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The city of Petra is located
in southern Jordan about 300 kilometres south of
Amman. Though it is referred to several times in
the Bible by the Hebrew term Sela' (meaning
'rock'), its original name in antiquity is still
unknown to us. The Greek name Petra is simply a
direct translation from the Hebrew word used in
the Bible. Its Arab name, on the other hand,
derives from the name of the river, which flows
down the valley: the Wadi Mousa (River of Moses).
The Petra area was already known to nomadic groups
in Palaeolithic times ( 11 th millennium BC). The
first settlements date back to the Neolithic Age
(8th millennium BC), for which there is evidence
of extensive agricultural and pastoral activity at
el-Beidha, a little to the north of the future
urban area. The earliest villages for which there
are any concrete archaeological remains date back
to the Chalcolithic period (4500-3200 BC) and to
the Bronze Age (3200-1200), when nomadic tribes of
herdsmen coexisted alongside the farming
communities settled in the area. These settlements
eventually entered into a period of decline,
after which the plain of Petra was once again
occupied in about 1500 BC by the Orites, who
inhabited the caves in the Mountainsides.
 Petra, facades with double crow steps frieze
in outer Siq, next to the theatre
They were ousted
in 13th century BC by a Semite people known in the
Bible as the Edomites, who by about 1200 BC were
living stably on the mountain of Umm el-Biyara
('mother of cisterns', 1160 meters ), located to
the south-west of the subsequent urban area. We
are not sure exactly when, but probably from the
7th-6th century BC onwards, the Edomites were
forced to leave the area and move north in
response to pressure from the Nabateans, an Arab,
Aramaic-speaking people, consisting of caravan
traders and nomadic herdsmen. They gradually settled
down and made Petra their capital, taking
advantage of the place's favourable conditions, the
ease with which it could be de- defended and its
position of considerable advantage for
commercial exchanges with the East. The earliest
historical reference to the Nabateans dates back
to 312 BC, when Alexander the Great's generals
Antigonus "Monophthalmus and Demetrius Polliorcetes
attempted to subdue Petra on more than
one occasion, I but without success. The Kingdom
of the Nabateans managed to preserve its independence
of both the Seleucids in Syria and the
Ptolemies in Egypt throughout the whole of the
Hellenistic age, which gives some some indication
of the strength of its military capacity, in addition
to its great economic prosperity.
Subsequent written sources mentioning the
Nabateans derive mainly from the two Books of the
Maccabees in the Bible, which give
accounts of relations between Maccabees and
Nabateans. The Nabatean people had originally been
organized as a confederation of tribes led by a
sheikh, but some point between the late 3rd
century BC and the early 2nd century BC they
adopted a monarchical system. The first king known
to us was Aretas I, who reined between 170-160 BC and
whose deeds are related in 2 Maccabees. Of his
successors, Aretas II (115-96 BC) and Obodas I
(96-89/87 BC) contributed to the kingdom’s
expansion at the expense of the Seleucids. The
Nabatean state achieved its greatest geographical
extension under Aretas III (88-62 BC), who
managed to strike a peace treaty with the Judeans.
At this point it stretched all the way from
Damascus in the north down to the Red Sea port of
Leuke Kome in the south. When the Romans conquered
Syria under Pompey in 63 BC, the Nabatean Kingdom
managed to preserve its independence, losing only
a part of its northern territory. In addition to
the pax romana, good relations with Rome during
the reign of Obodas II (62-61 BC), Malchus I
(59-30 BC), and Obodas III (30-9 BC) were an
enormous aid to the development of trade. This was
certainly the Nabateans’ main resource, and in
addition to the Petra’s strategic position they
also exploited the knowledge acquired from their
nomadic inheritance and their contacts with the
ports of southern Arabia. Indeed, the city was
located at the very point at which the great
south-north trade route from Arabia and Egypt to
the Mediterranean ports intersected with the
westward trade route form the Far East: the main
products traded were spices, precious stones,
silk, myrrh, incense and asphalt from the Dead
Sea. There is evidence for this period of
scattered Nabatean trading communities in
important port cities both in Egypt and the East
(Sidon), and in the West (Pozzuoli, Rome). The
prosperity of the Nabatean Kingdom reached it’s
peak under Aretas IV (8 BC-40AD), a contemporary
of the emperor Augustus and of Herod, King of
Judea: it was in this period that the main
monuments were
put up
in
Petra, thanks to the great wealth it had
accumulated through trade, in particular that of
luxury goods bound for Rome.
 A part of the Siq, the only entrance to
Petra. On the rock walls are still visible
gabalus granted it the status of traces of the
conduit which brought the precious water of Wadi
Mousa right to the colony, in the early 3rd century
A
massive feat of hydraulic engineering was also
carried out in the desert around the city, with
the carving of channels out of the rock and the
construction of earthenware pipes, dams and
cisterns for the collection of water, both in
order to supply the urban area and to irrigate the
surrounding farmland. Malchus II (40-70 AD), who
succeeded Aretas IV; pursued a policy of friendly
relations with the Romans and may have become a
client king, helping Vespasian and Titus to
conquer Jerusalem in 70 AD. When the Province of
Arabia was annexed by Trajan on the death of the
last Nabatean king, Rabbel II (106 AD), an imperial legate
was installed in Petra. The Roman
occupation did not interrupt the city's development;
on the contrary, trade prospered thanks to
Trajan's improvement of the ancient road running
from Syria to the Red Sea, now referred to as the
Via Nova Traiana. In 129 AD Hadrian bestowed the
title 'Hadriana' on the city and, later on, the
emperor Elagablaus granted in the status of
colony, in the early 3rd century AD. When
Diocletian reformed the provinces in 293 AD,
Petra became the capital of, which
included only the southern part of the previous
province: the isolation of the southern
territories was dictated by strategic considerations,
in particular the constant threat posed by
the nomads, who at this point were the reason for
the city's decline. It was probably during this
period of political uncertainty that the city
acquired its ring of walls, of which some traces
are preserved to the north. There was a
devastating earthquake on 19 May 363 AD, after
which some buildings, such as the theatre and the
sanctuary of the Qasr El-Bint, were never
rebuilt. Nevertheless, certain dwellings, the
shops built along the Colonnade Street and the
conversion of some of the rock-hewn tombs into
churches show that Petra still enjoyed considerable
prosperity in the Byzantine period, up
until the 6th century AD. We do not know the exact
means by which Christianity took root in the city, but during the 4th century AD it
became a bishopric. However, there are several
indications that urban life was already in
decline. After another earthquake in 551 AD and
conquest by the Arabs in 636 AD, the city was
deserted and sank slowly into oblivion, with the
exception of a brief period of occupation by the
Crusaders in the 12th century. Petra's
'rediscovery' by the West was due to the Swiss
explorer J. L. Burckhardt, who visited the site on
21th of August 1812. This discovery was initially kept
secret, only to be divulged ten years later when
the explorer's travel diaries (Travels in Syria)
were published some time after his death in 1817.
The city was subsequently described by many
travellers of various nationalities (C. L. lrby, J.
Mangles, L. de Laborde, E. Robinson, D. Roberts),
but it was only in 1865 that Palestine became the
object of scientific study, and systematic
archaeological excavations were thus also
conducted in Petra.
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