Petra: The Ancient Lost City of Stone

this episode is brought to you by curiositystream a subscription streaming service that offers over 2 000 documentaries and non-fiction titles unlimited access starting at just 299 a month and 30 days for free if you sign up through the link below and use the code geographics more on them in a bit in the wastes of jordan's unforgiving southwestern desert lies a sight straight out of fiction carved directly into the redstone walls of a canyon petra is a marvel to behold a two thousand-year-old city of soaring pillars elaborate architecture and mysterious caves it is perhaps the most instagrammable place in the entire middle east famously featured in the climactic scenes of indiana jones on the last crusade it is today both a unesco world heritage site and one of the new seven wonders of the world yet the truly amazing thing about petra isn't how it looks on your feed but that it exists at all built in a region so arid the ancients thought it uninhabitable petra by rights should be a wasteland but it's not it's down to water management technology so advanced that it makes roman aqueducts look like something knocked up by barney gumbel built by the mysterious nabataeans petra's system of channels and systems pushed ancient technology to its very limits and in doing so created a miracle envied by the ancients lost for millennia this is the story of petra the city that shouldn't exist [Music] if you were to leave jordan's capital city of a man and head south you'd soon hit a vast tract of inhospitable desert covering much of the lower country this desert starts off rocky before dissolving into endless sand but before you entered this stretch of featureless landscape you'd encounter one last surprise alongside an otherwise lonely road sits a series of mountains and valleys inside one of the narrowest of these valleys is a city fort lost for centuries its name of course is petra and it was once the capital of an empire although the ruins we see today are around 2000 years old the history of petra actually begins much earlier in the 13th century bc semitic tribes first entered the region probably settling around modern day petra not that it would have looked anything like the petra you see today known in the bible as edom neolithic petra would have mostly been people living in small stone houses and raising goats oh and they would have also been in a constant state of warfare with each other because that's just how things rolled in prehistory no for the petra we know to arise it would require the arrival of a whole new people the nabateans the nabateans are one of those ancient peoples who achieved the impressive double feat of being both incredibly important and almost completely forgotten it's from their writing system for example that arabic script sprang their society too was innovative with slavery forbidden and women considered equal to men but while that's all cool there were two other characteristics the nabateans had that would become key to their survival they were absolute masters at both trade and storing water let's start with the latter not because we want to bore you but because it's really the linchpin of the entire story back in 400 bc traveling across jordan's desert didn't mean jumping in an air-conditioned suv sticking on some taylor swift and occasionally stopping to buy bottled water at a gas station it meant a slow dangerous crossing in the baking heat a crossing in which water was so scarce that you were forced to barter for it just to stay alive unless you're an abetaine along the famous incensed roots bringing spices from far-off places like india the nabataeans quietly started hoarding water they did this by building gigantic cisterns deep in the desert systems that they would let the winter rains fill and then disguise so that no one else could find them around the systems they'd leave hidden signs known only to the nabataeans you know that old saying that goes in a gold rush sell shovels well that's kind of what the nebateans were doing as everyone else was farting around trying to get the most mer from point a to port b they cornered the market on the desert's most scarce resource its most precious resource but while this made them rich it is what they did once they settled down that would change history it would be the nabataean skill with water management that turned petra from some rocky backwater into one of the greatest cities in human history although it's parched most of the time petra isn't dry all year round every winter there are sudden powerful rainstorms that can cause flash flooding while this sucks for tourists it's what made building a city in the middle of the desert possible from their earliest days at the site the nabateans cut channels through the rock to divert rain into hundreds upon hundreds of systems they built dams to control the winter floods allowing them to harvest rain water year round it was a complex task one that pushed ancient engineering to its limits but it meant that petra not only had enough water stored to get the city through the thirsty summers but also to keep functioning in times of drought the nabataeans were literally swimming in excess water like literally literally and the result was a city that must have seemed like a mirage not only were petros citizens able to drink and bathe they could divert the water to fields improving crops or they could send it into the center of town allowing the creation of lush and shaded gardens those pictures you probably have in your mind of petra the ones of a stone city devoid of greenery the nabateans would barely recognize it in their day petra had tall trees lining its streets fountains bubbled outside classical villas on the steep hillsides grapes pomegranates and dates grew it was an oasis in the desert a shock of life in a world that seemed otherwise dead so incredible was petra supplier freshwater that many came to believe it was the site of moses's miracle in the book of numbers where he conjured water by striking a rock but although water was key to both petra's creation and survival it wasn't water that made the city wealthy it was the location that did that we mentioned earlier that the nabateans were experts on the trade routes that crisscrossed the desert while petra was built to take full advantage of these standing at an important crossing point petra was perfectly positioned to swipe bunny from merchants coming from all corners those heading up from the incense-filled souks of yemen would pass through petra's gates their camels weighed down with myrrh merchants hauling sacks of spices from distant india would spend the night there before heading onwards to gaza syrian traders with coiled cloth workers hauling bitumen from the dead sea frankincense merchants from oman they'd all pass through petra and all of them they'd pay for the privilege but don't go thinking that petra was just some sort of glorified tollbooth those arriving in the city they were happy to cough up they'd just spent eons dragging precious cargo over a hostile wasteland with nary a tree in sight to suddenly stumble upon petra with its gardens and fountains and its endless supply of water it really must have seemed like a miracle but the truth with miracles is that everyone wants a piece of them from almost the moment the nabataeans first built their complex water system they were having to fight off people desperate to steal it for themselves and before we get into those fights let me tell you about today's fantastic sponsor curiosity stream curiosity stream is a subscription streaming service that offers over 2 000 documentaries and non-fiction titles from some of the world's best filmmakers including exclusive originals if you're enjoying this one then why not try out curiosity stream for free and check out any of their ancient history content they've got a great series about the bronze age they've also got some stuff about the celts and that's just scratching the surface really i mean there's a ton a ton of great documentaries on there available on many platforms where that broke you android xbox one smart tv ios chromecast amazon look the list goes on if you've got some sort of screen that was built in the last decade you're probably going to be able to watch curiosity stream on there get unlimited access starting at just 299 a month and for you guys the first 30 days are completely free just sign up at curiositystream.com forward slash geographics use the promo code geographics during the sign up process that is a great way to support the show it keeps us making more videos and i think it's just a great fit but let's get back to it the first recorded evidence we have of petra is thanks to people trying to attack it despite creating a writing system the nabataeans didn't ever get around to recording much of their own history meaning we only know about them from their neighbors and most of their neighbors were as obsessed with capturing petra as dick dastardly was with catching that damn pigeon the general antagonist the first discovered petra's wealth almost by chance and decided that he'd nab it for himself but the mountains and canyons surrounding petra created such an effective natural barrier that antigonus army was just forced to give up but although antigonus was the first to try well he wasn't going to be the last for centuries the seleucid greeks and the jews would take turns trying to smash their way into petra but it was all for naught it wouldn't be until the romans arrived on the scene that the nabataeans met their match but we'll come to all of that in a moment for now just know that petra spent its first three and a half centuries both fighting off attackers and growing ever more fabulously rich by the second century bc it was the capital of a vast kingdom huge chunks of what are now jordan and israel fell under nabataean control alongside parts of modern saudi arabia syria and egypt cities like shivta mamshits and abdad sprang up along the incense roots adding to the gigantic pile of wealth that petrol was built upon and since petra was so easy to defend with the eastern part of the city only accessible via a narrow canyon that wealth stayed safe yet even now is one of the most important trade hubs on earth petra was still just a shadow of the city we know today this would finally change with the arrival of aritas iv aratus iv was one of those rulers it was default assumed everyone was super in love with in the same way abraham lincoln automatically wins best president contests aratas was every nabatean's go-to favorite and there was good reason for this when aratas ascended to the throne in around 9 bc petra seemed to be on a downward slide in 64 bc the roman arch conqueror of everything inside pompeii had forced the nabataeans to pay tribute to keep their independence then just a generation later herod the great had turned the city into a vassal state but then aratus iv came along and threw this misfortune into sharp reverse somehow he was able to talk roman emperor augustus into recognizing him as an autonomous king securing petra's independence that done he set about transforming his capital it was under aratus that petra blossomed into today's instagramable masterpiece the so-called treasury the magnificent edifice that famously turned up in indiana jones almost certainly the tomb eritres had built for himself most of the other grandest buildings date from his rape too by the time eretus died in 40 a.d he'd left behind a legacy in stone one that would be standing nearly 2 000 years later so let's take a closer look at it shall we it's time to compare something we should have probably told you earlier the city we're talking about the one this video is titled after well it's not actually called petra at least not historically the proper name for the city was rakmu petra was just something the greeks called it but while rakmu is how the nebateans would have known their city the name petra still fits you see petra was ancient greek for rock and if there's one thing petra is all about it's rock unlike just about every other ancient city petra wasn't built by getting a load of materials together and adding them to a space it was built by instead taking materials away by subtracting for what was already there using a technique known as rock cut architecture the nabataeans chipped away fashioning the exposed stone into grand pillars it must have been painstaking work with each building taking an age to carve from the mountains yet carve those buildings they did and not in some half-assed way either the rock-cut buildings of petra are stuffed with elaborate references to the cultures that surrounded them from the egyptians they borrowed the practice of topping their columns with carved human heads from the greeks they took images of gods like dionysus from the romans came the elaborate gates marking the entrance to the city even neighboring judea got an architectural hat tip in the form of the great villas and gardens in the city's wealthier districts inspired by the buildings of herod the great oh and slightly weird fact for fans of historical crossovers herod's own mother was nabatean and the boy likely spent a couple of years of his childhood living in petra alongside these nods to their neighbors the nepatians also included funky little easter eggs take alcazane the indiana jones building everyone calls the treasury but was in reality most likely eritrea's tomb well the reason it's called the treasury is because of a giant stone urn that sits above the entrance after the collapse of petra in the first millennium a.d local tribes became convinced that the urn held gold and spent years trying to break it open only to discover that the urn is solid rock and as we're talking about misconceptions now might be a good time to tell you that the interior of the treasury looks nothing like it did in the last crusade the real interior is a small featureless empty room not exactly the stuff of action and adventure but it wasn't just in their rock cup buildings where the nabataeans showed off their masonry skills the great temple was completely freestanding a stone monster with a theater capable of seating 600 a vast courtyard paved and surrounded by columns and hidden vaults below ground still the major reason the site is famous today is because of the buildings carved into the cliffs the majority of which may have been tombs all in all the petra aratus left behind when he died was a masterpiece a city at a zenith but the iron rule of gravity states that whatever goes up must come down in less than a single lifetime petra would tumble from its post-eritos peak to a humiliating nadir [Music] after eretus shuffled off this mortal coil two more kings came and went each of whom tried gamely to defend their territory from the expanding roman empire but when the second king rebel ii sota died in 106 a.d rome delivered the fatal blow that same year the nabataean kingdom was annexed by the emperor trajan becoming the roman province of arabia petraeus as far as we can tell the place was conquered almost without a fight if today's video was on the nabatean kingdom this is where we'd probably end things the point where we'd tie everything up with a few choice remarks but our subject is petra the city not the state that it was a part of and petra itself did pretty well out of the roman annexation while no longer capital of an empire petra was still an important trade city and a place with enormous wealth so rather than smash it up and declare mission complete the romans showered attention on it it was as a part of rome that petra was able to embark on its first great post-aratus construction spree opening up new public parks and installing watchtowers but even as everyone in petra was being all like hey these romans aren't so bad the desert winds of fortune were changing as part of their conquest the romans shifted political power away from petra up to bostra now busra al-sham in syria this was fine so long as petra could keep relying on trade routes to keep it relevant but if those went well that wasn't going to be pretty at the end of the 3rd century a.d the trade routes that had been petra's lifeblood shifted suddenly robbed of its income the city almost vanished from the historical record but while petra's abandonment was traditionally dated to an earthquake shortly after in 363 a.d we now know this wasn't the case even as petra fell out of favor it remained an oasis in the desert the byzantine empire made it capital of their province of palestina building grand christian churches that survived to this day but while the byzantines had the money and willingness to keep petra inhabited there was one vital thing they were lacking nabataean water management skills sometime in the 4th century a.d the immensely complex water system at petra broke down we don't know if people tried to fix it or if they just took one look at the work and thought to hell with this with the city's most valuable resource gone people abandoned petra a city made easier by another huge earthquake in 551. by the time the city fell to muslim forces in the 7th century it was almost empty the great miracle city in the desert had been forgotten and that's how things went for the next few hundred years there were more earthquakes more natural decay eventually the site was in such bad shape that most of the world forgot that it even existed but not everyone even as petra sunk into obscurity local bedouin tribes began using it as a base of operations a secret stronghold the location of which they swore to never tell it would be thanks to one bedouin breaking this vow that petra was finally rediscovered the process leading to petra's rediscovery wouldn't get underway until 1784 nearly 1 200 years after it was abandoned that's a crazy amount of time a stretch of years so long it's almost beyond comprehension try picturing the famous scene of the mayflower pilgrims holding their first thanksgiving got that well as you probably remember from school that took place in 1621 a mere 400 years ago think of how utterly remote in time that moment is from you now think how weirdly everyone is stressed how alien their worldview is well now triple that vast gap and triple that sense of remoteness you now have the faintest inkling of the length of time petra stood empty and forgotten the fact that this period wasn't any longer is thanks entirely to johann ludwig burkhardt born in switzerland in 1784 burkhardt was one of those turn of the 19th century romantics who seemed to turn cultural appropriation into an art form an eager student of arabic berkhat didn't just master the language he started dressing in middle eastern garb and calling himself ibrahim ibn abdallah but while this would probably get him no platform these days in the 1800s it made him hugely employable in 1809 the london-based association for promoting the discovery of the interior parts of africa came to burkhart with a proposition they wanted him to don his ibrahim disguise and become the first european to see the source of the niger river if you have some basic geography you might be thinking well done simon wait a second petra it's nowhere near the source of the niger and if you were thinking that you'd be absolutely right rather than embark on this dangerous expedition burkhart told the association he needed to get better at arabic first so he traveled to damascus for a few years to practice and then to cairo it was while on route to cairo in the summer of 1812 that burkhart overhead rumors about an abandoned stone city luckily burkhart was a massive history nerd who'd read ancient texts describing petra he quickly realized the petra he'd read about and this mysterious stone city must be one in the same disguised as ibrahim burkhart made up a backstory about pledging to make a sacrifice at the prophet aaron's tomb thought to be in the vicinity of petra and found a bedouin willing to take him there that was how on august 22nd 1812 johan ludwig burkhardt became the first non-bedouin in centuries to lay eyes on petra and it very nearly got him killed when burkhardt saw the rose city he couldn't help but stop dead dumbfounded by its beauty his guide started cursing him saying was an infidel and not interested in aaron's tomb at all it was only thanks to some very fast presumably very convincing explaining that burkhart was able to leave petra alive but leave alive he did a few months later a dispatch landed on the desk of the london africa association in it burkhart declared here are the remains of an ancient city which i conjecture to be petra a place which as far as i know no european traveler has ever visited from that point on the lost city was no longer quite so lost burkha died in cairo in october of 1817 having never made it to the source of the niger however his description of petra had already sparked interest over the following decades a steady trickle of people from the outside world would visit eventually becoming a flood by 1985 petra was famous enough to be declared a unesco world heritage site in a grim little twist the jordanian government celebrated by forcibly evicting the remaining bedouins transforming the stone city into a pristine tourist site today the lost city of petra is still very much being rediscovered excavations have only uncovered around 15 percent of the city with the majority of its secrets still hidden beneath the sands that means there's still so much more to be learned about the nabateans about the byzantines about life in the ancient world and while that's great from a history nerd perspective it seems unlikely to change how the majority of people think about the place petra is already one of the most famous sites on earth gracing the cover of a million travel books popping up on uncountable instagram feeds along with machu picchu and the pyramids it's become a bucket list item a place for tourists to stop and gorp for a few seconds before shuffling on to the next famous site and that's a shame as this video has hopefully shown there's so much more to petra than just some beautiful buildings so much more than its cameo in indiana jones here is a desert city that managed to thrive for centuries despite a lack of fresh water a city that stood at a focal point of three great empires it may just be travel porn for the majority of humanity but petra is one of those rarests of beasts a truly lost city whose rediscovery changed our knowledge of an entire region hopefully having watched the video today you can now appreciate its story too and i really hope you found this video interesting if you did please do hit that like button below do not forget to check out our fantastic sponsor curiosity stream link below and thank you for watching

Channel: Geographics

Views: 532,466

Rating: 4.9077172 out of 5

Keywords: The Ancient Lost City of Stone, Lost City of Stone, Petra, Petra Jordan, Petra facts, What is inside Petra?, Petra history

Id: 2cyagznUTO0

Length: 22min 2sec (1322 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 14 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/Thefury770]

I saw this video today and I just wanted to share the history of such an iconic wonder

[u/Payton49]

Super fascinating! It explains why Petra gives food and gold on desert tiles.