The Ancients - Petra: Ancient Wonder of the World

Episode Date: August 29, 2024

Despite being one of the most visited historic spots on the planet today, Petra was once a so-called ‘lost city,’ hidden from western eyes in a vast desert landscape for hundreds of years.What is the story of this rose-red ancient city and its inhabitants? The powerful Nabataean civilisation who built Petra more than two thousand years ago, but remain a mystery to so many today.Who were their kings? Their gods and goddesses? And how were they able to turn an arid desert into a green oasis?In this special episode, Tristan Hughes goes to Petra in Jordan, one of the seven wonders of the world, to discover the secrets himself.Presented by Tristan Hughes. Written and produced by Charlotte Long. Mixed and edited by Aidan Lonergan. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff.Special thanks to Visit Jordan, Matthew Vincent and Jodi Magness.The Ancients is a History Hit podcast.The Ancients is recording our first LIVE SHOW at the London Podcast Festival on Thursday 5th September 2024! Book your tickets now to be in the audience and ask Tristan and his guest your burning questions. Tickets on sale HERE https://www.kingsplace.co.uk/whats-on/words/the-ancients/Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original TV documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Sign up HERE for 50% off your first 3 months using code ‘ANCIENTS’. https://historyhit.com/subscription

Hi, I'm Tristan Hughes, and if you would like the Ancient ad-free, get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to History Hit. With a History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries, including my recent documentary all about Petra and the Nabataeans, and enjoy a new release every week. Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com slash subscribe. The year is 330 BC in Petra, southeast of the Dead Sea and 150 miles south of Jerusalem. The sun burns high in the cloudless blue sky in the vast desert landscape, miles and miles of rose-red sand stretching out over the rocky horizon. In the distance, nestled within the cliff faces, there are signs of life. Tents, heavy

material pitched with wooden poles, fires burning inside, people cooking and relaxing, sheltering from the heat in caves or tending to the nearby camels and donkeys. The community here make their living from camels caravans travelling through. It's an essential post located at the crossroads of a vast trading network from across the Arabian desert, moving west and north to the Mediterranean coast. A man on a camel slowly approaches the settlement and asks to spend the night. He's transporting frankincense, a light, portable, yet valuable commodity, and he's heading north to Damascus.

But he won't stay for too long. Petra is a convenient stop-off on an otherwise hostile desert route. It's hard to believe that this unassuming trading post will one day become the shining jewel of a great yet often overshadowed ancient civilisation, the Nabataeans, who will harness the use of water to create a fertile paradise here, amidst desert canyons and mountains. Their affluence and ingenuity will attract the attention of the power-hungry Greeks and Romans. Petra will become a place of intrigue for great emperors like Trajan and Hadrian during their visits to the Middle East. Its inhabitants will carve elaborate Hellenistic

inspired structures into the cliff faces which will continue to impress visitors for thousands of years to come, a testament of their pioneering and tenacious spirit. Petra, one of the seven wonders of the world, is one of the most visited tourist sites on the planet and in this episode I actually go to Petra to find out the truth about this great ancient city and the mysterious people, the Nabataeans, who not only survived in the desert, they flourished. Who were the Nabataeans? Their kings and queens. And why are they shrouded in mystery? The Nebateans are one of the most important ancient people

that most people today have never heard of. Why do they carve breathtaking structures in the cliff faces, renowned across the world today? It is truly one of the most incredible sights. This massive monumental tomb, this astounding structure that you're just, your jaw drops when you see it. And that's their engineering. That's their construction. And how were they able to access water in abundance in this arid land?

Just imagine the effect a couple of thousand years ago, walking into the heart of Petra and seeing, well, a Paradisus, a paradise. This is Petra, ancient wonder of the world. Hi, everybody. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host. And this is a very special episode of the ancients because we are bringing it to you in front of one of the wonders of the world. I am currently outside the treasury the Al-Qasne at Petra one of the most iconic ancient buildings in the whole world and I must say this is the first time that i've ever been here and laid eyes upon this wonder and it is staggering right in front of me are one two three four maybe another one the s5 six corinthian columns it's roughly 10 meters high on top of that there's a continuous

freeze then there's another layer there's a tholos circular structure in the center they have reliefs of mythical figures either side they may be well be amazons and then at the top you have this urn which according to legend was where the king who died here maybe a man called aratas the fourth that was where his treasures were placed. It is an extraordinary structure cut deep into the rock because that's the other great thing about Petra. It is in this really challenging environment. I can see walls of red rock all around me. This is an open area of a canyon in the Wadi Musa. In this episode, we are going to be exploring the story of Petra and the

people who built it, the Nabataean civilization. We're going to be looking at the treasury, we're going to be exploring daily life, we're going to learn more about how this place in the desert became one of the greatest trade centers in the world. We'll also be exploring the fall of Petra in a way, how the Nabataean kingdom came to its end and ultimately faded from memory only to be rediscovered, at least in European eyes, in the early 19th century. One thing which really strikes you when you get up close to the treasury is its massive size. The craftsmanship of the exterior is unlike anything I've ever seen. When it was rediscovered by a man called Ludwig Burckhardt in the early 19th century, he described the treasury as the most beautiful ancient building in the eastern Mediterranean, in

the Levant. And you know what? I think he was completely right. And you might recognise the Treasury. It was here where the epic last scene of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was filmed, with Harrison Ford and Sean Connery trying to find the Holy Grail, which saw Petra make its Hollywood debut in 1989, impressing millions of people around the world. And if Indiana Jones fans were impressed in the late 80s, can you imagine how Johan Ludwig Burckhardt felt when he first encountered Petra in 1812 after centuries of the city being hidden from Western eyes?

He had learnt Arabic, grown a beard and befriended the local Bedouin people on his quest to find Petra, and documented it all in his diary. Here is the moment he first laid eyes on the treasury, which stands 40 metres high and is accessed through what is known as the Sik, a long narrow passage into the city. I was taken to a spot where the valley seemed to be entirely closed by high rocks, but upon a nearer approach, I perceived a chasm about 15 or 20 feet in breadth, which is called El Sik. After proceeding for 25 minutes between the rocks, we came to a place where the passage opens. On the side of the perpendicular rock,

directly opposite, an excavated mausoleum came in view, the situation and beauty of which are calculated to make an extraordinary impression upon the traveller. Burkhart was blown away. And, if you want to see the same sights that Burkhart was blown away. And if you want to see the same sights that Burkhart did and the many other incredible secrets of Petra, while I have a documentary coming out on History Hit, simply search www.historyhit.com slash Petra. To understand the history of Petra and how it became a thriving metropolis, we have to understand the Nabataean people. The origins of the Nabataeans are unclear, but it seems they had nomadic beginnings.

Before the Nabataean people settled in Petra, it's believed they were among the several tribes who roamed the Arabian desert, perhaps part of an ancient Arab confederacy known as the Kedarite Confederacy. But it's debated. Diodorus Siculus, a first-century Greek writer, describes them as a wandering community in his histories, which is one of the few historical sources we have about the Nabataeans. we have about the Nabataeans. Amongst those animals raised in the desert were camels. Camels were the ultimate desert companion able to store lots of water and they became the key animal for groups of traders traversing the Arabian desert. So no surprise, they became a symbol for the Nabataeans.

Now the earliest historical reference we have about the Nabataeans dates back to 312 BC, shortly after Alexander the Great's death, when one of his generals and one of my favourite figures from the whole of history tried to take Nabataean lands for themselves. These lands presumably included Petra, although Petra is not directly mentioned in this story. Petra, although Petra is not directly mentioned in this story. Now this general was a figure called Antigonus the One-Eyed, an extraordinary figure who in 312 BC was the most powerful successor of all Alexander's generals. He ruled a large territory stretching from the Aegean, from western Turkey, all the way to places such as Iraq and Iran. He was aided at this time by his son, a figure called Demetrius, who would also go on to

have his own fascinating career. Now Antigonus had heard of Nabataean riches, for instance their control of incense, of frankincense and myrrh. He also considered the Nabataeans hostile to his own interests, particularly as at that time he was eyeing up an invasion of Egypt controlled by his rivals, the Ptolemies. Now, the Nabataeans fiercely resisted Antigonus and Demetrius' forces as they invaded their territory in two separate invasions. And ultimately, the Hellenistic superpower, the forces of Antigonus and Demetrius were forced to come to terms with the Nabataeans. It was a huge achievement for the Nabataeans given the massive odds against them.

Before the Nabataeans were at Petra, the area was actually part of the Kingdom of Edom, which is often mentioned in the Bible. So we're basically in what is today the southern part of Jordan, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, which means that we are southeast of the Dead Sea. And in the period before the rise of the Nabataeans, this territory was sort of part of the biblical world in the sense that there were different peoples who were mentioned in the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament who inhabited this region. I'm Jody Magnus. I am a Keenan Distinguished Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. To the west of the Dead Sea, you had the Israelites and on the coast, the Philistines. On the east side of the Dead Sea, further to the north in the area of

modern Amman, were the biblical Ammonites. On the eastern side of the Dead Sea were the biblical Moabites. And the people who inhabited the area where Petra is established, those people were the biblical Edomites, the kingdom of Edom. They were, like the Nabataeans and like the other peoples in the region, by the way, a Semitic people, meaning they spoke a Semitic language, but they were not directly related to the Nabataeans per se. The Nabataeans are a different population that eventually move into this territory and settle it. Early historical information about the Nabataeans is scarce, but by the late 4th century BC, we know the former nomadic people had settled and established

themselves in Petra, in modern-day Jordan. Presumably, like some of the other peoples in the region, they moved in in the wake of the collapse of those biblical kingdoms after 586 BC. So we're basically talking in terms of the very early history of the Nabataeans. We're talking about, let's say, the 6th, 5th, 4th centuries BC, until we finally really begin to get some solid information about them, until we finally really begin to get some solid information about them, both from archaeology and history, from the late 4th century BC on. And they managed to establish themselves as quite prosperous and important through the caravan trade. Petra was in an essential location on the Middle Eastern trade routes,

a place for camels caravans to stop off on their journey through the Arabian Desert to the Mediterranean coast, and over time, Petra developed into a permanent settlement. Caravans travelling through would be trading goods like spices, silks, precious metals like gold and copper, as well as incense like myrrh and frankincense. And being situated in the perfect crosspoint location saw the Nabataeans grow in population, wealth and power. At its peak, it's been estimated that Petra had at least 20,000 people living within the bustling city. Maybe, it is speculated, as many as 30,000. Now having been to Petra and walking through its streets,

it's quite something to imagine potentially as many 30,000 people being here walking along those streets some 2,000 years ago in the 1st century AD when Petra was at its height. It is pretty mind-blowing to think. To find out more about the kind of materials they would have traded at the time, I headed to a traditional souk in Amman, the capital of Jordan, where you can still buy today goods that were popular back in ancient times. So I'm here at the souk in Amman,

and I've just been into a shop where there were spices, there was incense all around we bought a bit of frankincense and it reminds you of what of some of the key goods that the Nabataeans were trading in this area of the world back in ancient times these goods included things such as spices such as precious metals like copper and gold, but also ceramics. And then there was also a very interesting material, maybe the wrong word, trade good called bitumen. Think of it as this black, sticky, tar-like substance which the Nabataeans were able to monopolise and have control over,

and they acquired it from the Dead Sea. But of course, one other thing that the Nabataeans traded, and you can still find along the Souk today in Oman, was incense. These sweet-smelling aromatics made from dry tree resin. So think of items such as myrrh and frankincense. And I've just bought, I've got it in my bag here, I have here, in my hand at this very moment, just getting it out, 500 grams of frankincense that I've just bought from the shop owner, a man called Mohammed.

And it smells absolutely sublime. The Nabataeans were able to enrich themselves. They became very prosperous through this trade because the kinds of goods that they brought from points to the east and south, it's a long way to go and you're in the desert, were goods that were not bulky, but in small quantities were very, very precious. So these are the kinds of goods which are very easily portable. They're not breakable. They're relatively light weight, right? And so you can bundle these onto the backs of, let's say, donkeys or camels for

transport through the desert. And then when you sell them, well, they're items that are very costly and you make a big profit off of them. But it wasn't just trade that Abatean people benefited from. Their ability to control the water supply transformed Petra from an arid, almost desert landscape to a green paradise with running clean water. This is one of my favourite things to talk about. I mean, I look at Petra and I think there's this very erroneous idea of it being the city of the dead. But what I like to really emphasize, the moment you enter the Sikh in Petra, you would have been hit with the sound of water. They are flexing as a people. They're showing you, we control water. We

have power that a lot of other people around us don't have. My name is Matthew Vincent and I am the co-director for the National Inventory Project at the American Center of Research in Amman, Jordan. We're standing now in basically what is the heart of the city, the sacred precinct, as it's generally called. And we can look at these hillsides and just imagine them covered with dwellings, domestic households, you know, probably shops as well,

but it's not the sort of arid landscape we imagine now. And again, with our hydraulic engineering, we're literally standing next to a cistern at the moment. So everything around us would have been easily watered and would have been so much greener than what we see today. So, you know, Petra would have been this rich, vibrant city. It would have been lush, full of life and greenery. And I can only imagine that if you're a caravan trader coming from the Far East, coming into Petra would have been incredibly intimidating. It would have been awesome. And you would have been blown away. And you certainly were going to talk about that when you got back home. The evidence of their sophisticated engineering

can be seen all around Petra today, ceramic piping channels, cisterns and dams still intact. The Nabataeans were able to take water from the freshwater springs in the mountains outside of Petra. They built aqueducts, water channels, that brought the water into the city through the Wadi Musa, the Valley of Moses, which is located right next to Petra. As well as the water from these springs, the aqueducts would collect rainfall. It rained a lot more up in the mountains than it did in Petra. They built dams to store and control the water, an incredible show of hydraulic

engineering more than 2,000 years ago. So the water systems that exist in Petra, one of the biggest things that you notice is as you enter the site and you go through the sea, you find that there are still existing channels that are on both sides of the sea in various parts, depending on what you see. You still see remnants of their dam systems that were in there to prevent massive floods that come in. This is an area where flash flooding can be very hazardous and dangerous, and the Naviteans controlled that as well. They were very good about managing even the rainwater, and again, through that channeling system. You have the evidence for the ceramic piping along those channels.

So, you know, not only do they have those channels, but they're enclosing them so they're not losing the water through evaporation or other means. But everywhere you go, they're moving water through this site. They're controlling the movement of it. And certainly the idea is that year round, there was water. There was even a huge leisure pool. Can you imagine it in this very dry landscape? It's incredible. stunningly and this most people who visit petra are completely unaware of this because logically they're they're looking at the rock cut tombs around them. But next to that Petra Great Temple is a complex called the Petra Paradisos. Paradisos is a word that comes from, that we get our word paradise from. And so the Petra Paradise, and what it is, is an enormous pool for water

that had a pavilion in the middle of it and was surrounded by gardens that was right in the heart of the urban center of Petra and had this kind of waterfall with water flowing into the pool surrounded by green gardens. Now, when you go to Petra today, it's all brown and dry and arid. I mean, you don't see any plants or anything like that. So just imagine the effect a couple of thousand years ago, walking into the heart of Petra and seeing, well, a Paradisos, a paradise, this enormous and big enough to swim, to have little boats go out on. You could go to

the pavilion, again, gardens around it. Someone who might have enjoyed the pool and water supply is King Aratas IV, one of few Nabataean kings that we know about. King Aratas IV ruled between around 9 BC and 40 AD. He battled the Jewish ruler Herod Antipas, who executed John the Baptist, and won favour from the Roman Emperor Augustus. He received the title Lover of His People. It was under Aretas' rule that the Nabataeans enjoyed a golden age. We know the names of a few of the ruling classes in Petra, but information is scarce on any of the kings and queens. This is probably because we have no written accounts from Nabataean people surviving, unlike those of the Romans and the Greeks. But it's believed many of the iconic structures

at Petra were created around Aretas IV's reign. You know, the earliest king that we know of is Aretas, you know, the first one. We don't have that much information about him, but it certainly seems to be him who consolidates the Nabataean people here in Petra. But of course, Arethas IV then becomes the big one. So he's the one that, you know, we associate, for example, the treasury or the chazne, just outside of the Sikh in the main part of Petra. That's associated with him as his tomb. We don't have textual resources that point to it, but, you know, tradition kind of has built around it. It's the most monumental structure here in Petra. So at the end of the day, because of his most monumental role as a king of the Nabataeans in the 1st century BC,

then he gets associated with that tomb. It's thought the treasury was used as a tomb, but we're yet to find out exactly why it was carved into the cliff face. And in fact, its name, the treasury, is misleading. It has nothing to do with the Nabataeans, but instead is down to later rumours circulating amongst local people for centuries. The treasury, the khazna, a word that has, in modern Arabic, a word that has nothing to do with the original function of the monument. Because it was believed to be, there developed a tradition that this was where the pharaoh kept his treasure. And in fact, if you look closely at the surface, you'll see that there are bullet holes. Because the Bedouin thought that if they could shoot in the right spot, they would be able to get to the gold that was stored in it.

Pretty much all the tombs of Petra were robbed out of their contents long ago. Now, I was lucky enough to go inside the treasury and the simplicity of the main chamber showcasing the natural rock formation. Well, it's a drastic contrast to the exterior. You enter into this large, empty chamber and initially there's not much there, but the devil is in the detail when you go to the walls and you feel the walls they are incredibly smooth a testament to the great engineering the stone masonry the great building quality of this rock cut chamber and one other thing i want to point out before moving on is in that central area you notice right at the back is another smaller chamber this back recess and of all places in the treasury that back recess

it is speculated would have been where the king was buried either side of the small entranceway to that recess are two columns barely protruding from the rock, so deftly carved into the rock with iconically Nabataean-style decorations. Being in this space is surreal, it's like stepping back in time. But how we see Petra today, it is not how the Nabataeans would have seen it. What many people don't know is the natural rock would have been painted in bright colours. It was carved beginning from the top and working down. So they started out by sort of, you have this rock face, and they start out at the top, and from the top they start cutting the features down. They work their way down. So they would have had some sort of scaffolding, obviously,

that they're using. But also, as they're carving on their way down, and once, by the way, they worked their way down, they didn't go back up. So, but as they're carving down, you know, we look at these monuments today, and they really are impressive. But originally, the surface was covered with plaster, with stucco, and painted. This is, by the way, something that many people are misled when we look at ancient Greek temples or Roman temples. They're made of marble and we like, oh, this gleaming white marble. It's beautiful. It is beautiful, but it originally was painted in very colorful colors. And so also the surface of the chosne, for example, right, as they're working their way down, they're coating the surface with stucco, with plaster, and painting it. And so by the time they got to the bottom, it was finished.

And the whole thing would have been, you know, beautifully carved, but also beautifully colorful and painted. There is at Petra one tomb where the interior still has its original painted decoration, because the interiors of the tombs were also apparently decorated with painting. And there you have painted plaster that depicts vines, like grape vines and things like that, and different figures like cupids or erotes making wine. One of my favorite tombs at Petra, of the more than 600 that have been found,

is Uneshu's tomb. A richly decorated tomb with a courtyard overlooking Petra's main road. I love it because it's one of the few tombs where we know who it was built for. Uneshu was a high-ranking official in Petra in the 1st century AD. It was within Uneshu's tomb that I talked to Petra archaeologist Ahmed Nawafle, and he told me about Nabataean burial customs. Wow, Ahmed, this is stunning. I mean, what are these slits in the wall, these massive slits we have in front of us? We are now inside the tomb of Oneshu. The slits we're seeing inside here are containing the graves themselves. You can count them, there are like 11

slits in there, so we're talking about at least 11 family members from Oneshu families here. So, you know, the graves inside the slits in here, you can see them. They are like some of them for two people, some of them for one person. Real customs, actually. When the Nabataeans need to bury someone, they took off all the clothes off, and then they washed the body by water, and then they should close all the holes in the body, give the body the good smell by perfuming it by some frankincense or so, and then they wrap the body in a piece of cloth, put the body in the graves, and then

they close the graves by slabs and mud. Those were their burial customs, actually. So Nabateans actually buried. They did not cremate or mummificate bodies. Many of the more elaborate tombs at Petra also had an accompanying chamber filled with bench-like seating on three sides of the room. They're called tricliniums, three recliners or three couches. In Greece and Rome, tricliniums are associated with elite dining rooms, where the richest in Greek and Roman society would have entertained guests and ate lavish meals.

I remember seeing one such triclinium at Pompeii, at the house of Julia Felix, one of the richest villas in the whole of the town. But at Petra, tricliniums were built alongside rock-cut tombs and had ritual feasting purposes. This was where groups of Nabataeans ate, drank, reclined and burnt incense. When you're in one of these tricliniums right next to the burial chamber, you can really imagine people coming together here and paying their respects to the dead, toasting with drinks and food. It's a fascinating insight into everyday life, the ritual and

afterlife beliefs in this ancient city. At least for the upper classes. Because rock-cut tombs weren't for everyone at Petra, they were just for those who could afford it. Everyday people appear to have been buried in large cemeteries outside of Petra. So what about the Nabataean belief system? What about their gods and goddesses? Well, two of the main gods at Petra were Dushara, the sun god and lord of the mountain, and Al-Uzza, the goddess of power and the stars. At Petra, the Nabataeans viewed these two deities as the divine power couple. Dushara, if you want to put it in Greek and Roman terms,

was kind of like Zeus. And Dushara apparently was you want to put it in Greek and Roman terms, was kind of like Zeus. And Dushara apparently was the god worshipped in the Kassar-el-Bint, that big temple that still stands, a lot of it still stands today. And he apparently was a celestial deity, meaning a heavenly god. And apparently they have a very important female deity called Al-Uzza. And she apparently is roughly analogous to an ancient Near Eastern deity called Atargadis, or in the Greek and Roman world, Astarte. And so those are the two main Nabataean deities that we know about. But again, they worshipped other gods and goddesses as well, but those are like the big two. The Nabataeans would hold sacrifices to honour their gods at the high place of sacrifice, also known as Al-Madbah in Arabic. You can still see it today and climb up to the top, and at 170 metres high, it's one

of the highest places at Petra, with a large altar and a round drainage system, which, it is speculated, would be used to drain the blood of sacrificed animals. Not humans. There is no evidence of human sacrifice practiced by the Nabataeans. So we can imagine people congregating up there and offerings being made on the altar. In my opinion, this all makes perfectly good sense. It's on the top of this mountain. It's in a high place. So it's what we would call in the Hebrew Bible, in biblical

language, a high place, literally, a bamah, a high place. Because like the God of Israel, Dushara was apparently a celestial deity. And the idea in the ancient world is that if you're worshiping a celestial deity and you're making an offering to a celestial deity, some God who's all the way up in the heavens, you want to get as close as possible to the God to make your offering. And that's why typically temples or altars to celestial deities are located on tops of mountains. I'm going to give you some examples. The Olympian deities in Greece, Mount Olympus, you think it's a coincidence? And now let's think about Judaism. Why is Moses' interaction with the God of Israel on top of Mount Sinai?

Why were the ancient Jewish temples in Jerusalem, the first temple and the second temple, why were they on top of the Temple Mount? Hello. And now think about Jesus' giving of the second law, his sermon on the mount. By the way, if you were in a context where you didn't have mountaintops or you didn't have mountains, think about ancient Mesopotamia, the area of modern Iraq. What did they do?

They constructed these things called ziggurats, these kind of stepped pyramids. And the idea is that it's actually an artificial mountain. And then at the top, yeah, that's where you got your altar. So it's not a surprise. It's exactly what we would expect, which is placing this altar to interact with your God on top of the highest spot that you can get. From the high place of sacrifice,

you can see panoramic views of Petra and beyond, including the tomb of Aaron, which is believed to be the burial site of the brother of Moses. Within the city you can see hundreds of tombs, and a noticeable structure that would look more in place perhaps in Rome. It's an amphitheatre carved into the rocks, and in fact, the Roman influence can be seen all around Petra. But it's the Roman presence in this region which contributed to the city's gradual fall into obscurity for hundreds of years.

The Romans annexed Petra in 106 AD under the Emperor Trajan and merged it, along with the whole Nabataean Kingdom, into the Roman province of Arabia Petraea. whole Nabataean kingdom into the Roman province of Arabia Petraea. The distinctive Roman style can be seen all over, monuments, sculptures and of course, the theatre. The theatre was originally built by the Nabataeans, perhaps at the time of King Aretas IV. It's a magnificent fusion of architectural styles. It has traditional Greek elements, as well as Roman theatre elements, but is also carved into the living rock Nabataean style. There's a stage in the centre, there are vomitoriums, the entranceways, as well as the remains of a scaniae fronds, the backdrop of a Roman theatre stage, alongside rows upon rows of seats.

theatre stage, alongside rows upon rows of seats. This was the main entertainment building at Petra, it's quite a sight to behold and if you visit Petra you cannot miss it. Now the Roman influence can be seen all around Petra and where I'm standing now I am the only figure here at the bottom of a semicircular theatre carved into the rock. It is chiselled out of the rock, originally probably a Greek influence, and this theatre was later enlarged by the Romans. It's believed it could hold about 8,500 people. That was roughly 30% of the population of Petra at the time. It's also interesting to highlight that this would have been the key entertainment

building for the people of Petra. Everyone who lived here would have known of this great structure. What would have happened here? Well probably plays. We don't know of any Nabataean plays that survived but of course there were Roman plays like the playwright Plautus, there are Greek plays, Aristophanes' comedies or the tragedies of figures like Euripides, but also there would have been musical contests happening here too, choirs of people or perhaps someone playing an instrument in the centre. This was the key entertainment building of Petra. What I also love about the theatre are these. These are the seats for people who would have been watching the performances here and as with Greek and Roman

theatres the wealthiest, the highest classes in Petra's society of the Nabataean and then the Roman society would have been positioned nearer the front, right next to the orchestra where the people were performing. The rest were placed further up there. It's interesting to think from time to time you would have had very high and important officials sitting in the theatre, maybe Roman officials, maybe on a couple of occasions Roman emperors watching these performances. Once Petra became part of the Roman Empire, the city continued to be expanded.

More roads were built, alongside a shop colonnade and monuments. At Petra today we can see evidence all around of the creeping expansion of Roman control. Probably most of the colonnaded street as we see it today is part of the Roman influence here. Even the great temple next to us may have a lot of Roman influence to it. They definitely leave their fingerprint on the site here. But again, bearing in mind, you know, there's only 250 years or so of Roman occupation in here.

So, you know, half of this being really fully Nabataean and then fully Roman, they both leave a very indelible mark on the site. The coins that have been found here in Petra, I don't know that there's necessarily anything monumental that comes from them, any, you know, huge discoveries, but we do know, you know, there's Nabataean coined coins. But then obviously, you know, as the sort of Roman occupation in the area comes in, then we start seeing the Roman coins as well. But maybe what's really important to understand is that the Roman coins

talk about this being an acquired province versus a captured province. And, you know, that sort of thing gives us a lot of information about what happens here. So rather than this being a violent conquest of Nabatea, this was done probably more through diplomacy. And we see these strategic relationships being built up so that this becomes the acquired province and not one through military victory. Now, one of my favourite Roman pieces of architecture at Petra is a great, beautiful tomb that is a little off the tourist trail. It's the tomb of Sextus Florentinus, a Roman governor and the latest securely dated tomb at Petra, dating to around 130 AD. What I also like about this is that Sextus Florentinus, he wasn't just the governor, the Roman governor of this region, but he'd also been, in the past, a member of the mysterious

Ninth Legion. And sometimes this story of Sextus Florentinus is used, credibly, as another example of how the 9th legion did not disappear in Britain. Anyway, I digress and back to Petra, but the tomb of Sextus Florentinus is another monument that you must go and see if you ever visit Petra. Now, after the annexation of Petra, the Romans moved the capital of the province, Arabia Petraea, to another Nabataean city further north called Bosra, which shifted trade routes and impacted Petra. But the city continued to flourish until a devastating earthquake

hit the region in the mid-4th century. We're on the edge of the Rift Valley. And, you know, without a doubt, we know, for example, beginning of last year in 2023, there was a major earthquake up in Gaziantep in Turkey. It woke me up up in Amman. You know, these things are deeply felt. And here in the Rift Valley, you know, there have been several monumental, massive earthquakes that have certainly changed major civilizations in the area.

So in May in 363, we get a massive earthquake that basically destroys the entire area around here, knocks down most of the monumental buildings and certainly changes the landscape of the site. We never see the reoccupation at the same scale. That probably has a lot to do with the shift of trade routes, a lot to do with the shift of economy. And there just simply wasn't a commercial motivation to reoccupy Petra in the same way as before. motivation to reoccupy Petra in the same way as before. What once was a thriving hub of trade and power was becoming a footnote in a tumultuous region. In the two centuries following the earthquake, a process of Christianisation takes place, and after that in the 7th century, the rise of Islam, before a very brief crusader presence in the

area. Petra becomes an almost abandoned city, nestled within the cliffy rock faces of the desert, hidden from the outside world, known only to few local Bedouin people. That is, until Burckhardt travelled to the city in the early 19th century. Burckhardt's account captivated Western explorers and scholars. Many tried to trace his steps to lay eyes on this so-called lost city. In 1845, 23 years after Burckhardt travelled through the region, the poet John William Bergen wrote these words about Petra. Match me such marvel save in eastern clime, A rose-red city half as old as time Fast forward to today, and Petra is a place of fascination

to hundreds of thousands of visitors who venture here each year. But the Nabataean legacy extends much further than the buildings. I think it's important, though, to come back to the Nabataean strategy of surviving, and not just surviving, but flourishing in this kind of hyper-arid desert environment. It's very interesting. Back in the 1950s, shortly after the establishment of the State of Israel, and the State of Israel within the 1967 borders, includes the Negev Desert. So the first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, had a vision of the Negev Desert being made to flower again. And part of that included studying

Nabataean agriculture and learning how they had managed to cultivate the desert. And within that context, we're now in the 1950s, right? Within that context, an Israeli scientist named Mikhail Evanari went to one of these Nabataean farms, the remains of a Nabataean farm in the area of a Nabataean town called Avdat or Oboda, which is right in the middle of the Negev Desert. And he reconstructed the agricultural system and planted crops and was able to actually show that you could cultivate wheat and barley and olives and grapes and figs and peaches and lentils. And we know this also, by the way, because we have actual remains of these kinds of crops that have been excavated in excavations. You can do paleobotanical analysis. It's absolutely spectacular. Now, I do think that we have a lot that we can learn about the Nabataeans in our world of extreme climate change. I study the past

and people are always like, well, what's it relevant to today? Now, personally, I don't think that I need to justify why studying the past is important. But I do think that the Nabataeans are a particularly interesting case of where we can learn valuable things from how people adapted to their environment in the past in terms of our contemporary world. It's said that more than 80% of Petra remains to be excavated, so it's incredible that despite us knowing so little about the Nabataeans, we can learn so much from their ingenious engineering designed and constructed more than 2000 years ago. And still, this ancient city, which transports you back to a pocket in time, has yet to reveal so many of its secrets.

Thanks so much for listening to this special episode of The Ancients. If you've liked what you've heard, please don't forget to follow and leave a review. This podcast episode was written and produced by our brilliant Charlotte Long and mixed by Aidan Lonergan. Thank you to you both for making this special episode a reality. And special thanks also to Visit Jordan who facilitated our trip to Jordan as well as our brilliant experts Matthew Vincent and Jodie Magnus.

Now, if you fancy seeing some of the sites that I visited in Petra, well, I have a documentary coming out very soon on History Hit on Friday the 30th of August. The link will be in the show notes once it's out. This podcast includes music from Epidemic Sounds. The Ancients is a podcast from the History Hit Network. And lastly, a special thanks from me to you for listening to it, and I will see you in the next episode.