The ancient city of Petra is in Jordan. This extraordinary archaeological site lies in southern Jordan, in a basin surrounded by mountains near the modern town of Wadi Musa.
Petra was established and developed by the Nabataeans, an Arab people who made it the capital of their kingdom. Its location helped it control caravan routes carrying incense, spices, textiles, and other goods between Arabia, the Levant, Egypt, and the Mediterranean. Sophisticated dams, cisterns, and channels allowed the city to manage scarce desert water.
The site is famous for buildings carved directly into rose-colored sandstone, including Al-Khazneh, often called the Treasury, and the Monastery. Petra flourished in the first century CE before Rome annexed the Nabataean Kingdom in 106 CE.
Petra is sometimes called a “lost city,” but local communities always knew of it. Swiss traveler Johann Ludwig Burckhardt brought it to wider European attention in 1812. UNESCO listed Petra as a World Heritage Site in 1985.