Hi guys, today I want to continue discussing the ancient city of Petra, and what I uncovered
on the subterranean level under the Treasury.
The Treasury is the most iconic rock hewn structure in Petra.
It is located at the final twist of the winding narrow gorge of the Siq.
The paths walked by tourists today are called wadis, which are dried up floodways and river
beds.
It’s obvious that the Siq, the plaza in front of the Treasury and the outer Siq are
covered with flood runoffs.
This sediment layer must be substantial because it partially as well as completely covers
up the doorways of some caves at the outer Siq.
The original ground and path could be several meters lower.
What might be buried underneath remains a mystery.
When you see the Treasury, it appears on ground level.
You can walk right up to it.
But this is not always the case; since the Treasury and its plaza looked very different
over 2,000 years ago.
Originally the Treasury was much higher up and looked even more formidable.
There actually is an entire hidden level submerged below centuries of sediments.
What could be hiding there for all these years?
Let’s take a look.
Petra is a vast, hilly site, most famous for its magnificent rock cut facades and massive
caves.
But this is only part of the mystery of this mind-boggling site.
What we see today is just a fraction of what the ancient city really offers.
According to Al-Muheisen, who has been excavating in Petra since 1979, archeologists have only
excavated 15% of the site, so an astounding 85% of it is still buried underground.
How did the city get buried so deep?
It has a lot to do with millennia-long flood runoff accumulation.
Petra used to have a highly sophisticated water system to control and collect rainwater
and flash floods.
The system contained rock cut channels, dams, cisterns and water conduits.
It not only provided precious water for the locals but also prevented floods from damaging
the rock hewn city by diverting them.
When flash floods were controlled, there would have been no or minimal flood sediments and
thus the stone caves would not have been buried.
The significant sediment that built up over time and buried many areas of Petra indicates
the water system must have failed a really long time ago.
Comparable to our modern utility supplies, a complex and critical system like this ancient
one requires regular check-ups and maintenance otherwise it would eventually collapse.
For example, Petra’s water system used to have a dam at the entrance of the Siq to block
floods; meanwhile the water was diverted through the channel Wadi Muthlim, which is also called
the little Siq.
If the dam at the Siq entrance was intact and the little Siq tunnel was properly maintained,
there might not be floods coming down to the Siq and
Street of facades.
So, the thick sediment we see in these areas resulted after the failing of the water system.
Just like how our modern cities cannot function without water or electricity, the water system
of Petra was essential to the livelihood of its ancient desert inhabitants.
As the most important utility line in Petra, it would have been planned and created contemporaneously
with the excavation of Petra’s large caves.
Based on that hypothesis, if we can determine when the water system failed by examining
the flood sediments, we could possibly figure out the real age and perhaps the true creators
of Petra.
Now let’s return to the Treasury.
While admiring this marvelous structure, you might not notice the low walls in front.
People usually sit or lean on them.
From these birds’ eye views, we can see the walls are surrounding an open area which
is covered with grating.
If we zoom in, we can see two lower caves down there, about 5 m east of the Treasury’s
staircase.
These have been claimed to be tombs.
Both caves have triangular pediments and column capitals that are in the typical Petra style.
Compared to the Treasury’s enormous and beautiful facade, these low laying tombs are
often ignored by visitors.
But these caves are by no means small.
The one on the right is 5.4 m high, and the left one is over 6 m or 20’ tall, equivalent
to a 2-story building.
Archaeologists know there are buried chambers in front of the Treasury based on a ground-penetrating
radar report.
These caves were finally excavated in 2003 by Jordanian archaeologists when tourism diminished
due to the Iraq war.
This should have been major news in the archeological world.
But there is surprisingly little coverage on this excavation.
Why almost no one talks about these underground caves?
This is beyond me.
Here is a plan showing the areas that were excavated.
The circles represent the Treasury’s columns.
Even though currently only two caves are exposed, there are in fact two more similar caves under
the Treasury; and another lower one on the protruding cliff next to the Treasury.
So, all together, 5 rock-cut caves were found along and under the Treasury’s platform
during 2003’s excavation.
They all have thick layers of flood sediments even though their doors were blocked off in
ancient times.
Human bones and Nabataean pottery shards were unearthed in sediment layers.
Archeologists have stated that the oldest cave among the five is the one on the far
right side of the Treasury which dates back to the 1st century BC.
This dating judgment was based the style of the pottery recovered in a hearth in front
of this cave.
The hearth was lined with limestone and sandstone blocks.
Please bear with me on the details of the limestone because it can be used as evidence
for my upcoming argument.
Besides these caves, the excavation team also discovered the ancient courtyard pavement
made of limestone blocks and higher than the cave entrances.
This means the rock hewn caves existed before the paved limestone courtyard, which was on
top of another layer of flood sediment.
Entering Petra through the Siq, people would have traversed on some areas where there is
similar limestone pavement.
Petra is called the rose city because of its red colored, iron rich sandstone.
Limestone is not native to the Petra region and was said to have been imported by the
Romans.
I think that’s a plausible explanation.
Petra’s signature facades and caves are carved in sandstone.
These were the work of the original creators of Petra.
They chose to carve their incredible caves in the hard sandstone rather than bringing
in less durable limestone.
In Petra’s valley, there are some column and block constructions which are completely
different from Petra’s caves and very close to the Roman styled buildings.
The Nabataean kingdom became a client state of the Roman Empire in the first century BC.
The block and column structures, such as the Great Temple, were built decades later and
used limestone pavers, stairs and column capitals.
It’s quite possible that the Romans or Roman trained masons transported limestone to the
site and used it for their projects.
So, the foreign material limestone suggests a Roman era creation, like the paved Siq floor.
The excavation in front of the Treasury found the limestone paved courtyard.
The oldest pottery and shards in 2003’s excavation were found in a limestone lined
hearth.
What do they tell us?
That all of these were from the Roman era.
However, the city of Petra is known to be much older; which is confirmed by the hidden
caves under the Treasury being lower than the Roman courtyard.
Thus, there should have been older sediment layers at the Treasury’s plaza, which has
not been reached in the last excavation.
Based on the official 2005 published report, there is an elevation drop around 2.5 m from
the Roman courtyard to the lower cave floor.
The steps going down to cave 62E are made of sandstone blocks and mud mortar.
This is not up to the construction standard of the Petra caves, which implies that initially
the cave was not underground.
The steps were probably a later addition after the sediment built-up covered up the lower
portion of the cave.
That being said, the original ground floor of the Treasury plaza could be at least 8
meters or 26’ below the current level, since the courtyard is over 6 m below the Siq and
2.5 m above the lower cave floor.
That means when Romans arrived at Petra about 2,000 years ago, there was already 2.5 m or
over 8’ of sediment accumulated at the Treasury’s plaza that covered up the bottom of the lower
caves.
Because the sediment was hard, compact and very difficult to excavate, instead of removing
all of the sediment the Romans only cleared up the paths, added steps to the lower caves
for access, leveled existing sediment and then placed limestone pavers on top.
This sediment layer indicates that the Petra’s water systems must have failed for quite a
while, long before the Roman era in Petra.
We can reasonably assume that whoever built the water system for the city would have definitely
tried to keep it in good working order, because the city dwellers’ livelihood depended on
it.
The thick sediment burying the rock structures is a sign of the demise or exodus of the original
builders because they were no longer in Petra to maintain the water system.
Mainstream archeologists state that the ancient Nabataeans created Petra along with its water
system.
The Nabataeans lived in Petra since 4th century BC.
They continued residing there after the Roman occupation in the 1st century AD.
Ancient Greek historian Diodorus Siculus wrote that the Nabataeans lived in the open air,
filled cisterns and caves with rainwater in a dry wilderness where a hostile army could
not obtain water.
From this account, we can see that the cisterns and Petra’s water system were ancient and
predate the Roman occupation.
If the Nabataeans were indeed the creators of Petra, then they should have had the knowledge
and means to also maintain Petra’s water system.
But this is evidently not the case.
If the Nabataeans knew how to clean and maintain the invaluable water system, then when the
Romans came to Petra, there shouldn’t have been over 2 m of sediment in front of the
Treasury blocking the entrances of the lower caves.
This signifies that the Nabataeans did not create Petra or its water system.
They lived in and enjoyed the site, yes, but they were not the creators.
Without regular maintenance, over time, Petra’s water system crumbled; dams collapsed; conduits
and tunnels clogged and cisterns filled with sediment and mud.
This highly advanced engineering feat no longer diverted floods away from the caves or properly
irrigated the site.
Floods came down through the Siq, the outer Siq to the valley and left meters of sediments
along the way.
This is why the majority of the city is buried underground.
Some might think if it takes about 2,000 years to accumulate 6 m of sediments above the Roman
courtyard; that means on average each meter of sediment takes 333 years to accumulate.
Then the 2.5 m of sediment below the courtyard means 833 years of accumulation.
Thus Petra was abandoned over 2,800 years ago and that’s when the water system failed.
Not necessarily so.
1st of all, it might not be a simple math question on the sediment building rate.
2ndly, the 2.5 m or 8’ of older sediment might not represent the full picture.
This thickness is calculated from the courtyard to the lower cave floor.
I think it’s very possible that the Treasury’s lower cave floors and openings were higher
than the original ground level.
Petra’s creators were highly sophisticated – they managed to excavate many huge caves
in hard sandstone.
They established a brilliant and complex water system.
These people clearly understood potential flood risks and would have made sure their
cave chambers were above the flood zone, unless the caves were designed to be cisterns to
collect flood water.
Cisterns are typically underground with up-top access and stairs going down to the water
level.
These Treasury’s lower caves’ floors are leveled with doors and not suitable to work
as cisterns.
So they were presumably regular chambers for human usage.
If so, it would be sensible for the cave creators to make the cave entrances higher than the
ground level in order to protect the caves from possible floods.
Like today’s houses and buildings, they are always raised to a degree to prevent water
from flowing in.
Therefore the real thickness of the sediment layer in front of the Treasury should be larger
than the elevation differences between the Roman courtyard and the cave floor.
Furthermore, Petra has many rock structures located on different altitudes, such as the
clusters of caves at the outer Siq and the Street of Facades.
The floors of higher caves are natural rock but this rock layer might also be the ceiling
of some lower caves.
The Treasury stands on natural rock, but now we know there are lower caves right underneath
it and these caves are not on the same level.
What if there are structures even further beneath these lower caves and there is another
big step down?
Don’t forget, in 2003, merely a few selected places got excavated.
It’s not inconceivable that there may be another hidden level down below.
At last, here is some good news.
In 2020, the Petra authority announced the launch of archaeological excavations at the
lower part of the Treasury to the end of the Siq towards the Amphitheatre.
This project aims to study the underground structures near the Treasury and uncover the
water system and channels that the ancient city relied on in the past.
I look forward to the new report and hope they can expand their excavation squares and
dig deeper than the Roman courtyard layer.
Also it would be great if ground penetrating radar mapping can be performed in the Treasury
plaza and other areas, for instance, what’s under these two carved rock columns?
Ok, that’s all for today.
If you have any insights, please leave me a comment.
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This is Curious Being, I’m Tina.
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