Secrets of the desert: the lost city of Petra.

• Author: Glueck, Grace
• Position: The Ancient World

A thriving city in the ancient Middle East, Petra was lost to outsiders for more than 500 years. Today, Petra's ruins are open to visitors, and archaeologists continue to explore the mysteries of its past.

Location, location, location! The scenery was spectacular, but the desert terrain of Petra, an ancient metropolis at its height from the first century B.C. to the third century A.D., didn't make it the most accessible of spots. Still, an ambitious real-estate developer of that time could have pushed Petra as one of the best places to prosper in the Middle East.

About three square miles large, the city was on a cliff-bordered plain in the desert of what is now Jordan.

Petra was the capital of the ancient Arabian kingdom of Nabatea (Na-ba-TEE-a). The city was wealthy, safe, and provided with abundant amounts of water, thanks to a brilliantly engineered plumbing system--a particularly astonishing feat, considering Petra's location in the desert. And it was the center of a bustling and far-reaching trade in incense, ivory, textiles, and other precious goods that flowed through it by camel caravan from China, India, and Southern Arabia to Mediterranean markets.

"It's truly awe-inspiring," says Craig Morris, co-curator of an exhibit on Petra at the American Museum of Natural History in New York until July 6. "There are only five or six places this impressive in the world, and Petra is one of the top two." (His other choice: Machu Picchu, in Peru.)

Though by today's standards its population was tiny--some 20,000 at its peak, around 50 A.D.--it was a highly sophisticated cultural crossroads. The Nabateans who built it began as nomads but evolved into urbanites--skilled in commerce, agriculture, and engineering--over a short period of time. They literally carved from rock not only a lively metropolis but a necropolis of monumental tombs for their kings and leaders.

Petra was enormously significant, says Morris. For the era, it was a uniquely multicultural place, full of traders from as far away as India and China, who mingled with the local population and left a distinct mark. It was also technologically very advanced, both in its ability to carve elaborate buildings OUt of cliffs and to engineer a water system that allowed a city full of gardens to flourish in the middle of a desert. (They used a combination of cisterns to collect rainwater and ceramic ducts to move springwater.)

INDIANA JONES

Lots of people have seen Petra but probably don't...