Petra - Jordan - page 332

Prepare your own traditional Jordanian supper at Petra Kitchen ( Click here )
Visit Little Petra ( Click here ) and enjoy Nabataean tombs and temples in a
miniature siq without the company of tour groups
History
Neolithic villages dating from around 7000 BC can be traced to the surrounding wadis
and hillsides of Petra. Remains of the most famous of these, excavated in the 1950s, can
be seen at Al-Beidha ( Click here ) , just north of Petra. Built at the same time as Jericho on
the West Bank, Al-Beidha is one of the earliest known farming communities in the Middle
East.
The Nabataeans, a nomadic tribe from western Arabia, settled in the area around the 6th
century BC. They were organised traders ( Click here ) and over the next 500 years they
used their wealth to build the city of Petra.
In its heyday, under King Aretas IV (8 BC-AD 40), the city was home to around
30,000 people, including scribes (the Nabataeans created their own cursive script; the
forerunner of Arabic) and expert hydraulic engineers who built dams, cisterns and water
channels to protect the site and its magnificent buildings.
By AD 106, as trade routes shifted from Petra to Palmyra and new sea trade routes via
the Red Sea to Rome bypassed Petra altogether, the Romans assumed control of the
weakened Nabataean empire. Far from abandoning the city of Petra, however, the in-
vaders recast the ancient city with familiar Roman features, including a colonnaded street
and baths. The city was honoured by a visit from Emperor Hadrian in AD 131, and in the
3rd century Petra once again became a capital city - this time of the newly created
province of Palaestrina Tertia.
Earthquakes in 363 and 551 ruined much of the city and Petra became a forgotten out-
post, a 'lost city' known only to local Bedouin who preferred to keep its whereabouts
secret. In 1812, however, a young Swiss explorer, Jean Louis Burckhardt, ended Petra's
splendid isolation, riding into the abandoned ancient city disguised as a Muslim holy man.
Throughout the 19th century, Petra became the focus of the Western European obses-
sion with the Arabic Orient and the site was pored over by numerous archaeologists, trav-
ellers, poets and artists (including the famed British painter David Roberts in 1839). The
first English archaeological team arrived in 1929 and excavations have continued un-
abated to the present day. In 1992 the mosaics of the Petra Church were unveiled and in
2003 a tomb complex was found underneath the Treasury. Part of the continuing allure of