Hidden History: Lost Civilizations, Secret Knowledge, and Ancient Mysteries

was beginning to slip into obscurity. There was another damaging earthquake in A.D. 747 that further structurally weakened the city, after which there was silence until the early 12th century and the arrival of the Crusaders, who built a small fort inside the city. After the Crusaders left in the 13th century, Petra was left in the hands of sandstorms and floods, which buried a large part of the once great city until even its ruins were forgotten.
It was not until 1812 that an AngloSwiss explorer named Johann Ludwig Burckhardt rediscovered the lost city of Petra and brought it to the attention of the western world. Burckhardt had been travelling in the near east disguised as a Muslim trader (under the name of Sheikh Ibrahim Ibn Abdallah) in order to acquire knowledge and experience oriental life. While in Elji, a small settlement just outside Petra, Burckhardt heard talk of a lost city hidden in the mountains of Wadi Mousa. Posing as a pilgrim wishing to make a sacrifice at the ancient site, he persuaded two of the Bedouin inhabitants of the village to guide him through the narrow siq. Burckhardt seems only to have managed a brief tour of the remains of Petra, before sacrificing a goat at the foot of the shrine of the prophet Aaron and making his way back to Elji. The explorer did, however manage to produce a map of the ruins and made an entry in his journal to the effect that he had rediscovered Petra.
© Thanassis Vembos.
The Treasury Monument at Petra.
Since the time of Burckhardt, the purpose of the rock-cut city of Petra, hidden away in such a secret location, has puzzled many a traveler, scholar, and archaeologist. The romantic ancient atmosphere of the site was evocatively captured in the famous line describing Petra as a "rose-red city half as old as time," from the poem "Petra," written in 1845 by John William Burgon. But what exactly was the function of this strange place-was it a fortress, a commercial center, or a sacred city? There are many royal tombs throughout the site, as well as public tombs and shaft tombs (the latter places are apparently where criminals were buried alive). But evidence from archaeological investigations over the past decade or so suggests Petra may have had many different functions over the hundreds of years it was inhabited. The magnificent entrance to the site is the more than a mile-long siq, or narrow gorge that winds through the soaring golden-brown sandstone cliffs. There are many small Nabatean tombs carved into the cliff walls of the siq, as well as evidence for the skill of the Nabateans as hydraulic engineers, in the form of channels-once containing clay pipes-which originally carried drinking water into the city. A further example of the engineering abilities of the Nabateans can be seen at the right of the entrance to the siq. Now, as 2,000 years ago, after heavy rain, water flows down the Wadi Mousa (or Valley of Moses) into the siq
and threatens to flood the site of the city. There was a catastrophic flood at Petra in 1963, after which the government decided to construct a dam to redirect the flood water. During building, the excavators were astonished to discover that the Nabateans had already built a dam, probably around the second century B.C., to redirect the flood water away from the entrance and to the north, via an ingenious system of tunnels, which eventually diverted the water back into the heart of the city for the use of the population.
The siq eventually opens out dramatically to reveal the best known and most impressive of the monuments of Petra, the classically influenced Treasury (El-Khazneh in Arabic). The name Treasury originates from a Bedouin legend that a pharaoh's treasure was hidden inside a huge stone urn which stands at the top of the structure. The Bedouins, believing the story, would periodically fire their rifles at the urn hoping to break it open and recover the treasure. The many bullet holes still visible on the urn are proof of this practice. The well-preserved facade of the Treasury, carved out of the solid sandstone rock, is decorated with beautiful columns and elaborate sculptures showing Nabatean deities and mythological characters, and stands 131 feet high and about 88 feet wide. The structure may have served as a royal tomb, perhaps with the king's burial place in the small chamber at the back, and also seems to have been used as a temple, though to which specific god or gods it was dedicated is not known. The exact date of the Khazneh is not certain, though construction somewhere in the 1st century B.C. is the most likely.
One of the few remaining freestanding buildings at Petra is the huge masonry-built Temple of Dushares, also known mysteriously as Qasr alBint Firaun (The Castle of Pharaoh's Daughter). This extensively restored large yellow sandstone temple stands upon a raised platform and has massive 75 feet high walls. The temple, built sometime between 30 B.C. and A.D. 40, was dedicated to Dhushares, the chief god of the Nabateans, and has the largest facade of any building in Petra. Inside, the building is separated into three rooms, the middle room serving as the sanctuary, or holy of holies.
Facing this structure is the Temple of the Winged Lions, named after two eroded lions carved on either side of the doorway. This structure, the most important Nabatean temple ever discovered, has been the subject of more
than 20 years of research and excavation by the American Expedition to Petra. Apparently the temple was dedicated to the pre-Islamic Arabian fertility goddess Allat, who was one of the three chief goddesses of Mecca. Rather than a single building, the Temple of the Winged Lions is really a temple complex including workshops and living areas. (One of the workshops even manufactured souvenirs!) The temple is almost certainly the one described in the Dead Sea Scrolls as the Temple of Aphrodite at Petra. As the