiating a wave of expeditions that continues to this day. UNESCO has described Petra as one of the most precious cultural properties of man's cultural heritage. It is today Jordan's most visited tourist attraction, drawing close to a million tourists annually. Since 2007, it has also been recognized as one of the New Seven Wonders of the World, cementing its place among the most extraordinary archaeological sites ever created by human hands.
