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Hidden among the rugged desert mountains of Jordan is a city carved into rose-colored sandstone cliffs.
It grew wealthy by controlling ancient trade routes, mastered the challenge of bringing water into a dry landscape, and blended Arabian traditions with influences from Greece and Rome.
For centuries, it flourished as the capital of a powerful kingdom before fading from the world’s memory, only to be rediscovered centuries later.
Learn more about the ancient city of Petra on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
Petra is one of the ancient world’s most spectacular cities. Carved into the rose-colored sandstone mountains of southern Jordan, it served as the political and commercial center of the Nabataean kingdom, an Arab state that prospered by controlling trade across the deserts of the Middle East.
Although Petra is often imagined as an isolated collection of monumental tombs, it was actually a large, sophisticated city with temples, markets, houses, workshops, and an elaborate water system.
To understand why Petra was built, we need to understand the people who built it, the Nabateans.
The region around Petra was inhabited long before the city reached prominence. Archaeological evidence shows human occupation in the area dating back to prehistoric times. Nearby settlements contain remains from the Neolithic period, when some of the earliest farming communities in the region developed.
During the Bronze and Iron Ages, the territory formed part of the cultural world of southern Transjordan, that being the lands just east of the Jordan River. By the first millennium BC, it was associated with the kingdom of Edom, whose inhabitants controlled parts of the mountainous region south of the Dead Sea.
The precise relationship between the Edomites and the later Nabataeans remains unclear. Petra was not simply an Edomite city that the Nabataeans inherited intact. Rather, the Nabataeans gradually established themselves in a region that had previously been occupied by Edomite communities and other populations.
The Nabataeans were an Arabic-speaking people whose early history is poorly documented. They appear to have originated among nomadic or seminomadic communities living in northern Arabia. Over time, they moved into southern Jordan and the Negev Desert, where they became involved in the caravan trade.
The Nabataeans did not leave behind a written history of their own. Most knowledge about their early development comes from archaeology, inscriptions, coins, and accounts written by Greek and Roman authors.
Their language was Arabic, but their formal inscriptions were usually written in a form of Aramaic. Nabataean script later contributed to the development of the Arabic alphabet.
By the late fourth century BC, the Nabataeans were already wealthy and organized enough to attract the attention of the successors of Alexander the Great.
In 312 BC, Antigonus I Monophthalmus, one of Alexander’s former generals, ordered an attack on the Nabateans. According to the Greek historian Diodorus Siculus, the Nabataeans were able to escape into the desert and defeat the forces sent against them.
Petra probably developed gradually rather than being founded at a single moment. During the third and second centuries BC, the Nabataeans increasingly settled in permanent communities while continuing to control trade routes through the desert.
Petra became their principal political and ceremonial center. Its Nabataean name, Raqmu, may have referred to the multicolored or patterned appearance of its sandstone cliffs. The etymology of Petra comes from the Greek word for “rock.”
Petra lies in a rugged basin among the mountains of southern Jordan, roughly halfway between the Dead Sea and the Gulf of Aqaba. The surrounding sandstone cliffs contain narrow valleys and gorges that made the site both defensible and difficult to approach.
The best-known entrance is the Siq, a narrow passage more than a kilometer long, bordered in places by cliffs nearly 80 meters high. The Siq was formed by geological forces and later modified by the Nabataeans. They paved parts of it, carved religious niches into its walls, and installed channels that carried water toward the city.
Petra’s location offered several strategic advantages. The mountains protected it from attack, while routes through the surrounding valleys connected it with the Arabian Peninsula, the Mediterranean coast, Damascus, Egypt, and the Red Sea.
The main disadvantage was the shortage of reliable rainfall. The Nabataeans overcame this problem through one of the most advanced water-management systems in the ancient world. More on that in a bit.
The city’s position allowed the Nabataeans to profit from the movement of goods between southern Arabia and the Mediterranean. Frankincense and myrrh from Arabia were highly valued for religious rituals, medicine, perfumes, and funerary practices.
Caravans also carried spices, textiles, metals, precious stones, and luxury products originating as far away as India, East Africa, and China. Petra became an important transfer point within this much larger commercial network.
The Nabataeans did not merely tax passing caravans. They provided water, security, animals, guides, lodging, storage, and access to regional markets. Their knowledge of wells, springs, desert routes, and seasonal conditions gave them a major advantage over rival powers.
Petra was the ancient equivalent of an enormous truck stop located at the intersection of several major interstate highways.
By the second century BC, the Nabataeans had established a formal monarchy. The first clearly documented Nabataean king was Aretas I. His successors expanded Nabataean territory and turned Petra into the capital of a significant regional kingdom.
At its greatest extent, Nabataean power reached north toward Damascus, west into the Negev and Sinai, and south along the caravan routes of the Arabian Peninsula. The important Nabataean city of Hegra in Saudi Arabia marked another major center of the kingdom. Hegra is also home to some fascinating stone-carved buildings, much like those in Petra.
One of the kingdom’s most important rulers was Aretas III, who reigned during the first century BC. He intervened in the affairs of neighboring Judea and briefly gained control of Damascus. These activities brought the Nabataeans into increasing contact and conflict with Rome.
The Roman general Pompey reorganized much of the eastern Mediterranean after his campaigns in the 60s BC. Although the Nabataean kingdom retained its independence, it increasingly operated within a Roman-dominated political system. Nabataean rulers paid tribute at various times, cooperated with Roman campaigns, and attempted to preserve their autonomy through diplomacy.
Petra reached the height of its prosperity from approximately the first century BC through the first century. Much of the monumental architecture visible today dates from this period, particularly the reign of Aretas IV, from 9 BC to the year 40.
Aretas IV called himself “king of the Nabataeans and lover of his people.” During his long reign, the kingdom enjoyed economic prosperity, urban growth, and an ambitious building program. Petra became a monumental capital that reflected both Nabataean traditions and influences from the Greek, Egyptian, Mesopotamian, and Roman worlds.
The city’s architects carved enormous façades directly into sandstone cliffs. The workers probably began near the top and moved downward, using platforms, ropes, scaffolding, picks, and chisels. Carving from the top prevented falling stone from damaging completed sections below.
The façades often combined classical columns, triangular pediments, decorative urns, eagles, human figures, and symbols associated with death and the afterlife.
Yet these designs were not simple imitations of Greek or Roman architecture. They were part of a distinctive Nabataean visual language that borrowed foreign forms and rearranged them according to local tastes.
The most famous monument in Petra is Al-Khazneh, meaning “the Treasury.” It appears dramatically at the end of the Siq, where its elaborate façade is carved into a tall cliff. It is literally the first thing you see when you enter Petra, and it is often the only thing most people see.
If you have ever seen Indian Jones and the Last Crusade, this is the image you are probably familiar with.
Despite its modern name, the Treasury was probably not used to store money. It was most likely a royal tomb or funerary monument, possibly constructed during the reign of Aretas IV. The name came from a later legend that treasure had been hidden inside the stone urn at the top of the façade.
The Treasury is heavily influenced by Hellenistic architecture. It includes Corinthian columns, mythological figures, and a central round structure known as a tholos. The interior, however, is relatively plain. As with many structures at Petra, the effort was concentrated on the exterior rather than the interior.
The precise identity of the person buried there remains unknown. Excavations around the monument have revealed additional burial chambers, but archaeologists continue to debate its chronology, function, and relationship to the Nabataean royal family.
Petra contains hundreds of rock-cut tombs. Some have simple entrances, while others possess enormous façades. The so-called Royal Tombs include the Urn Tomb, Silk Tomb, Corinthian Tomb, and Palace Tomb. Their modern names are descriptive and do not establish who was buried in them.
Not every major monument was a tomb. The city contained important freestanding buildings, including the Great Temple, the Temple of the Winged Lions, and Qasr al-Bint. Qasr al-Bint was one of Petra’s principal religious buildings and may have been associated with the chief Nabataean deity, Dushara.
Petra could not have supported a large population without careful control of water. Rainfall was limited and irregular, but sudden storms could send flash floods through the narrow valleys.
The Nabataeans constructed dams, reservoirs, cisterns, and pipelines. They redirected flash floods away from inhabited areas while capturing runoff for later use. Channels carved along the sides of the Siq carried water into Petra, sometimes through ceramic pipes.
The system supplied drinking water, public fountains, baths, agriculture, and possibly ornamental pools. Water was not merely a survival necessity. In a desert environment, fountains and gardens were displays of political power and wealth.
In 106, following the death of the last Nabataean king, Rabbel II, the Roman emperor Trajan annexed the kingdom. The annexation appears to have occurred with relatively little fighting, although there are few details.
Nabataean territory became the Roman province of Arabia Petraea. Roman rule did not immediately destroy Nabataean culture, but when Emperor Hadrian visited the city in the second century, it adopted the title Hadriane Petra.
Petra’s decline was gradual and had several causes. Rome increasingly encouraged maritime trade through the Red Sea, allowing goods from Arabia and India to travel by ship to Egyptian ports. This reduced the importance of some overland caravan routes.
Earthquakes repeatedly damaged Petra. A major earthquake in 363 destroyed buildings and disrupted parts of the water system.
Additional earthquakes struck the region during later centuries. Earthquake damage alone did not end urban life at Petra, but it compounded the effects of declining trade, changing political structures, and the expense of maintaining the city’s infrastructure
As the population decreased, fewer people were available to keep dams, channels, and public buildings in working order. Some residential areas were abandoned, while others remained occupied on a smaller scale.
Petra was never totally abandoned. Some Bedouin lived in Petra well into the 20th century, but the city ceased to be a major population center and was forgotten by the rest of the world.
Petra was known through classical and biblical literature, but its exact condition remained largely unknown outside of the region for centuries. During the Crusades and later periods, only a small number of outsiders reached the site.
In 1812, the Swiss explorer Johann Ludwig Burckhardt became the first modern European traveler to publish a detailed eyewitness account of Petra. Burckhardt had studied Arabic and traveled in disguise as a Muslim merchant.
Systematic archaeological work began during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Excavations expanded greatly after the creation of the independent Kingdom of Jordan.
Today, Petra is the most famous and visited tourist site in Jordan. Petra was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1985, and in 2007, Petra was selected through an international popular vote as one of the “New Seven Wonders of the World.”
I’ve been to Petra on three separate occasions, and I highly recommend it to everyone. If you are there, I strongly suggest the Petra at night experience, where you can walk the Siq by candlelight and experience the Treasury beneath the stars.
There is still a lot we don’t know about Petra and the people who lived there. Archaeologists still debate the purposes of individual monuments, the identities of those buried in the great tombs, the exact size of the population, and the organization of Nabataean society.
Yet what survives makes one point unmistakable: Petra was not an isolated desert curiosity. It was one of the great commercial, technological, and cultural centers of the ancient Middle East.