Neolithic By 7000 BC, some of the earliest recorded farmers had settled in
Beidha, a
Pre-Pottery Neolithic settlement just north of Petra.
Bronze Age Petra is listed in Egyptian campaign accounts and the
Amarna letters as
Pel,
Sela, or
Seir.
Iron Age Edom The
Iron Age lasted between 1200 and 600 BC; in that time, the Petra area was occupied by the
Edomites. The configuration of mountains in Petra allowed for a reservoir of water for the Edomites. This made Petra a stopping point for
merchants, making it an outstanding area for trade. Some wares that were traded included wines, olive oil, and wood. Initially, the Edomites were accompanied by
Nomads who eventually left, but the Edomites stayed and made their mark on Petra before the emergence of the Nabataens. It is said that 10,000 men were thrown off of the mountain Umm el-Biyara, but this story has been debated by scholars. The Edomite site excavated at the top of the Umm el-Biyara mountain at Petra was established no earlier than the seventh century BC (Iron II).
Emergence of Petra The
Nabataeans were one among several nomadic Bedouin tribes that roamed the
Arabian Desert and moved with their herds to wherever they could find pasture and water. Although the Nabataeans were initially embedded in Aramaic culture, theories about them having
Aramean roots are rejected by many modern scholars. Instead, archaeological, religious and linguistic evidence confirm that they are a northern
Arabian tribe. Current evidence suggests that the Nabataean name for Petra was Raqēmō, variously spelled in inscriptions as
rqmw or
rqm. The
Onomasticon of Eusebius also identified Rekem as Petra. Arabic
raqama means "to mark, to decorate", so
Rekeme could be a Nabataean word referring to the famous carved rock façades. In 1964, workmen clearing rubble away from the cliff at the entrance to the gorge found several
funerary inscriptions in Nabatean script. One of them was to a certain Petraios who was born in Raqmu (Rekem) and buried in Garshu (
Jerash). An old theory held that Petra might be identified with a place called
sela in the
Hebrew Bible.
Encyclopædia Britannica (1911) states that the
Semitic name of the city, if not Sela, would remain unknown. It nevertheless cautioned that
sela simply means "rock" in Hebrew, and thence might not be identified with a city where it occurs in the biblical text in the book of Obadiah. It is possible that the city was part of the nation of Edom. This text further describes the expeditions which
Antigonus sent against the Nabataeans in 312 BC, was understood by some researchers to throw some light upon the history of Petra, but the "petra" (Greek for rock) referred to as a natural fortress and place of refuge cannot be a proper name, and the description implies that there was no town in existence there at the time.
Roman period In 106, when
Aulus Cornelius Palma Frontonianus was governor of
Roman Syria, the part of the
Arabian Peninsula under the rule of Petra was absorbed into the
Roman Empire as part of
Arabia Petraea. The native dynasty came to an end but the city continued to flourish under Roman rule. It was around this time that the Petra Roman Road was built. A century later, in the time of
Severus Alexander, when the city was at the height of its splendor, the issue of coinage came to an end. There was no more building of sumptuous tombs, owing apparently to some sudden catastrophe, such as an invasion by the
Sasanian Empire. Between 111 and 114,
Trajan built the
Via Traiana Nova, running from the Syrian border to the Red Sea through Petra. This road followed the old routes of Nabataean caravans. In the shadow of the
Pax Romana, this route revived trade between Arabia, Syria, and Mediterranean harbors. In 125 AD, one of Emperor
Hadrian's administrators left marks in Petra, pointed out by documents found at the
Dead Sea. In 130, Hadrian visited the former Nabataean capital, giving it the name of
Hadriānī Petra Metropolis, imprinted on his coins. His visit, however, did not lead to any boom in development and new buildings as it did in
Jerash. The province's governor, Sextius Florentinus, erected a monumental
mausoleum for his son near the end of the al-Hubta (King's Wall) tombs, which had been generally reserved during the Nabataean period for the royal family. Roman emperors' interest in the city in the
3rd century suggests that Petra and its environs remained highly esteemed for a long time. An inscription to
Liber Pater, a god revered by Emperor
Septimius Severus, was found in the
temenos of the temple known as
Qasr al-Bint, and Nabataean tombs contained silver coins with the emperor's portrait as well as pottery from his reign. Emperor
Elagabalus declared Petra to be a
Roman colony, when he reorganized the Roman Empire towards the end of the 3rd century. The area from Petra to
Wadi Mujib, the
Negev, and the
Sinai Peninsula were annexed into the province of
Palaestina Salutaris. The
Madaba Map from the reign of Emperor
Justinian I is missing the section that would include Petra.
Byzantine period Petra declined rapidly under Roman rule, in large part from the revision of sea-based trade routes. In 363,
an earthquake destroyed many buildings and crippled the vital water management system. The old city of Petra was the capital of the Byzantine province of
Palaestina III and many churches from the
Byzantine period were excavated in and around Petra. In one of them, the
Byzantine Church,
140 papyri were discovered, which contained mainly contracts dated from 530s to 590s, establishing that the city was still flourishing in the 6th century. The Byzantine Church is a prime example of monumental architecture in Byzantine Petra. The last reference to Byzantine Petra comes from the
Spiritual Meadow of
John Moschus, written in the first decades of the 7th century. He gives an anecdote about its bishop,
Athenogenes. It ceased to be a
metropolitan bishopric sometime before 687 when that function had been transferred to
Areopolis. Petra is not mentioned in the narratives of the
Muslim conquest of the Levant, nor does it appear in any early Islamic records.
Crusaders and Mamluks In the 12th century, the
Crusaders built fortresses such as the
Alwaeira Castle, but were forced to abandon Petra after a while. As a result, the location of Petra was lost until the 19th century. Two further Crusader-period castles are known in and around Petra: the first is al-Wu'ayra, situated just north of Wadi Musa. It can be viewed from the road to
Little Petra. It is the castle that was seized by a band of Turks with the help of local Muslims and only recovered by the Crusaders after they began to destroy the olive trees of Wadi Musa. The potential loss of livelihood led the locals to negotiate a surrender. The second is on the summit of el-Habis, in the heart of Petra, and can be accessed from the West side of the Qasr al-Bint. The ruins of Petra were an object of curiosity during the
Middle Ages and were visited by
Baibars, one of the first
Mamluk sultans of Egypt, towards the end of the 13th century. At that time, the
Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem operated a diocese in
al-Karak named Battra (, ) and it was the opinion among the clergy of Jerusalem that Kerak was the ancient city of Petra.
Léon de Laborde and
Louis-Maurice-Adolphe Linant de Bellefonds made the first accurate drawings of Petra in 1828. The Scottish painter
David Roberts visited Petra in 1839 and returned to Britain with sketches and stories of the encounter with local tribes, published in
The Holy Land, Syria, Idumea, Arabia, Egypt, and Nubia.
Frederic Edwin Church, the leading American landscape painter of the 19th century, visited Petra in 1868, and the resulting painting
El Khasné, Petra is among his most important and well-documented. The archaeologist Philip Hammond from the
University of Utah visited Petra for nearly 40 years. He explained that the local folklore says it was created by the wand of
Moses, when he struck the rock to bring forth water for the
Israelites. Hammond believed the carved channels deep within the walls and ground were made from ceramic pipes that once fed water for the city, from rock-cut systems on the canyon rim. In the 1980s, the
Bedul Bedouin, once inhabitants of Petra, were relocated by the Jordanian government to the nearby settlement of Umm Sayhoun, a process spanning two decades. This move was part of broader initiatives aimed at settling Bedouin communities and promoting tourism in Petra. With a name meaning "the changing ones" and oral traditions recounting a conversion narrative, the Bedul Bedouins are believed to have adopted Islam later in their history, possibly with
Jewish or Nabatean origins. Today, alongside their traditional activities, they engage in local tourism, alongside the more prominent
Liyathnah tribe.
21st century In December 2022,
Petra was hit by heavy flooding. == Layout ==