There is a moment in Petra that justifies the whole trip: after walking for almost a kilometre through the Siq, a narrow, winding gorge between rock walls a hundred metres high, the gorge suddenly opens up and there, framed by the rock, is the Treasury —Al-Khazneh—, a colossal facade carved into the rose-coloured stone, impossibly elegant. That moment, seen so many times in photos and films, still takes your breath away in person. And the best part is that the Treasury is only the beginning: behind it unfolds an entire city sculpted into the mountain.
Petra was the capital of the Nabataeans, a people of Arab origin who grew rich by controlling the caravan routes for incense, myrrh and spices between Arabia, the Mediterranean and the East. With that wealth and astonishing hydraulic ingenuity, they built a city of temples, monumental tombs, a theatre and colonnaded streets in the middle of the desert, blending their own style with Greek, Egyptian and Roman influences. Abandoned and forgotten by the West for centuries, it was 'rediscovered' in 1812 and today it is a World Heritage Site, one of the new wonders of the world and the undisputed symbol of Jordan.
This guide helps you make the most of Petra: how admission and the Jordan Pass work, how many days to spend, what not to miss (from the Treasury to the Monastery, from the Royal Tombs to the viewpoints), how to avoid the heat and the crowds, how to deal with the Bedouins selling tea, souvenirs and rides, and what the famous Petra by Night is (and when it runs). Petra is big and demands legs and water, but it repays every drop of effort with one of the most impressive experiences a traveller can have anywhere in the world.
Petra was the capital of the Nabataean kingdom, a people of Arab traders who, between the 4th and 1st centuries BC, grew rich by controlling the caravan routes for incense and spices that crossed the desert. In this sandstone valley, protected by mountains and equipped with an ingenious water channelling system, the Nabataeans built a spectacular city, carving monumental facades into the rock that blend their style with Hellenistic and Eastern influences, such as the Treasury (Al-Khazneh) and the Monastery (Ad-Deir). In AD 106, Rome annexed the Nabataean kingdom and Petra continued to flourish as a Roman city, with its colonnaded street and its theatre. A shift in trade routes and a series of earthquakes —the most severe in 363— gradually weakened it, until it was almost abandoned and forgotten by the Western world for centuries, known only to the local Bedouins. In 1812, the Swiss explorer Johann Ludwig Burckhardt 'rediscovered' it for the West. Today it is a World Heritage Site and one of the new wonders of the world. Its full story is on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The monumental south: Nabataean Petra carved into the rock, the Wadi Rum desert, the country's only port at Aqaba and the castles of the old King's Highway.
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Origins, formation and what the sources say.
The story of Petra is the story of a brilliant and elusive people: the Nabataeans. They began as nomadic tribes of Arab origin who, around the 4th century BC, roamed the deserts of what is now southern Jordan and northern Arabia. Far from living in poverty, they turned their knowledge of the desert into a source of enormous wealth. They controlled the routes used by caravans carrying incense and myrrh from southern Arabia, spices from India and other luxury goods to the markets of the Mediterranean. By charging tolls and offering the caravans protection, water and supplies, the Nabataeans built up huge fortunes.
The heart of that trading empire was Petra, a valley hidden among sandstone mountains where several routes met. It was protected by narrow gorges that made it easy to defend, and there the Nabataeans set up their capital. Their greatest achievement was mastering water. In a dry land, they built an advanced system of dams, channels, cisterns and ceramic pipes that caught every last drop of water from torrential rains and springs, then stored it and shared it out. This allowed a city of tens of thousands of people, with gardens and fountains, to flourish in the middle of the desert. Control of water was as much the key to their power as trade.
The Nabataeans spoke an Arabic language and wrote in their own alphabet, which came from Aramaic and would later give rise to the Arabic script. They worshipped their own gods, such as Dushara and the goddess Al-Uzza, and often represented them in abstract form as blocks of stone. They kept many of their own customs, but they were remarkably good at absorbing the influence of the great cultures they traded with: Greek, Egyptian and Mesopotamian. That mix would be carved forever into the façades of their capital.
Between the 2nd century BC and the 1st century AD, Petra reached its peak. Using the wealth from the caravan trade, the Nabataeans turned their valley into one of the most astonishing cities of the ancient world, carving huge, strikingly elegant façades straight into the pink sandstone cliffs. The most famous monument, Al-Khazneh (the Treasury), has columns, pediments and statues sculpted out of the rock. It was probably built in this period as the grand tomb of a king, possibly Aretas IV, whose reign (9 BC to AD 40) marked Petra's high point. Another giant, the even larger Monastery (Ad-Deir), stood on the heights above.
But Petra was not just a burial ground of spectacular tombs. It was a lively, crowded city, with free-standing temples such as Qasr al-Bint and a great theatre carved into the rock that could seat thousands. It also had a colonnaded main street, markets, residential quarters and mountain shrines such as the High Place of Sacrifice. At its height it may have been home to tens of thousands of people. Its façades skilfully blend Hellenistic style with Egyptian, Mesopotamian and purely Nabataean elements, creating an art that is unique and unmistakable.
With Petra as its capital, the Nabataean kingdom extended its influence over large parts of southern Jordan, the Negev, northern Arabia and even Damascus. Its kings, such as Aretas IV, 'lover of his people', minted their own coins. They dealt with the great powers of the day, sometimes as rivals and sometimes as allies: the Seleucid kings, the Hasmonean Jews, Herod the Great and, more and more, the rising power of Rome. Petra was at the top, but Rome's power would eventually catch up with it.
In AD 106, Emperor Trajan annexed the Nabataean kingdom to the Roman Empire and made it the province of Arabia Petraea, with Petra and Bosra sharing the role of capital. The annexation seems to have been fairly peaceful, and Petra kept prospering for a while under Roman rule. The colonnaded street was paved and made more monumental, new buildings went up, and the city was given the honorary title of metropolis. Rome also linked Petra into its road network, which included the Via Nova Traiana from Syria to the Red Sea.
But the forces that had made Petra great began to work against it. International trade, the source of its wealth, gradually moved to other routes. In particular, it shifted towards shipping on the Red Sea and towards the rising city of Palmyra in the Syrian desert, which competed with Petra as the great crossroads for caravans. As fewer caravans came through, the source of Petra's prosperity slowly dried up.
The final physical blow came from earthquakes. The region has a lot of seismic activity, and a series of quakes badly damaged the city and, above all, its precious water system. The worst was the great earthquake of AD 363, which destroyed many of the buildings and much of the water infrastructure. With its trade gone and the city badly damaged, Petra began a slow but unstoppable decline. It still had a Christian period under the Byzantines: some tombs were turned into churches, such as the Urn Tomb, and a basilica with mosaics was built. Even so, the great Nabataean city was slowly fading away.
After the Muslim conquest in the 7th century, Petra was left out of history for good. The city, by then almost empty, was gradually forgotten. During the Crusades in the 12th century, the Franks built a few small forts in the area, but they soon left. From then on, for almost seven hundred years, Petra vanished completely from the maps and from the memory of the Western world. Its great façades were lived in only by the Bedouin tribes of the region, especially the Bdoul. They lived in the tombs and caves, kept the valley's secret and passed down legends about treasure hidden in the stone urns.
The outside world 'rediscovered' Petra thanks to a bold young Swiss explorer, Johann Ludwig Burckhardt. In 1812 he was travelling in disguise as an Arab merchant under the name Sheikh Ibrahim, and he spoke Arabic and knew Muslim customs well. He heard about some fabulous ruins hidden in the mountains. To reach them without raising suspicion, he said he wanted to sacrifice a goat at the tomb of the prophet Aaron (Harun), a shrine on top of a mountain at Petra. That way he got a Bedouin guide to lead him through the Siq, and he became the first European in centuries to see the Treasury and the ruins of the Nabataean city. He knew it was dangerous, so he could not stop to explore or take many notes. But his account, published after his death, revealed Petra to the West.
The 'rediscovery' sparked a wave of fascination. Throughout the 19th century, European artists, explorers and travellers came to Petra, and the painter David Roberts captured its ruins in famous lithographs. The poet John William Burgon wrote a poem about it that made it legendary, calling it 'a rose-red city half as old as time'. Petra went from Bedouin secret to Romantic legend and, eventually, to a dream destination for travellers from all over the world.
Today Petra is Jordan's great symbol and one of the most famous and most visited archaeological sites on the planet. UNESCO made it a World Heritage Site in 1985, and in 2007 a worldwide vote chose it as one of the 'New Seven Wonders of the World', which made it even more famous internationally. Its best-known image, the Treasury appearing at the end of the Siq, is recognised all over the world, partly thanks to films that used it as a setting for legendary scenes. Every year, hundreds of thousands of travellers walk through the Siq, climb up to the Monastery and marvel at the pink façades.
That success brings challenges. Huge numbers of visitors and the natural erosion of the sandstone are one part of the problem. Heavy rains sometimes cause dangerous flash floods in the Siq, and tourism puts constant pressure on the site. All of this calls for careful conservation and management work, carried out by the Petra authority (PDTRA) with international support. Research and excavation are still going on: only part of the ancient city has been uncovered. Recent finds, such as a large monumental platform spotted in satellite images, are a reminder that Petra still keeps secrets under the sand.
A sensitive chapter concerns the Bedouin communities, especially the Bdoul. They lived in Petra's caves until the 1980s, when the government moved them to a nearby village (Umm Sayhoun) to protect the site. Today many Bedouin work in Petra selling tea, crafts and rides, and they are part of the experience, although their relationship with tourism and conservation has its tensions. For travellers, beyond the photos, Petra is still what amazed Burckhardt: an impossible city carved into the mountain by a people of brilliant merchants. It shows how human ingenuity could make the desert bloom and turn rock into art.
