How Was Petra Built? The City Carved Out of a Mountain

How was Petra built? This giant monument in Jordan was carved out of a solid cliff, not built from stones. How was Petra built, and how did a desert city of thousands survive with almost no rain? Here's the real story. In this video: who the Nabataeans were and how the incense and spice trade made them rich; how carvers worked from the top down (and the unfinished tombs that prove it); Al-Khazneh, the Treasury, and Ad-Deir, the Monastery; the channels, cisterns, dam and flood tunnel that kept Petra alive; the Roman takeover in 106 A.D. and the earthquake of 363 A.D.; Johann Ludwig Burckhardt's visit in 1812 (while local Bedouin families had lived there all along); UNESCO World Heritage listing in 1985; the 2024 tomb find in front of the Treasury; and the threats Petra faces today. Labelled in the video: the Treasury being a royal tomb (possibly for King Aretas IV) is what many experts think, not proven; the population figure of 20,000 or more is an estimate; and "about 85% of Petra is unexcavated" is a commonly cited estimate, not a measurement. CHAPTERS 0:00 Intro 0:37 The Desert Traders 1:41 Carved From the Top Down 2:51 The Treasury and the Monastery 4:14 Water in the Desert 5:21 Earthquakes and Silence 6:19 Lost and Found 7:42 Petra Today 8:28 3 Facts to Share 9:00 What's Next? 3 FACTS TO SHARE AT DINNER TONIGHT 1. Petra's Treasury was carved out of a cliff from the top down, not built from stones. 2. The Nabataeans survived in the desert with dams, a flood tunnel, channels and underground cisterns. 3. Petra was never truly lost. Local Bedouin families lived there long before Burckhardt arrived in 1812. Which ancient wonder should we explore next: the pyramids of Giza, Machu Picchu, or Angkor Wat? Tell us in the comments! Subscribe to Earth & Beyond for more journeys across our planet and beyond, and share this video with your family and friends. Follow us on Instagram:   / earthandbeyond.shorts   and Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?... SOURCES UNESCO World Heritage Centre: Petra: https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/326 Petra Development & Tourism Region Authority: The Dam (1964 dam, Nabataean tunnel): https://padc.pdtra.gov.jo/en/sitesdtl... Visit Petra (official): Treasury, Monastery, Siq: https://www.visitpetra.jo Time (1963): Jordan: Cloudburst at Petra: https://time.com/archive/6626311/jord... Ortloff, "Ancient Water Engineers: The Nabataeans of Petra", ASCE Civil Engineering: https://doi.org/10.1061/ciegag.0000587 American Center of Research (ACOR): tomb 62C, 2003 and 2024 work: https://acorjordan.org/exu-learn-more/ CNN (2024): Tomb filled with skeletons found underneath the Treasury in Petra: https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/12/scienc... IMAGE CREDITS Photos by Vyacheslav Argenberg, CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/..., via Wikimedia Commons: Siq: commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=129295170 Siq: commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=92090631 Treasury: commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=92090632 Treasury: commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=92090633 Photos by Jorge Láscar, CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/..., via Wikimedia Commons: Siq: commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=31947634 Siq: commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=31947715 Siq: commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=31947711 Treasury: commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=31947686 Treasury: commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=31947637 Photos by Ankur P, CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/..., via Wikimedia Commons: Treasury: commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=84483195 David Roberts lithographs (1839 sketches): Cleveland Museum of Art, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons Early 1900s photos: American Colony Photo Dept., Matson Collection, Library of Congress (public domain) 19th-century drawing of the Treasury: J. I. Hittorff (public domain) Photos by Berthold Werner, Teo Gomez, Tom Neys (public domain); Mustang Joe, Peter Chisholm, ほっきー, Daniel Burka, Evan Qu (CC0), via Wikimedia Commons Full image list with links and licences: available on request Maps and diagrams: made by Earth & Beyond (simplified, not to scale). Music: original background music generated by Earth & Beyond. Narration: AI-generated voice (Microsoft Edge neural text-to-speech, en-AU-NatashaNeural). #Petra #AncientHistory #Jordan #Nabataeans #History