Visiting Petra: The Nabataeans’ Lost City

Visiting Petra: The Nabataeans' Lost Capital

Petra survived for more than a thousand years because whoever controlled its water controlled the only viable path across an otherwise waterless stretch of desert. That single fact explains almost everything else about the place: why a nomadic Arab tribe built a capital city inside a canyon rather than on open ground, why its monuments were carved rather than built, and why a city wealthy enough to carve palace facades into sandstone cliffs eventually faded so completely that European scholars assumed it was a myth.

Petra sits in southern Jordan, in a basin surrounded by sandstone mountains, reached through a narrow gorge called the Siq. It was the capital of the Nabataeans, an Arab people who controlled the incense and spice trade routes linking Arabia, Egypt and the Mediterranean world for several centuries before and after the birth of Christ. What draws most visitors today is Al-Khazneh, the Treasury, whose facade appears in countless photographs and in the final act of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. But the Treasury is only the beginning of a much larger question: how did a people with no obvious army, no natural water source and no timber or stone quarries of note build one of the ancient world’s most sophisticated cities, and why does so much of what they built exist only as a surface, a facade carved into rock with little or nothing behind it?

Watch The Documentary

Prefer to watch? This documentary tells the story of Petra and Johann Ludwig Burckhardt.


Who Were the Nabataeans

Before Petra was a city, the Nabataeans were traders, not settlers. Ancient sources describe them in the fourth century BC as a people who avoided farming, built no permanent houses and stored no grain, on the theory that anyone with fixed property could be conquered by an army that simply waited them out. Their wealth came from moving goods, frankincense and myrrh from southern Arabia, silk and spices arriving indirectly from further east, along routes that had to cross some of the most hostile terrain in the region. Control of those routes required control of water, and it was the Nabataeans’ mastery of hydraulic engineering, not military strength, that let them settle into permanence at Petra by around the third or second century BC.

By the first century AD, Petra had shifted from a caravan stop into a genuine city, with its own kings, a distinct architectural style, and infrastructure built to support several thousand permanent residents plus a constant flow of merchants and pilgrims. The Nabataean kingdom lasted until 106 AD, when the Roman emperor Trajan annexed it without recorded resistance, folding it into the province of Arabia Petraea. Petra kept much of its importance under Roman rule, gained a colonnaded main street and other typically Roman civic features, and continued as a functioning city for several more centuries before earthquakes, most severely one in 363 AD, and the gradual rerouting of maritime trade around the Arabian peninsula, drew its population away.


Water in a Place That Should Have Had None

The central puzzle of Petra is not its carved facades but the fact that a large city could exist there at all. The surrounding region receives only a handful of days of rain each year, and much of that falls as sudden, violent flash floods rather than steady rainfall. A city depending on unpredictable floodwater should have been impossible to sustain.

The Nabataeans solved this with a network of dams, cisterns, channels and ceramic pipes cut directly into the rock, engineered to capture flash flood water before it could either flood the city or disappear into the desert. Some channels run for kilometres, carved with a slight, deliberate gradient to keep water moving without eroding the stone. Archaeologists have identified over two hundred cisterns in and around the site, along with terraced gardens fed by controlled irrigation, evidence that the Nabataeans were not simply surviving the desert but actively reshaping it. This is why Petra could support a population, by some estimates, of twenty thousand or more, in a landscape that today looks barely capable of supporting a village. Walking the Siq, visitors can still see the worn channels cut along its walls at about knee height, a system that was functioning two thousand years before anyone thought to build a visitor centre nearby.


Through the Siq

The approach to Petra is not incidental to the experience, it is part of what the city was designed to do. The Siq is a natural fissure in the sandstone, in places barely wide enough for two people to pass, with walls rising sixty metres or higher on either side. Visitors today walk roughly 1.2 kilometres through it, and the shift in temperature and light as the passage narrows and then suddenly opens is not an accident of geology so much as an effect the Nabataeans clearly understood and built around.

The Siq ends, without much warning, at a narrow slot of light framing a fragment of carved stone. Then it opens fully onto Al-Khazneh. The Treasury takes its modern name from a local legend that treasure was hidden in the stone urn near the top, a story so persistent that the urn still bears bullet marks from Bedouin who once took shots at it hoping to break it open. In reality, the building is a tomb, most likely constructed for a Nabataean king in the first century BC or AD, its facade combining Hellenistic architectural elements, columns, pediments and figures drawn from Greek mythology, with a purpose entirely local: marking the dead of a ruling family in a way calculated to impress everyone who approached along the only road into the city.

What makes the Treasury unusual, and easy to misunderstand on a first visit, is that its extraordinary facade opens onto very little. Behind the columns lies a single chamber and a few smaller rooms, undecorated, without the elaborate interior a European visitor might expect from a building this imposing. The facade was never meant to be experienced from within. It was meant to be seen, from a distance, by traders arriving with their caravans after days in the desert, a deliberate statement of permanence and power carved into rock that would outlast anything built from timber or mudbrick. Nearly all of Petra’s famous monuments work the same way: monumental exteriors, modest or largely absent interiors, wealth expressed as image rather than as living space.


Through the Siq

Petra was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1985 and, in polls conducted around the 2007 New7Wonders campaign, was voted one of the New Seven Wonders of the World, a designation that increased visitor numbers substantially over the following decade. Today the walk from the entrance through the Siq to the Treasury takes most visitors 25 to 40 minutes on foot, though horse-drawn carriages are available for part of the route. The scale of the wider site, more than 260 square kilometres including outlying tombs and high places of sacrifice, means that a single day is enough to see the main monuments but not the full extent of what has been excavated, let alone what has not. Archaeologists estimate that a substantial proportion of Petra remains unexcavated, buried under centuries of flood sediment in the valley floor.

Conservation is an ongoing concern rather than a solved problem. Sandstone erodes, and the combination of flash flooding, wind, and the sheer volume of visitor traffic puts continuous pressure on facades that were never designed to be touched by hundreds of thousands of hands a year. The Jordanian government and international bodies including UNESCO have funded stabilisation projects at several of the more fragile monuments, and certain areas are periodically restricted to reduce wear.

What stays with most visitors, once the Treasury has been photographed and the crowds around it thinned out, tends to be something smaller: the water channels cut into the Siq’s walls, still tracing the exact route floodwater was directed away from foot traffic two thousand years ago, doing precisely the job they were built to do, in a country that still cannot take its water supply for granted.


A City of Facades

Beyond the Treasury, the wider site reveals just how consistent this pattern is. More than six hundred carved tombs are scattered through the surrounding cliffs, ranging from simple rectangular openings to elaborate multi-storey facades like the Corinthian Tomb and the Palace Tomb, both cut into a single cliff face along what is known as the Street of Facades. Most were carved for wealthy Nabataean families, and their scale had little to do with what lay inside; a tomb’s grandeur was a public statement, not a private comfort.

The city’s Roman-era theatre, carved directly out of the rock rather than built up from a level base, could seat several thousand people and shows how thoroughly the Nabataeans adapted borrowed architectural forms to their own carving traditions. The colonnaded street running through the centre of ancient Petra, added after Roman annexation, gives a sense of the city as a functioning urban space with markets, temples and civic buildings, not merely a collection of tombs. Many of these structures are now reduced to foundations and column stumps, a reminder that most of Petra’s ordinary architecture, built rather than carved, has simply not survived in the way the rock-cut monuments have.

Above the main basin, reached by a climb of around eight hundred rock-cut steps, sits Ad Deir, the Monastery. Larger than the Treasury and considerably less visited because of the effort required to reach it, it was likely built later, possibly as a temple or gathering place associated with a Nabataean king who was deified after his death. The climb takes most visitors forty minutes to an hour, and the site rewards patience: fewer crowds, wider views across the surrounding mountains, and a clearer sense of scale once there is nothing beside the monument to compare it to.


Losing and Finding Petra

Modern Petra functions as both an active archaeological site and one of the most visited places in Jordan, and the two roles sometimes sit uneasily together. UNESCO listed it as a World Heritage Site in 1985, and conservation is an ongoing concern: erosion from wind, occasional flash flooding, and the sheer volume of visitor traffic all put pressure on sandstone that was never meant to be touched by millions of hands. Some tomb interiors are fenced off for this reason, and guides increasingly discourage visitors from climbing directly on delicate facades.

The Bdoul Bedouin remain part of the site rather than separate from it. Many run stalls, offer donkey and camel rides along the main routes, or work as guides, and their presence is one of the few living threads connecting the ancient city to the present rather than only to the past. Excavation is still incomplete; estimates suggest a large proportion of Petra, particularly its residential areas, has not yet been fully excavated, and archaeologists continue to find new tombs and structures in the surrounding hills.

What stays with most visitors is not a single monument but the scale of the whole approach, the narrow Siq giving way to the Treasury, then to the Street of Facades, then to a valley of tombs stretching further than seems reasonable for a city so often reduced in popular memory to one photograph. Petra rewards the visitor who keeps walking past that first view, because the Treasury, however impressive, was never meant to be the whole story. It was the introduction to a city built almost entirely on the same principle: control the water, control the route, and carve your permanence into stone that the desert cannot easily take back.

Tourist Information

Location: Petra Archaeological Park, near the town of Wadi Musa, Ma’an Governorate, southern Jordan.

Opening hours: Petra is generally open daily, with seasonal variation between summer and winter hours. Visitors should confirm current opening times on the official Visit Petra website before travelling, as hours can change with season and local conditions.

Typical visit duration: A single day allows time to see the Siq, the Treasury, the Street of Facades, the theatre, and either the Royal Tombs or the Monastery. Visitors wanting to see the site in full, including the Monastery, the High Place of Sacrifice, and outlying tombs, are generally advised to allow two full days.

How to get there: Petra is most commonly reached from Amman (roughly three to four hours by road) or from Aqaba (around two hours), by private car, tour bus, or intercity coach. The nearest town, Wadi Musa, has the closest accommodation to the site entrance.

Admission: Petra charges an entrance fee, with different rates depending on nationality, length of stay, and whether entry is on a single day or multi day pass. Many visitors purchase entry as part of the Jordan Pass, which combines a visa fee waiver with admission to Petra and other sites. Readers should consult the official Visit Petra or Jordan Pass websites for current prices and booking details.

Accessibility: The main route through the Siq is a relatively flat, compacted path suitable for most fitness levels, though it is long and can be walked, ridden by horse, or covered part of the way by horse drawn carriage. Beyond the Treasury, the terrain becomes considerably more uneven, with unpaved paths and, for the Monastery and High Place of Sacrifice, several hundred steps cut into rock. Wheelchair access is very limited beyond the entrance area. The site involves significant walking in exposed heat for much of the year and is not well suited to visitors with limited mobility who wish to see beyond the Treasury. Older children generally manage the walk well; the Monastery climb is demanding for young children.

Facilities: Toilets, cafés, and small shops are available near the entrance and at a few points along the main route, including near the Treasury and further in near the theatre. A visitor centre sits at the entrance. Parking is available in Wadi Musa near the main gate.

Dress code: No specific religious dress code applies, though modest, lightweight clothing and sturdy walking shoes are strongly advised given the terrain and heat.

Best time to visit: Spring (March to May) and autumn (September to November) offer the most comfortable temperatures. Summer afternoons can be extremely hot with little shade along the route. Early morning entry, shortly after opening, generally offers cooler conditions and fewer crowds at the Treasury than midday.

Things to know before visiting Petra:

  • Bring more water than seems necessary, as shade is limited for much of the walk.
  • Sun protection is essential year round; a hat and sunscreen are advisable even on cooler days.
  • Sturdy, closed toe shoes are recommended over sandals, particularly for the Monastery climb.
  • Vendors along the route sell food, drinks, and souvenirs, and prices are often negotiable.
  • Photography is permitted throughout the site for personal use.
  • Flash flooding, while rare, has occurred historically in the Siq during heavy rain; visitors should follow any guidance from site staff during unsettled weather.
  • Horse, donkey, and camel rides are offered by local operators; these are optional and not required to see the main sites.

Nearby places of interest:

  • Little Petra (Siq al Barid), a smaller Nabataean site a short drive away.
  • Wadi Rum, a desert landscape roughly an hour and a half south, known for its rock formations and Bedouin run desert camps.
  • The town of Aqaba on the Red Sea coast.

Further Reading & Resources:

Books

  • Jane Taylor, “Petra and the Lost Kingdom of the Nabataeans”
  • Iain Browning, “Petra”
  • Johann Ludwig Burckhardt, “Travels in Syria and the Holy Land”

Documentaries and Films

  • “Petra: Lost City of Stone” (National Geographic)
  • “Great Wonders of the World: Petra” (BBC)

Museums

  • The Petra Museum, located near the site entrance, houses artefacts recovered from excavations across the park.
  • The Jordan Museum in Amman holds broader collections relating to Nabataean and regional history.

Official Websites

  • Visit Petra (the official tourism site for the park)
  • UNESCO World Heritage Centre entry for Petra
  • Jordan Pass (for combined visa and admission information)

The resources above informed the preparation of this article and are recommended for readers wishing to explore the subject in greater depth.

 

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