Petra, Jordan, archaeology and history

As visitors enter Petra from the winding gorge known as the Siq, they first behold the towering edifice of Al Khazna, or the Treasury, carved from rosy-hued sandstone. For many tourists, the visit to the ancient city in southwest Jordan ends here. But Petra  has much more to offer, including more than 600 stone facades and an intriguing list of clues about its past residents.  

Petra served as the capital of the Nabataean people for hundreds of years before the Romans annexed the kingdom around A.D. 106. The ancient trade center once housed tens of thousands of people. But the city’s population had long dwindled by 1812 when the Swiss adventurer Johann Burckhardt pretended to be a Muslim pilgrim looking for the tomb of the prophet Aaron and convinced a Bedouin guide to bring him to the city, which many Westerners had come to believe was a myth. Since then, Petra’s fame has grown. UNESCO inscribed the city’s ruins as a World Heritage site in 1985, and the 1989 film Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade used Petra as a stage for some scenes.

“If you’d like to visit Petra, you can’t cover it in one day,” says Zeyad Al-Salameen, an archaeologist at Mohamed Bin Zayed University for Humanities in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. From atop Umm al-Biyara, a site on Petra’s highest mountain containing ruins that date to the Iron Age, visitors can view the main street crossing the city, the layout of temples and the bustle of tourists below. “You will see a living city in front of you,” says Al-Salameen, a native of the area who spent his youth exploring among Petra’s temples, monuments and houses.

Much of the city remains unexcavated and documents describing the Nabataeans are scarce. “The Nabataeans didn’t really leave their own written records,” says Megan Perry, an anthropologist at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina. But researchers have learned about life in Petra from Greek and Roman writings, commercial documents recorded on papyrus, and the ruins themselves.

Who were Petra’s builders?

As traders, the Nabataeans served as middlemen between the producers of goods in southern Arabia, Africa and India, and Greek and Roman consumers. Their camel caravans transported commodities such as frankincense, spices and silk. They amassed wealth through taxes—one historical account notes that the Nabataeans levied a tax of 25 percent on imports. “This wealth is reflected in Petra,” Al-Salameen says. It made construction of the great city—and its temples, baths and colonnaded street—possible.

The majority of archaeological remains in Petra are tombs, Al-Salameen says. The Nabataeans must have paid a lot of attention to the afterlife, he says. “They looked at their life as a short journey.” Some tombs are housed in elaborate rock-cut facades, like the Treasury, where archaeologists found a tomb containing 12 skeletons in 2024. Other tombs are as simple as carved as shafts in the sandstone.

Some tombs bear funerary inscriptions written in Aramaic, the common language of the day. These inscriptions list who is eligible to be buried in the tomb, acts considered to be violations of tombs, and penalties or curses against violators, Al-Salameen says. Other sites bear memorial inscriptions that act as a sort of guest book for travelers and might include a name and a supplication to a god.

Inscriptions at Petra and other locations provide some information about the polytheistic Nabataean religion. Nabataean gods included Dushara, the supreme male god, and Allat, a female deity, and their representation changed over time, Perry says. At first, they were blocklike, nonhuman forms that slowly became more anthropomorphic. Later on,  Dushara became linked with Zeus, while Allat was depicted like Aphrodite. While the Greco-Roman influence is apparent, it’s not clear what motivated the change in how these gods were represented.

What was life like at Petra?

Archaeologists have also dug up information on what the Nabataeans ate, including a variety of fruits, grains, and meats. Deeds of sale written on papyri provide information on agriculture during the Nabataean period, Al-Salameen says. Other clues come from tombs or adjacent banquet halls containing remains of funerary feasts, such as animal bones. “We have lots of evidence of Nabataeans feasting,” Perry says. Crops and trees were cultivated in an area known as Beidha to the north of Petra. And remnants of meals have also revealed that the people of Petra ate fish imported from the Dead Sea.

Petra’s population thrived in an inhospitable desert environment thanks to a “sophisticated water harvesting system that was intended to collect every drop of water,” Al-Salameen says. The Nabataeans piped water in from springs outside the city and carved channels into the rock to collect rainwater. They also built dams and reservoirs to store water.

Why was Petra abandoned?

An earthquake in A.D. 363 leveled many of the city’s buildings. Following another earthquake centuries later, the city’s population dwindled.

These earthquakes damaged Petra’s water infrastructure. “It was a reason why the city was gradually abandoned,” Al-Salameen says. Residents relocated to settlements near the springs.

What don’t we know about Petra?

The majority of Petra, including dwellings, remains unexcavated. “There are hundreds of questions that are still awaiting answers,” Al-Salameen says. Researchers are curious about facets of Nabataean daily life, including the relationships between people and families, how people in Petra made a living and how they interacted with their gods beyond leaving offerings.

Archaeologists have much more to learn about a city that once thrummed with life. Many of the buildings that housed people collapsed along with other secular buildings. Before earthquakes damaged the city, Petra probably had around 30,000 people, Perry says. “It’s not just the tombs. It’s not a city of the dead.”