Rome Reroutes Trade, 363 AD Quake Crushes Petra's Desert Monopoly

罗马改道贸易路线与公元363年地震击碎佩特拉沙漠垄断地位 佩特拉的衰亡并非源于帝国的武力征服，而是因为罗马转用海上航线绕开了其利润丰厚的香料贸易，同时公元363年的地震摧毁了其赖以在沙漠生存的水利系统。 这部纪录片记录了纳巴泰人如何从游牧牧民和商队护卫者，崛起为掌控利润丰厚的乳香与没药贸易的霸主，并以玫瑰红色的都城佩特拉为根基。他们凭借巧妙的水利工程、隐秘的蓄水池和天然的山地险隘，抵御了希腊化征服者，并通过平等的文化与标志性的岩凿建筑遗产繁荣兴盛。在图拉真统治下和平并入罗马帝国后，由于海上贸易网络的改道、宗教变迁以及公元363年一场摧毁其水利设施的毁灭性地震，该文明在经济上逐渐瓦解，这座巍峨的城市最终被风沙掩埋。 纳巴泰人通过近乎垄断古代乳香和没药贸易路线积累了巨额财富，对穿越阿拉伯半岛的陆上和海上商业往来征收25%的税款。 (43:56) 佩特拉通过先进的水利工程维持了估计约2万人的常住城市人口，利用地下涂泥蓄水池、梯田微集水农业以及大坝来控制山洪。 (35:25) 公元前26年，纳巴泰向导西莱乌斯故意将埃利乌斯·加卢斯的军队引向干旱的不毛之地，挫败了罗马夺取南部贸易路线的企图，为纳巴泰赢得了超过一个世纪的自治。 (88:23) 在公元106年被图拉真和平吞并后，随着贸易改道至红海海上航线，佩特拉的影响力迅速遭到侵蚀，并在公元363年5月的加利利地震中遭遇灾难性的结构崩塌。 (105:25)

[98:02] Aelius Aristides: Wars have so far vanished as to be legendary affairs of the past. [98:02] Aelius Aristides: Now, a man simply travels from one country to another as though it were his native land.

[0:07] In the year 1812, a Swiss explorer and eccentric named [0:13] Johann Ludwig Burckhardt was travelling in the Middle East, [0:17] in the region of what is today Jordan. [0:22] Burckhardt was a strange and colorful character. [0:27] Born on the shores of Lake Geneva, he had traveled to England to study, and there [0:32] had been employed by a group known as the African Association, a gathering of [0:38] upper-class Englishmen who financed expeditions of exploration. [0:44] They had given Burckhardt the task of crossing the Sahara Desert from Cairo [0:49] and making contact with what was then considered a lost city, [0:53] the city of Timbuktu. Burckhardt took his assignment seriously, [1:00] and he threw himself into it with all the energy of a true Georgian eccentric. [1:06] He began to study Arabic at Cambridge University, and while there he began [1:11] dressing in traditional Arab clothing, wearing long, white dishdashas and a [1:16] turban, much to the bemusement of his fellow students. [1:21] After graduating, he moved to Syria and spent two years there practicing his [1:27] Arabic, even adopting the name Sheikh Ibrahim Ibn Abdallah, and attempting to [1:33] pass himself off as a Muslim. It's not clear how successful Burckhardt's [1:39] disguise really was or whether anyone in the Arab world was fooled. [1:44] In preparation for his great journey, he set out on a number of expeditions into [1:50] the Syrian Desert, but many of these ended in disaster. [1:54] He was robbed on a number of occasions, often by the same people he had hired to [2:00] act as security on the journey. But his desire for adventure was unabated by [2:06] these setbacks, and in 1812 he set out on the journey from Syria to Cairo with the [2:13] intention there of securing passage across the great sandy sea of the Sahara. [2:20] It was on this journey, taking the more dangerous inland route through the [2:25] baking summer heat of the desert, that Burckhardt would make quite a different [2:30] discovery. It was here that his guides told him of [2:35] a series of mysterious ruins hidden in a narrow valley nearby which was known by [2:41] locals as Wadi Mousa, or the Valley of Moses. [2:48] At this point, Burckhardt was still in disguise as an Arab, [2:52] and he contrived an excuse to visit the ruins, [2:56] as he writes in his diary. August 22nd, 1812; [3:03] I was particularly desirous of visiting Moses' Valley, [3:07] the antiquities of which I had heard the country people speak in terms of great [3:12] admiration. I hired a guide at Eldjy to conduct me [3:16] there, and paid him with a pair of old horseshoes. [3:20] He carried the goat and gave me a skin of water to carry, as he knew that there [3:24] was no water in the valley below. As Burckhardt traveled with his guide [3:30] down into the dry valley, he began to feel increasingly fearful that someone [3:36] would see through his disguise and his ruse would be discovered. [3:42] In following the rivulet of Eldjy westwards, the valley soon narrows again, and it is [3:47] here that the antiquities of Wadi Mousa begin. [3:51] Of these, I regret I am not able to give a very complete account, but I knew well [3:56] the character of the people around me. I was without protection in the midst of [4:00] a desert where no traveller had ever before been seen, [4:04] and a close examination of these works of the infidels, as they are called, would [4:08] have excited suspicions that I was a magician in search of treasures. Future [4:13] travelers may visit the spot under the protection of an armed force, and the [4:17] antiquities of Wadi Mousa will then be found to rank amongst the most curious [4:23] remains of ancient art. Burckhardt's guides led him towards what [4:29] from a distance appeared to be a sheer cliff of brilliant red sandstone. But as [4:35] he drew closer, he saw a well-concealed ravine opening up in the stone wall, from [4:41] which a sparse stream was flowing. The valley seemed to be entirely closed [4:48] by high rocks, but upon a nearer approach I perceived a chasm about 15 or 20 feet [4:55] in breadth, through which the rivulet flows westward in winter. [5:00] The precipices on either side of the torrent are about 80 feet in height. [5:05] In many places, the opening between them at the top is less than at the bottom, [5:10] and the sky is not visible from below. [5:15] As Burckhardt traveled down this shady chasm, his sense of excitement gradually [5:21] grew to wonder as he came upon the sight of an enormous tomb [5:26] carved into the very rock of the red sandstone mass around him. [5:33] In continuing along the winding passage, an excavated mausoleum came in view, [5:39] the situation and beauty of which are calculated to make an extraordinary [5:44] impression upon the traveler, after having traversed for nearly half an hour [5:49] such a gloomy and almost subterraneous passage as I have described. [5:54] The natives call this monument Kaszr Faraoun, or Pharaoh's Castle, [6:00] and pretend that it was the residence of a prince. [6:03] But it was rather the sepulcher of a prince, [6:06] and great must have been the opulence of a city which could dedicate such [6:11] monuments to the memory of its rulers. It's clear that the sight of this hidden [6:17] wonder had an enormous effect on Burckhardt, and he writes breathlessly in [6:22] his diary about the sight of this enormous edifice. [6:28] It is one of the most elegant remains of antiquity existing in Syria. Its state of [6:34] preservation resembles that of a building recently finished, and on closer [6:39] examination, I found it to be a work of immense labor. [6:44] The colonnade is about 35 feet high and the columns are about three feet in [6:49] diameter, with Corinthian capitals. The colonnade is crowned with a pediment [6:55] which consisted of an insulated cylinder crowned with a vase, standing between two [7:00] other structures in the shape of small temples supported by short pillars. [7:06] The entire front, from the base of the columns to the top of the ornaments, may [7:10] be 60 or 65 feet. Johann Burckhardt would be the first [7:18] European in modern times to set foot in a city that for much of the previous [7:24] millennium had been only a legend. This was the ancient city of Petra. [7:32] For centuries, it had been the heart of a powerful trading kingdom that controlled [7:37] the flow of spice and incense coming across the desert from the lands of the [7:42] east. Its people had built vast constructions [7:47] carved with immaculate skill into the sandstone bedrock of the desert itself, [7:53] and tamed one of the harshest environments to be found on planet earth. [7:59] They had fought and traded with empires and played a starring role in many of [8:05] the historical dramas of their age. They were called the Nabataeans. [8:12] As Burckhardt wandered through the gullies and chasms of that lost city, he must [8:18] have wondered how such a society had flourished out here in the harsh [8:23] landscape of the Arabian Desert. If so great a civilization had [8:29] arisen here, what had happened to empty its temples and streets and leave it to [8:35] be buried in the wandering sands of the desert? [9:12] My name's Paul Cooper, and you're listening to The Fall of Civilizations [9:17] Podcast. Each episode, I look at a civilization of [9:21] the past that rose to glory and then collapsed into the ashes of history. [9:27] I want to ask, what did they have in common? What led to their fall? And what did it [9:32] feel like to be a person alive at the time who witnessed the end of their [9:37] world? In this episode, I want to look at one of [9:41] the most remarkable stories of civilizational survival to come down to [9:46] us from the ancient world, the story of the trading empire of the [9:50] Nabataeans. I want to explore how these once humble [9:55] traders rose to become masters of the desert sands and to defy empires. [10:02] I want to show how the city of Petra flourished to become the crossroads of [10:07] the world, and I want to explore what happened to [10:11] finally bring down the empire of Nabataea. [10:25] Sandstone is a sedimentary rock. It's formed when layers of sand are [10:33] piled one upon another, and then over time subjected to enormous pressure. [10:39] This pressure, along with natural mineral processes, fuses the sand grains together [10:45] into rock. Beneath the lands of Jordan, where this [10:50] historical drama will unfold, two great beds of sandstone stretch out. [10:57] These are known as Disi sandstone and Umm Ishrin sandstone. [11:04] Disi sandstone is the youngest and uppermost layer. [11:09] Sandstones can be any colour depending on the kinds of grains that went into [11:14] forming it, and this kind is hard, pale grey, and usually erodes to form [11:20] distinctive dome-like structures. But beneath this layer is a layer of [11:26] older sandstone, at least 20 million years older. [11:30] This is Umm Ishrin sandstone, and it's easily recognizable by the [11:36] beautiful patterns it forms. Due to its composition of iron, [11:42] hydroxides, and manganese oxides, it is famous for its colour, [11:47] woven with rich oranges, purples, and deep, rosy reds. [11:54] The winding, interlaced patterns on these stones were formed by the shapes of [12:00] riverbeds that ran across this landscape as much as 500 million years ago, [12:07] in the middle of the period known as the Cambrian. [12:11] During this period, the planet earth would have looked like a very alien [12:15] place, almost like the surface of another planet. [12:19] There were a few plants like mosses and lichens, but no leaves or trees, and no [12:26] animals on the bare, rocky land. The sea levels were high, with little or [12:33] no polar ice, and so, large areas of the continents were flooded with warm, [12:38] shallow seas filled with some of the largest forms of [12:42] life to yet have evolved; crustaceans and arthropods like trilobites. [12:50] Over the hundreds of millions of years that followed, an enormous amount of sand [12:55] was deposited on the floors of these oceans as their waves ground away at the [13:00] rocks of the planet crust, as rainwaters flowed down through rivers, bringing silt [13:07] and dust along with them. Today, the Umm Ishrin layer of sandstone [13:14] is more than half a kilometer thick, and in most places, it is buried by [13:19] sheets of younger grey limestone. This rosy sandstone would have remained [13:25] buried if it weren't for the unique plate tectonics of the Arabian Peninsula. [13:32] The Arabian Plate is currently being crushed by the other plates around it, [13:37] the much larger African and Eurasian Plates. [13:41] It's being pushed north at a rate of 15 millimeters a year, [13:45] or about as fast as your fingernails grow. [13:49] As it does so, these enormous forces have thrown up mountain ranges in Turkey, [13:54] Syria, and Iran, and this vice-like pressure has caused [13:59] the land mass to tilt. All of the rock layers in Jordan now [14:04] slope gently towards the northeast. The upper limestone layer became exposed to [14:10] the powerful forces of the wind and sand. In places like Wadi Rum, Dana, the eastern [14:19] shore of the Dead Sea, and at the site of Petra, [14:23] these grey sandstones eroded away, and the long-buried layers of Umm Ishrin [14:30] sandstone came into view in all their rich, red glory. [14:36] It's here in this landscape of rosy red stone that the story of the [14:41] Nabataeans would begin. [14:50] The earliest hints of a people who may have been the Nabataeans comes from the [14:56] sources of the late kings of Assyria in the 8th and 7th centuries BC. [15:02] Like many rulers of this region before them, they had struggled to control the [15:08] nomadic tribal peoples living in the deserts to their south. [15:13] The 7th century BC Assyrian king Sennacherib wrote the following [15:18] inscription detailing one of his campaigns in the south. [15:24] In my first campaign, I accomplished the defeat of Merodach- [15:28] -Baladan, King of Babylonia, together with the army of Elam, his ally in the plain [15:34] of Kish. On my return march, the Tumuna, the Ubudu, the [15:42] Damunu, the Nabatu, who were not submissive at all, all of them I conquered. [15:47] Sennacherib's grandson, the king Ashurbanipal, also wrote of encountering [15:53] these desert peoples. [15:56] The Nabatu live in a far-off desert place where there are no wild animals, [16:02] and not even birds build their nests. [16:07] Today, many scholars dismiss the similarities between the name of the [16:12] ancient Nabatu and the later Nabataeans as a simple coincidence. [16:18] But what we do know is that since the earliest history of this region, people [16:23] have lived in this kind of nomadic manner in the deserts of Arabia. [16:29] These people would have no fixed towns or cities, no houses or temples, but they [16:36] would move with their herds, constructing tents wherever they went, and moving as [16:42] restlessly as the desert sands. They would survive by raising animals [16:47] like goats, sheep, and cows, which could provide meat, milk, and wool. [16:54] They would forage and hunt what they could from the environment, and would [16:58] perhaps plant orchards that they would return to each year on their wandering [17:03] routes. It seems that during their early history, [17:08] the Nabataeans would also act as pirates and bandits, [17:13] using their knowledge of the desert to outmaneuver the slow-moving trade [17:18] caravans that passed through their territory and along their coast. [17:23] The first century Roman writer Strabo recounts that the Nabataeans even [17:28] dabbled in seaborne piracy. Nabataea is a country with a large [17:35] population and well-supplied with pasturage. [17:38] They also dwell on islands situated off the coast nearby, [17:42] and these Nabataeans formally lived a peaceful life, [17:47] but later, by means of rafts, went to plundering the vessels of people sailing [17:52] from Egypt, but they paid the penalty when a fleet [17:56] went over and sacked their country. [18:03] Soon, it seems that the Nabataeans discovered that it was more profitable [18:08] not to rob the trade caravans but to offer them protection to pass through [18:12] their territory for a price, and from there it was only one small [18:18] step to organizing the caravans themselves. [18:22] By the end of the first millennium BC, the Nabataeans had pushed out their [18:26] rivals and now dominated the business of transporting goods across the deserts of [18:32] Arabia. By the time the first books of the [18:37] Hebrew Bible were being written down, it's clear that the Arab kingdoms of the [18:42] south were already making a killing. In the Book of Kings, 10:15, the following [18:49] account is made of the wealth of the 10th century King Solomon, with [18:54] particular mention of the wealth of the Arab kingdoms. [18:59] Now, the weight of gold that came to Solomon in one year [19:04] was 603 score and six talents of gold. Beside that, he had of the merchantmen [19:11] and of the traffic of the spice merchants and of all the kings of Arabia [19:17] and of the governors of the country. [19:21] The first truly solid account of the Nabataeans comes secondhand from around [19:27] the year 312 BC, [19:31] and the Greek writer known as Hieronymus of Cardia. [19:39] Hieronymus wrote an apparently detailed description of the Nabataean people, [19:45] expounding on their history, their culture, and their way of life. But [19:50] unfortunately for us, that text hasn't survived into the modern day, [19:55] but he was used as a major source for other later scholars like the Greek [20:00] historian Diodorus of Sicily, writing more than 300 years later. [20:08] In his work, Diodorus gives a lengthy description of the Nabataeans based on [20:13] the earlier observations of Hieronymus of Cardia. [20:17] He paints a picture of an uncompromising nomadic people who refused the comforts [20:23] of settled society out of a desire for independence. [20:29] For the sake of those who do not know, it will be useful to state in some detail [20:34] the customs of these Arabs, by following which, it is believed they preserve their [20:39] liberty. They range over a country that is partly [20:42] desert and partly waterless, though a small section of it is fruitful. [20:47] They live in the open air, claiming as native land a wilderness that has [20:51] neither rivers nor abundant springs from which it is possible for a hostile army [20:57] to obtain water. It is their custom neither to plant grain, set out any [21:02] fruit-bearing tree, use wine, nor construct any house, and if anyone is [21:08] found acting contrary to this, death is his penalty. [21:12] They follow this custom because they believe that those who possess these [21:16] things are, in order to retain the use of them, easily compelled by the powerful to [21:21] do their bidding. [21:26] Diodorus also recounts the great wealth that the Nabataeans had amassed due to [21:32] their control of crucial trade routes for spices and incense. [21:39] Some of them raised their camels, others sheep, pasturing them in the desert. [21:44] While there are many Arab tribes who use the desert as pasture, the Nabataeans far [21:49] surpass the others in wealth, although they are not much more than ten thousand [21:53] in number, for not a few of them are accustomed to bring down to the sea [21:58] frankincense and myrrh and the most valuable kinds of spices which they [22:02] procure from those who convey them. [22:07] Frankincense and myrrh are the resins of two different plants in the Burseraceae [22:14] family, gnarled and stunted trees that grow on [22:18] the Arabian Peninsula in India and North Africa. [22:23] When the bark of these trees is damaged, they have evolved to release resin from [22:28] their wounds which forms a glassy seal, protecting the plant's delicate insides [22:34] from further harm. But trees are also susceptible to [22:39] bacterial infections just like we are, and as an extra line of defense, these [22:45] resins are filled with volatile compounds that kill bacteria and fungi, [22:51] similar to our own immune system. It's these volatile chemicals that also act [22:58] in interesting ways on the human sense of smell. [23:02] For at least the last five thousand years, these resins have been used for [23:07] their antibacterial properties in medicine and for their striking aromas [23:12] when burned. [23:16] Frankincense releases a sweet and woody scent with notes of lemon, while myrrh [23:22] releases a smell that is more like spice, bitterer with floral overtones. [23:29] At harvest times, farmers slice gashes into the barks of [23:33] the trees and collect the milky resins that ooze from within. [23:39] Once exposed to air and sun, myrrh dries and hardens to reddish-brown pea-sized [23:46] chunks, while frankincense dries to pale yellow, tear-shaped droplets. [23:53] Diodorus of Sicily even claims that the smells were so strong [23:58] that sailors traveling up the coast of Arabia could smell them as they sailed [24:04] past. [24:08] A group of Greek sailors who ran out of supplies on the Arabian coast around the [24:13] year 300 AD landed on the shore in search of water, [24:18] and stumbled upon a plantation of these trees. [24:22] They were later interviewed by the botanist Theophrastes, who wrote down [24:28] everything they told him about the methods of extracting these resins. [24:34] They said that on the coasting voyage, they landed to look for water on the [24:38] mountains and saw these trees and the manner of collecting their gums. [24:43] They reported that with both trees, incisions had been made, [24:46] both in the stems and in the branches, also that in some cases the gum was [24:51] dropping, but that in others it remained sticky to the tree, and that in some [24:56] places, mats woven of palm leaves were put underneath, [25:00] while that which remained sticky to the trees they scraped off with iron tools. [25:08] The cultivation of these trees was veiled in secrecy, and this secrecy gave [25:13] rise to outlandish myths. The historian Herodotus, writing in the [25:20] 5th century BC, recorded the process for harvesting [25:24] these incenses, along with an account of a supposed race [25:28] of monsters that guarded them. Arabia is the furthest of the inhabited [25:35] lands in the direction of the midday, and in it alone of all lands grow [25:42] frankincense and myrrh. These are got with difficulty by the [25:47] Arabians, for these trees which produce [25:51] frankincense are guarded by winged serpents, [25:55] small in size and of various colors, which watch in great numbers about each [26:01] tree, and they cannot be driven away from the [26:04] trees by any other thing but only the smoke of the storax. [26:12] We will never know whether this was a simple legend or whether it was a [26:17] purposeful piece of disinformation spread by Arab frankincense farmers to [26:23] scare others away from their lucrative industry. [26:27] If this latter was the case, then it seems to have worked; [26:31] the stories of venomous flying snakes were repeated by a number of other [26:36] ancient Greek writers, and few of those who explored the coast [26:40] of Arabia by sea were ever brave enough to venture inland to see the incense [26:46] plantations for themselves. [26:50] It's not hard to see why these commodities were so sought [26:55] after. Towns and cities of the bronze and iron [26:59] age would likely have been a potent mix of pungent smells. [27:04] Even in the most refined cities, sanitation was in its early stages, if it [27:10] existed at all, and little centralized planning would [27:14] often mean that waste would build up close to where people lived and worked. [27:19] With no refrigeration, food would spoil quickly, and industries like leather [27:24] tanning used dung and urine to produce their products. All of this would have [27:30] combined to create a heady assault on the noses of all the people who lived [27:36] there. For the rich, alleviating this [27:40] discomfort was something they were willing to pay for. [27:46] Aside from this obvious use, the burning of incense also took on a significant [27:52] spiritual dimension. Temples and places of religious worship [27:58] wanted to create a clear divide between the inside of the temple, a holy, sacred [28:05] space, and the dirty, smelly world outside, and incense was one of the best ways to [28:12] do this. Since ancient times, people had noticed [28:17] the connection between bad smells and illness and death. [28:22] Our sense of smell evolved in part to protect us from harmful bacteria in [28:28] waste and decaying matter, and so naturally, people noticed that [28:33] those who lived close to foul-smelling places like sewers and waste heaps would [28:39] get sick more often and even die. Since the earliest texts have been [28:45] recorded, it's clear that people considered the presence of bad smells to [28:50] be evidence of the existence of evil spirits, invisible to the eye but [28:56] lingering in the air, waiting to cause disease and misery to the people around [29:02] them. A large part of the responsibility of a [29:05] temple was to give people comfort from the daily horrors of disease and [29:10] misfortune, and to do this, they would need to create a space where these [29:15] putrid smells and the evil associated with them were not allowed entry. [29:22] This use of incense to create a sense of holy space is truly ancient. [29:29] It was mentioned as part of rituals in Homer's Odyssey, and the Book of Exodus [29:35] even describes a particular blend of frankincense and other spices to be [29:40] ground and burnt in the sacred altar before the ark of the covenant, and even [29:46] goes so far as to forbid its use for any other purpose. [29:52] Then the Lord said to Moses, take fragrant spices, gum resin, onycha, and [29:58] galbanum, and pure frankincense all in equal [30:03] amounts, and make a fragrant blend of incense, the work of a perfumer. [30:09] It is to be salted and pure and sacred. [30:14] Grind some of it to a powder and place it in front of the ark of the covenant [30:19] law in the tent of meeting. It shall be most holy to you. [30:25] Do not make any incense with this formula for yourselves. [30:30] Whoever makes incense like it to enjoy its fragrance must be cut off from their [30:36] people. [30:40] From this connection to the divine, incense would soon become integral to [30:45] the function of royalty. Myrrh was used in the anointing rituals [30:50] of Hebrew queens and in the embalming process for the mummies of Egyptian [30:56] pharaohs. In the Christian New Testament, the [31:00] Gospel of Matthew describes a group of wise men who travel from the east to [31:05] attend the birth of Jesus, and who bring him the traditional offerings given to [31:11] royalty; gold, frankincense, and myrrh, [31:15] gifts designed to reinforce his claim to being born as King of the Jews and the [31:22] descendant of King David. In other words, incense around this time [31:28] was serious business. These fragrances were not simply [31:33] frivolous luxuries, but they were essential tools in the way that [31:38] religious authority and the power of the state were constructed. [31:43] As societies became more centralized and these institutions grew in power and [31:48] wealth, the demand for incense would only increase. [31:53] As the second and first centuries BC passed by, the Nabataean people found [32:00] themselves at the very heart of this crucial industry. [32:05] Camels would soon lumber across the Nabataean roads with boxes of [32:10] frankincense and myrrh from Oman, sacks of spices from India, and bolts of cloth [32:17] from Syria, as well as sugar and ivory from Africa. [32:22] All of this would pass through a city that sat at the crossroads of [32:28] multiple trade routes, a place that would come to hold a [32:32] semi-mythical reputation around the known world. [32:36] To the Nabataeans, this city was known as Raqm, [32:41] but to the people of the wider world, it would come to be known by the Greek word [32:46] for rock, the element from which it was carved. [32:50] This was the city of Petra. [33:04] The site of Petra has been inhabited for at least the last 7,000 years, [33:10] and this is partly due to its interesting geology. [33:15] A freshwater spring rises from the ground here, known as Musa’s Spring, and [33:21] it's held in traditional beliefs to be the place where the biblical figure [33:26] Moses once struck a rock with his staff and caused water to gush from the desert [33:32] stones. The appearance of a spring of water [33:36] in this arid desert really must have seemed miraculous to [33:40] the early peoples who settled here. As rainwaters permeate through these [33:47] porous sandstones, they gather in subterranean pools, and these waters [33:53] slowly leech out of the rocks along the paths of least resistance. [33:58] This means that the very stones of Petra's landscape act like enormous [34:03] water towers, slowly releasing their stores of water [34:08] through the long, dry months of the Arabian summer. [34:12] Over millions of years, these spring waters, along with the brief [34:17] but heavy winter rains, have cut through the sandstone bluffs so that a narrow [34:22] ravine known as a Siq wound its way through the solid stone. [34:28] Beyond this was a perfectly enclosed area [34:32] sheltered by high cliffs from the desert wind and sands, [34:37] and with a constant supply of fresh water. [34:42] The first century Roman author and naturalist, Pliny the Elder, gives one [34:47] early account of the city in his work, Natural History. [34:53] The Nabataeans inhabit a town named Petra. It lies in a deep valley in little less [35:00] than two miles wide, and is surrounded by inaccessible mountains with a river [35:07] flowing between them. At Petra, two roads meet. [35:12] Its distance from the town of Gaza on the Mediterranean coast is 600 miles, and [35:18] from the Persian Gulf is 635 miles. [35:25] This naturally-occurring spring water was enough to support a small population, [35:31] but as the city's importance grew and the trade caravans got larger, the strain [35:37] on its supply must have grown and grown. To enhance the natural water systems of [35:43] the region, the Nabataeans began to build complex water control systems, cutting [35:49] aqueducts into the sandstone of the mountains, and even building underground [35:54] plumbing systems out of terracotta pipes to divert the water of several nearby [36:00] springs directly into the heart of the settlement. [36:04] They also learned techniques for gathering rainfall that they used to [36:09] enormous effect. Although the climate of the region [36:14] wasn't quite as arid 2,000 years ago as it is today, this landscape was still a [36:20] desert. Rain in these parts came extremely [36:24] rarely, and the so-called rainy season, around [36:28] January, could consist of just one or two spells of rain in a year. In the height [36:34] of summer, rainfall stops entirely. So, the Nabataeans worked tirelessly [36:40] to maximize the amount of water they could gather during these few rainy [36:45] spells. Rainwater would naturally gather in [36:49] depressions and hollows, and for centuries, herdsmen had taken advantage [36:54] of these natural pools. But sandstone is a porous rock, and the [36:59] water would naturally drain away over time. [37:03] To fix this problem, the Nabataeans worked to line these natural pools with [37:08] hard stucco plaster, meaning that the water would remain and [37:13] could be used long into the season of drought. [37:17] They built large dams across the valleys to gather rainwater into reservoirs and [37:23] also reduce the flooding that occurred each year as rainwater followed the [37:28] well-worn channels it had cut for millions of years through the red rock [37:33] of the valley. The Nabataeans’ expert control of scarce [37:38] water resources meant that Petra was able to grow to eventually house as many [37:43] as 20,000 permanent residents and to support the constant arrival of [37:49] large trading caravans, many of them made up of hundreds of people and camels, [37:55] arriving thirsty from the long desert roads. [37:59] Soon, the water was even abundant enough that it could be used for more [38:04] luxurious purposes. The citizens of Petra would soon be able [38:10] to bathe, make wine, cultivate fruit, and stroll through their streets in the [38:16] shade of palm trees. Archaeology shows that Petra was not [38:21] just a city of tombs; in its time of flourishing, it was [38:26] sprawling with lush gardens and pleasant fountains, enormous temples, and luxurious [38:32] villas. The Roman writer Strabo gives some [38:36] glimpse of this. The metropolis of the Nabataeans is [38:41] Petra, as it is called, for it lies on a site which is otherwise smooth and level, [38:47] but it is fortified all around by a rock, the outside parts of the site being [38:52] precipitous and sheer, and the inside parts having springs in abundance, both [38:58] for domestic purposes and for watering gardens. [39:02] Outside the circuit of the rock, most of the territory is desert, in particular [39:07] towards Judaea. [39:10] Some of the Nabataeans’ own inscriptions clearly reference gardens [39:15] existing within the city. The following inscription from a tomb at [39:21] Petra illustrates some of the flourishing plant life that once stood [39:26] here and which may have belonged to a temple, [39:29] and its description stands in stark contrast to the barren sand and stones [39:36] that today stretch out around it. [39:40] This tomb and the large burial chamber within it and the small burial chamber [39:45] beyond it, the enclosure in front of them, and the porticos and the rooms within it, [39:51] and the gardens and pleasure garden, and the walls of water, and the cistern and [39:56] walls, and all the rest of the property which in these places are sacred and [40:01] dedicated to Dushara, the god of our lord, [40:05] and his sacred throne and all the gods. Outside the city, in the surrounding [40:12] countryside, water control was even more crucial. Even [40:16] with enough water, the Nabataeans still needed to eat, and to do so, they would [40:22] employ a unique style of farming that maximized the potential of the difficult [40:27] terrain. They would contour a large area of the [40:31] land, digging it out into a shallow funnel sloping down to a single point, [40:37] and at this point, they would plant a single fruit tree. [40:41] When the rains came, the water would drain down to this central point and the [40:46] tree could survive. To plant an orchard of trees using this method, you need [40:51] about fifty times the normal space, but it was an effective technique, and out here [40:57] in the desert, one thing the Nabataeans had no shortage of was space. [41:04] The Nabataeans also used their expertise at water control to enormous strategic [41:10] advantage. Diodorus of Sicily recounts how they [41:14] built a system of secret hidden reservoirs across the desert, meaning [41:19] that only they could take advantage of them, ensuring that no competitors could [41:24] move in on their lucrative trade routes. In times of war, their secret [41:29] reservoirs also gave them an advantage against their enemies, [41:34] as Diodorus recalls. [41:38] They are exceptionally fond of freedom, and whenever a strong force of enemies [41:43] comes near, they take refuge in the desert, using this as a fortress, for it [41:49] lacks water and cannot be crossed by others, but to them alone. [41:54] Since they have prepared subterranean reservoirs lined with stucco, the mouths [41:59] of which they make very small. After filling these reservoirs with rainwater, [42:03] they close the openings, making them even with the rest of the ground, and they [42:07] leave signs that are known to themselves but are unrecognizable by others. They [42:12] water their cattle every other day so that if they flee through waterless [42:17] places, they may not need a continuous supply of water. [42:24] But despite the immense difficulties of maintaining this city, its position meant [42:30] it was all worth it. That's because Petra sat at the center [42:35] of a spider's web of trade routes spreading off in every direction. [42:42] To the east, desert roads led to the port towns of Basrah and Dahran [42:48] in the Persian Gulf, where spices from East Asia like cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, [42:54] and pepper flowed, as well as precious stones from India and fine silks from [43:00] China. From the south, frankincense and myrrh [43:06] poured into Petra from the incense fields of Yemen and Oman. [43:11] Petra connected the nearby Red Sea port of Aqaba with the Mediterranean port [43:17] town of Gaza, connecting the markets of Eastern Africa with those of Europe, [43:24] and on the roads to the north lay the great cities of Damascus and Antioch. [43:30] To the west, the roads led from Petra into Egypt, where tin was in constant [43:35] demand, brought from Afghanistan, along with the brilliant blue stone lapis [43:40] lazuli. The black volcanic glass obsidian was [43:45] brought from Abyssinia. Perfumes and scented oils, as well as [43:50] cosmetic powders and eye shadows, flowed north to Greece, stored in containers [43:56] carved from giant clam shells harvested in the Red Sea. [44:01] The tarry substance bitumen was farmed from the Dead Sea and brought south to [44:07] Egypt to help in the embalming process for mummies and to waterproof the hulls [44:13] of ships. The Nabataeans were so crucial to the [44:17] transferring of all of these goods by land and sea that they were able to [44:22] charge a tax equal to a full quarter of all the goods [44:27] that passed through their lands. As a result, the Nabataeans would soon [44:32] grow fabulously, even absurdly, wealthy. But soon, others would start to look with [44:40] jealous eyes to the fortune they had made. [44:53] The Nabataeans were not a warrior people, and it seems that they preferred, [44:59] wherever possible, not to fight. But they were more than capable of [45:04] defending themselves when attacked, as one colorful episode from their history [45:10] shows. [45:15] The society of the Nabataeans rose into a world that still bore the marks of one [45:22] of history's most dramatic reshufflings of power. [45:27] Towards the end of the 4th century BC, the 20-year-old King Alexander of the [45:34] mountainous kingdom of Macedon in northern Greece had embarked on a [45:39] ten-year campaign that would see him topple the Persian Empire and sweep [45:44] eastwards to capture vast swathes of territory throughout Central Asia, even [45:51] invading India. Alexander died in the year 323 BC, in the [45:58] city of Babylon, and his empire immediately disintegrated. [46:04] He left in his wake a series of large Greek kingdoms stretching from Pakistan [46:11] to Egypt, and each of these began fighting with [46:14] one another over who would rule the remnants of the empire. [46:20] One of these kingdoms was ruled by a King Antigonus who had been a general [46:25] under Alexander and who had served him as governor of much of the Middle East. [46:31] Antigonus had lost an eye after apparently being struck by shrapnel from [46:37] a splintering catapult bolt while serving under Alexander's father, and so, [46:42] he has gone down in history by the name Antigonus Monophthalmus, or Antigonus [46:49] the One-Eyed. Antigonus was also mono-maniacal. [46:55] He soon embarked on a determined campaign to reunite Alexander's great [47:00] empire and rule over it himself. He quickly swept through Syria, taking the [47:06] lands of his rivals, and conquered down the Mediterranean coast, [47:12] eventually reaching the borders of the wealthy lands of the Nabataeans. [47:17] War is an expensive business, and as with most warmongers, Antigonus was [47:24] permanently short of money. Soon, he began to look hungrily to the [47:29] south, and dreamed of seizing the fabled wealth of Petra for himself. [47:36] In the year 312 BC, he ordered one of his generals, a man named Athenaeus, to march [47:44] into the desert and seize as much as he could of the wealth of these Nabataean [47:49] traders. The disciplined and battle-hardened [47:54] phalanxes of Antigonus were among the best soldiers in the world, [47:59] some having served under Alexander himself, and these crack troops don't [48:05] seem to have expected much of a challenge. [48:08] Athenaeus marched out into the desert from Judaea with an army made up of 4,000 [48:15] foot soldiers armed with long pikes, and 600 horsemen, [48:21] as Diodorus of Sicily recounts. [48:26] Deciding that this people was hostile to his interests, he selected one of his [48:31] friends, Athenaeus, and gave him 4,000 light-foot soldiers and 600 horsemen [48:38] fitted for speed, and ordered him to set upon the barbarians suddenly and cut off [48:45] all their cattle as plunder. [48:50] It took Athenaeus and his soldiers three days to travel the 160 kilometers across [48:57] the desert, but soon they came into view of the [49:00] legendary stone city. Athenaeus ordered his men to prepare for [49:06] a nighttime attack. We can imagine the sight of the Greek [49:12] army waiting and watching, as the shadows stretched long over the [49:17] rosy stones of the city and the sun sat in a purply haze over the Jordanian [49:24] desert. When night fell, [49:27] the soldiers stormed into the city. They found it almost completely [49:33] undefended. There seems to have been no permanent [49:37] garrison guarding the city of Petra, and the Nabataean men were away on business. [49:44] What followed was a frenzy of looting, and here we can get a sense for the vast [49:49] wealth that had been amassed in this city. [49:54] Athenaeus and his men loaded themselves with as much frankincense and myrrh as [49:59] their animals could carry, and reportedly made away with nearly 14 tons of silver. [50:05] Not content with that, they also rounded up all of the women and children they [50:10] could and abducted them with the intention of selling them as slaves, as [50:16] Diodorus recalls. Of those that were caught there, [50:20] some he slew at once, some he took as prisoners, and others who were wounded he [50:26] left behind, and of the frankincense and myrrh, he [50:29] gathered together the larger part and about 500 talents of silver. [50:35] The Greeks, hardly believing how easy it had been, marched off with their slaves [50:41] and loot as fast as they could, and made their way back along the road to safety. [50:47] Weighed down with treasure and prisoners, and with their horses no doubt [50:52] struggling in the desert landscape, they traveled about 36 kilometers from [50:57] Petra and thought that there would be safe to make camp. [51:01] But they had not reckoned on the camel-powered armies of the Nabataeans. [51:07] Only a few hours after Athenaeus and his soldiers had left Petra, the first [51:12] Nabataean men began to return to the city. [51:16] Finding its houses and temples looted and their wives and children gone, they [51:22] heard about the Greek attack from wounded survivors and began an immediate [51:27] pursuit. They sent out riders and gathered more [51:32] men from every village they passed through until the Nabataean force had [51:37] swollen to a horde of 8,000 camel riders. [51:41] They loped across the desert with exceptional speed, [51:45] easily outpacing the Greek horses, and caught up to Athenaeus’ camp by nightfall. [51:53] While the men of Athenaeus’ were encamped with little thought of the enemy, and [51:58] because of their weariness, were in deep sleep. [52:02] Some of their prisoners escaped secretly, and the Nabataeans, learning from them [52:07] the condition of the enemy, attacked the camp at about the third watch, being no [52:12] less than 8,000 in number. [52:18] Under cover of darkness, the enraged Nabataeans swept into the Greek camp and [52:24] slaughtered everyone they could find. [52:28] Most of the hostile troops they slaughtered where they lay; [52:32] the rest they slew with their javelins as they awoke and sprang to arms. [52:37] In the end, all the foot soldiers were slain, [52:41] but of the horsemen, about fifty escaped, and of these the larger part were wounded. [52:46] When the Nabataeans had manfully punished the enemy, they themselves [52:50] returned to the rock with the property that they had recovered. [52:56] Every single Greek foot soldier was killed, and only about fifty of the Greek [53:02] cavalry were able to flee the scene and trickle back across the desert. [53:08] For the Greeks, this was an incredible humiliation, [53:12] but it's clear the Nabataeans had no interest in fighting a war. They sent a [53:18] message to King Antigonus in Aramaic, the common language of the ancient Middle [53:24] East, explaining why they had wiped out his army and asking for no further [53:30] aggression against them. The embarrassed Greek king clearly tried [53:34] his best to save face. [53:38] To Antigonus they wrote a letter in Syrian characters in which they accused [53:43] Athenaeus and vindicated themselves. Antigonus replied to them, agreeing that [53:48] they had been justified in defending themselves, but he found fault with [53:52] Athenaeus, saying that he made the attack contrary to the instructions he had been [53:57] given. He did this, [53:59] hiding his own intentions and desiring to delude the barbarians into a sense of [54:05] security. The Arabs were highly pleased because [54:09] they seemed to have been relieved of great fears, yet they did not altogether [54:14] trust the words of Antigonus. Regarding their prospects as uncertain, [54:18] they placed watchmen upon the hills from which it was easy to see from a great [54:23] distance the passes into Arabia. [54:28] This final act of caution seems to have been completely justified. [54:34] In fact, King Antigonus had no intention of maintaining the peace or accepting [54:40] defeat at the hands of a people he considered to be barbarians. [54:45] He ordered his son Demetrius to march back into the Nabataean lands and [54:51] accomplish what Athenaeus could not, this time with another 4,000 foot [54:56] soldiers and a much larger force of 4,000 cavalry. [55:01] But Demetrius would not have much more success. [55:09] The watchmen that the Nabataeans had placed along their borders quickly [55:13] spotted the advancing Greeks and lit warning beacons on the hilltops. [55:20] The desert people scattered their flocks, hiding them away in narrow crevices and [55:26] hidden places, and took all of their precious goods, [55:30] women, and children with them. They all flared to a stony fortress, [55:36] possibly a flat-topped mountain named Umm Al-Biyara, the tallest point around the [55:43] city of Petra. [55:46] Demetrius, on arriving at the rock and finding that the flocks had been removed, [55:51] made repeated assaults upon the stronghold. [55:55] Those within resisted stoutly and easily had the upper hand because of the height [56:00] of the place. So, on this day, after he had continued the struggle until evening, [56:06] he recalled his soldiers by a trumpet call. [56:12] The Greek general Demetrius was clearly frustrated. [56:17] The single narrow approach up to the mountain's stronghold made a direct [56:22] attack on it virtually impossible, and it's clear that at least someone among [56:27] the Nabataeans had a gift with words. As Demetrius approached the next day for [56:34] a fresh round of assaults, someone called down from the walls with the following [56:40] impassioned plea, which Diodorus of Sicily recounts. [56:48] On the next day, however, when he had advanced upon the rock, one of the [56:53] barbarians called to him, saying, “King Demetrius, with what desire or under what [56:59] compulsion do you war against us who live in the desert and in a land that [57:04] has neither water, nor grain, nor wine, nor any other thing whatever of [57:10] those that pertain to the necessities of life among you? [57:14] For we, since we are in no way willing to be slaves, have all taken refuge in a [57:19] land that lacks all the things that are valued among other peoples and have [57:24] chosen to live a life in the desert, harming you not at all. [57:29] We therefore beg both you and your father to do us no injury, [57:34] but after receiving gifts from us to withdraw your army and henceforth regard [57:40] the Nabataeans as your friends, for neither can you, if you wish remain [57:46] here many days since you lack water and all other necessary supplies, nor can you [57:52] force us to live a different life. [57:57] Here, we can see the Nabataeans deploying both of their great strengths. [58:03] Their strategic control of the water, secreted away in hidden reservoirs, meant [58:09] that any protracted siege of the city was impossible, [58:14] and their enormous wealth often meant that they could simply pay off their [58:18] enemies. Demetrius must have sensed that the [58:23] siege was hopeless. He agreed to accept a payment from the [58:28] Nabataeans and marched back to his lands not exactly victorious, but at least a [58:34] good deal richer. His father, King Antigonus, seems to have [58:39] been quite angry at his son's decision, as Diodorus relates. [58:46] Antigonus, when Demetrius returned and made a detailed report of what he had [58:51] done, rebuked him for the treaty with the Nabataeans, saying that he had made the [58:56] barbarians much bolder by leaving them unpunished, [59:00] since it would seem to them that they had gained pardon not through his [59:04] kindness but through his inability to overcome [59:08] them. [59:10] This episode gives us a marvelous glimpse of the unique survival strategy [59:16] that the Nabataeans employed, and shows how they built an empire not [59:21] out of conquest and death, but out of the trickle of fresh water [59:26] from the desert rocks and the endless clinking of silver pieces moving across [59:32] the desert from hand to hand. [59:41] In telling the story of the Nabataeans, there will be one voice conspicuously [59:48] missing, and that is the voice of the Nabataeans [59:52] themselves. As far as we can tell, [59:55] the Nabataeans had a good level of literacy, and it seems even common people [60:01] could read and write to some extent. The Nabataean script is a kind of late [60:07] Aramaic, ultimately derived from what's called Imperial Aramaic, which was used [60:13] by the Persian Empire. We have evidence of graffiti written on [60:18] stones all over the Jordanian desert, some apparently left by shepherds who [60:24] were capable of writing at least their own names and some short inscriptions, [60:30] but despite this apparently widespread literacy, no histories or accounts [60:36] actually written by Nabataeans have survived. [60:40] We may never know the reasons for this. It's possible that the tribal roots of [60:45] Nabataean society meant that they had inherited a cast of oral historians and [60:52] storytellers whose job it was to memorize their histories and recite them, [60:57] and that while these storytellers were alive, it simply never seemed necessary [61:02] to write those histories down. It's possible that oral historians of [61:08] this kind may even have jealously guarded their histories, even forbidden [61:13] them from being written down, in order to preserve their own importance and status. [61:19] But all of this is speculation, and for the most part, all the Nabataeans have [61:25] left us on this matter is silence. [61:31] The almost complete lack of Nabataean sources means that to tell their story, [61:36] we are left searching through the written records of other societies, [61:41] looking for any mention of them. These mentions are often brief and [61:46] fragmentary, and form instantaneous flashbulb moments in which the [61:52] Nabataeans appear suddenly in the historical record and then disappear [61:57] again into darkness. About fifty years after the incident with [62:03] Antigonus the One-Eyed and his two failed invasions of Nabataea, we get a [62:09] colorful account from the papyrus archives of an Egyptian politician named [62:14] Zenon, a right-hand man to the minister of finance in Ptolemaic Egypt around 259 [62:22] BC. One papyrus gives the account of a [62:26] chariot driver who had seen two of his colleagues have an uncomfortable run-in [62:31] with a group of Nabataeans. These two Greek chariot drivers had [62:37] apparently been moonlighting as human traffickers, transporting slave girls and [62:42] selling them in the cities they visited. Memorandum to Zenon from Heraclides the [62:50] charioteer, regarding what was done by Drimylus and [62:55] Dionysius to the slave girl, abusing her and handing her over to a [63:00] border guard. Returning from there, he encountered the [63:04] Nabataeans, and when there was a shout of protest, he [63:08] was put under guard and placed in shackles for seven days. [63:13] Concerning further details, if you question me, [63:17] you will learn the entire truth. [63:22] This remarkable and enigmatic entry leaves us with a lot of questions, but it [63:28] shows that the Nabataeans were already familiar figures right across the Middle [63:33] East. It's not clear what caused the [63:36] Nabataeans to utter their shout of protest and imprison these men. [63:41] Perhaps it was some personal insult or a dispute over trade, [63:45] but some historians have wondered whether it shows that the Nabataeans [63:50] were offended by the men's treatment of the women in their captivity and decided [63:55] to dole out some justice of their own. Nabataean culture seems to have held [64:01] women in high regard, with queens appearing alongside kings on certain [64:07] coins, and with tomb inscriptions describing women acting as the heads of [64:12] households. So, it's not far-fetched to imagine [64:16] that the Greek's treatment of these women may have offended the Nabataean's [64:21] cultural sensibilities. Another tantalizing flashbulb comes from [64:27] the records of the Roman-Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, in his [64:32] account of the Jewish Maccabee revolt against the Selucid Empire nearly a [64:38] hundred years later. The revolt was led by a Jewish priest [64:44] named Judas Maccabeus, and at one point, he and his brother Jonathan fled from [64:50] Selucid forces across the river Jordan. At this point, Josephus recounts how the [64:56] brothers and their rebel forces ran into a group of Nabataeans. [65:01] These Nabataeans met them on friendly terms and even warned them about [65:07] atrocities that the Selucids had been committing in a nearby Jewish settlement. [65:13] Now, as for Judas Maccabeus and his brother Jonathan, [65:18] they passed over the river Jordan, and when they had gone three day’s journey, [65:23] they lighted upon the Nabataeans who came to meet them peaceably, [65:28] and who told them how the affairs of those in the land of Gilead stood, and [65:32] how many of them were in distress and driven into garrisons and into the [65:37] cities of Galilee, and exhorted him to make haste, to go against the foreigners, [65:43] and to endeavor to save his own countrymen out of their hands. [65:48] To this exhortation Judas hearkened and returned to the wilderness, [65:53] and in the first place fell upon the inhabitants of Bosor and [65:58] took the city. Again, this fragmentary glimpse is [66:04] fascinating but frustrating. The Nabataeans seem to have had a [66:09] long-standing friendly relationship with the Judaean people and were apparently [66:14] supportive of their rebellion. It's possible that the Nabataeans, [66:19] clearly valuing their own independence, viewed the Judaean struggle for freedom [66:24] with a great deal of sympathy. But no doubt, they also enjoyed the [66:29] opportunity to cause trouble for the Selucid Empire, their powerful rivals to [66:34] the north. [66:37] An inscription at the archaeological site of Haluza in the Negev Desert [66:43] contains the first mention of the name of a king of Nabataea. [66:47] This inscription, written in a very early form of Nabataean, says only the [66:53] following. [66:55] This is the place which Nuthairu made for the life of King Aretas, king of the [67:01] Nabataeans. This King Aretas was the first king of [67:07] Nabataea that we can definitively put a name to, and it's clear that by this time, [67:12] Nabataea was not just a tribal confederacy but actually a kingdom. [67:18] Half a century later, by the year 129 BC, we get another flashbulb [67:25] showing that Petra was now recognized as a major regional capital. [67:32] One inscription from a Greek ambassador named Moschio son of Kydimos came from [67:38] the city of Priene in modern day Turkey. It recounts how Moschion traveled on [67:44] diplomatic missions around the region, and mentions two cities in the same [67:50] breath; the great city of Alexandria in Egypt, [67:54] and the city of Petra. [67:58] He acted as an envoy on behalf of the people on many occasions, [68:02] both to kings and to cities, and he performed all these embassies to the [68:06] advantage of the people. The previous embassies he performed as a [68:10] free gift, but when he was sent by his fatherland on official business to king [68:15] Ptolemaios in Alexandria and to Petra in Arabia, [68:18] he stayed there for a longer time that had been anticipated by the people. [68:25] It's clear that by this time, the tribal peoples of Nabataea had grown into a [68:30] true regional power and gained the respect of their neighbors. [68:36] They now directly controlled territory across the Arabian Peninsula, into the [68:41] Negev Desert, and across Palestine, but their zone of influence stretched even [68:46] further. Their caravans arrived in countless [68:50] cities laden with goods and crossed the seas to trade with faraway lands, [68:56] and as the power of the Nabataeans grew, so did the magnificence of their stony [69:04] capital. Petra was now a hive of construction, with its people carving [69:10] temples and tombs, directly imitating the architectural styles of their powerful [69:16] Greek neighbors. It's around this time, during the [69:20] first century BC, that the people of Petra would construct the most [69:25] impressive monument from their unique culture of sandstone-carving. [69:31] That's the enormous edifice known today as the Khazneh, or the Great Treasury. [69:43] The towering construction known as the Khazneh is today one of the most famous [69:50] buildings in the world. It's thought to have been the mausoleum [69:54] of a Nabataean king, possibly Aretas II, Obodas III, or his successor, Aretas IV. [70:03] But no inscriptions stand beside this enormous carving to explain its purpose [70:10] or who built it. Today, the Khazneh stands as a silent [70:14] testimony to the golden age of the Nabataean kingdom, and it seems at every [70:20] point to have been designed for maximum impact on those who saw it. [70:25] Ancient visitors to Petra would walk along the narrow gully of the Siq, [70:31] winding through the towering walls of sandstone, [70:34] and finally emerge into this spectacle of sheer visual drama. [70:40] The towering colonnades and galleries of the facade, a sight that still has its [70:45] intended impact on modern tourists to this day, [70:49] more than two millennia after its designers walked the earth. [70:54] At the time it was built, the ground level beneath the Khazneh was about four [70:59] meters lower than it is today, and a steep staircase led up to its pillared [71:05] doorway. The design of the Khazneh marries the [71:09] Nabataean art of stone carving with Greek architectural styles, [71:14] depicting Nabataean gods alongside Greek deities like Tyche, god of fortune and [71:21] cities, and Egyptian gods like Isis. It's clear that in this hybrid style, the [71:28] people of Petra were laying claim to a status equal to the Greek empires that [71:34] surrounded them, and marking their city as one of the great metropolises of the [71:40] world. The monument was carved using iron [71:43] pickaxes and chisels, and today you can still see the marks left by the [71:49] scaffolding of the workers who toiled through endless hours and dangerous [71:55] conditions to bring its perfect proportions into existence. [72:00] When the Khazneh was built, it would have been remarkable to the citizens of Petra, [72:06] who had never seen anything like it in their city. [72:10] But in the coming century, the building would act as a model for several more [72:14] monuments. Among these are the stone facades known [72:19] as the monastery, and another named the Corinthian Tomb. But both of these [72:24] monuments are smaller, less ambitious, and less beautifully-proportioned than the [72:30] towering facade of the Khazneh. [72:35] Thanks to visitors who passed through in the coming centuries, we do know a great [72:40] amount about what the average citizen of Petra would have experienced in their [72:45] everyday life. [72:50] The first century Greek writer and geographer Strabo recounts the foods [72:55] enjoyed by the Nabataeans. Most of the country is well-supplied [73:01] with fruits, except the olive. They use sesame oil instead. [73:06] The sheep are white-fleeced and the oxen are large, but the country produces no [73:11] horses. Camels afford the service they require [73:14] instead of horses. [73:17] We can also find a reference to a particular kind of fermented bread known [73:23] as Khubz al-ma’ al-Nabati’, or Nabataean water bread, in a 10th century cookbook [73:29] by Ibn Sayyar al-Warraq. [73:34] Take seven and a half pounds of good- -quality samidh flour [73:38] and sift it in a big wooden bowl. Mix it with three ounces yeast and add [73:44] three ounces salt that has been dissolved in water and strained. [73:49] Knead the mixture into a very firm dough, as firm as stone, and press it well. [73:55] Cover the dough and let it ferment. With the help of some oil of hulled [74:00] sesame seeds, divide the dough into portions, [74:04] light the tannur, and wait until the fire starts to [74:08] smolder gently. Rub each portion of the dough with two [74:12] dirhams sesame oil or olive oil, then [74:16] flatten it by hand and stick it to the inside of a smoldering oven. [74:23] It's likely that the Nabataeans would have done their baking early in the [74:27] morning, before the heat of the day would make [74:30] lighting a fire unbearable. We can imagine the smoke of these fires [74:35] drifting through the shaded gullies of the city in the cool desert mornings, the [74:40] smells of baking bread, yeast, and sizzling sesame oil filling the air. [74:47] According to sources of the time, walking the streets of Petra would have been a [74:52] colorful experience. The writer Strabo recounts the many [74:57] colored clothes of the city's inhabitants and the many smells that [75:02] would have wafted through the streets. They go without tunics, with girdles [75:08] around their loins and with slippers on their feet, even the kings, though in [75:12] their case the color is purple. Some things are imported wholly from [75:17] other countries, but others not altogether so, especially in the case of [75:22] those that are native products, as for example, gold and silver, and most of the [75:27] aromatics, whereas brass and iron, as also purple garb, styrax, crocus, costaria, [75:34] embossed works, paintings, and molded works are not produced in their country. [75:41] Nabataean religion revolved mostly around the worship of a god named [75:46] Dushara, a kind of father god like the Greek Zeus, [75:51] who was responsible for justice and seems to have been associated with the [75:55] sun. He was often represented by simple [76:00] square-shaped blocks of stone. Nabataeans would apparently offer animal [76:06] sacrifices to Dushara, and would give him offerings in the form [76:11] of Petra's most abundant trade commodity; incense. [76:16] They worship the sun, building an altar on top of the house and pouring [76:21] libations on it daily, and burning frankincense. [76:26] No doubt the temples of Petra would have sent great clouds of frankincense, myrrh, [76:32] and other aromatics wafting out into its streets to mix with the smells of camels [76:39] and goats, cooking food, and smoldering charcoal ovens. [76:44] Many of the peoples of Nabataea were still transient, traveling constantly all [76:50] year round from trade post to trade post. But in order to maintain a sense of [76:55] community, it seems they did all gather every year for a kind of festival part [77:01] market, part ceremony, and part feast where the disparate tribes of the [77:06] Nabataeans would come together to exchange goods, [77:10] talk, tell stories, and of course, drink wine. [77:15] Strabo describes the sights of one of these Nabataean celebrations, [77:20] and he's struck by the noticeable lack of slavery in the city, something that [77:25] would have been remarkable to someone who lived in the Roman Empire. [77:31] But when the time draws near for the national gathering at which those who [77:35] dwell round about are accustomed to meet, they travel to this meeting, leaving on a [77:40] certain rock their possessions and their old men, also their women and their [77:45] children. Since they have but few slaves, they are [77:49] served by their kinsfolk for the most part or by one another, or by themselves [77:54] so that the custom extends even to their kings. They prepare common meals together [77:59] in groups of thirteen persons, and they have two girl singers for each banquet. [78:05] The king holds many drinking bouts in magnificent style, but no one drinks more [78:10] than eleven cupfuls, each time using a different golden cup. [78:15] The king is so democratic that in addition to serving himself, he sometimes [78:20] even serves the rest himself in his turn. [78:28] The fact that we have to largely rely on the accounts of others when recreating [78:33] the daily lives of the Nabataeans is frustrating for any scholar of the [78:38] period. But in fact, the Nabataeans did leave behind one great body of [78:43] literature; that's the inscriptions carved into the stones of their great [78:48] tombs in their own distinctive script. [78:54] Many of the most complete of these can be found at the site of Hegra, now in the [79:00] northwest of modern Saudi Arabia. Hegra was founded by the Nabataean king, [79:07] Aretas IV, in the final years of the first century BC, and he named it the kingdom's [79:15] second capital. In some ways, its carved tombs are more [79:21] dramatic and impressive than those at Petra, since they can be seen from great [79:26] distances, looming on the horizon of the flat [79:30] desert plain. The most famous of these is known in [79:34] Arabic as Qasr al-Farid, or the Lonely Castle. [79:40] It is as finely carved as anything found at Petra, and it forms a particularly [79:46] haunting monument to the city that once stood here, [79:50] now buried beneath the sands. [79:54] The tomb inscriptions of Hegra are remarkable texts. [79:59] Many of them are extremely weathered since they have been exposed to the [80:03] desert winds for more than 2,000 years, but many are also perfectly clear and [80:10] legible. These tomb inscriptions often contain [80:15] warnings of curses from the gods that would land upon any tomb robbers, but [80:20] they were also binding legal documents, ensuring that the tomb remained the [80:25] property of a single family down the generations, with infractions punishable [80:31] by fines. This inscription from one Hegra tomb is [80:36] a prime example of this hybrid form. [80:41] This is the tomb and platform and enclosure from which Hawshabu, son of [80:47] Nafiyu, son of Alkuf the Taymanite, made for himself and his children, and Habbu [80:52] his mother, and Rufu and Aftiyu, his sisters [80:56] and their children -- inviolable according to the nature of [81:00] inviolability among the Nabataeans and Salamians forever, [81:05] and may Dushara curse anybody who buries in this tomb [81:10] anyone except those inscribed above, or sells it, [81:14] or buys it, or gives it in pledge or leases it, [81:19] or makes a gift of it, or disposes of it, [81:23] and whoever does other than what is written above [81:26] shall be liable to the god Dushara for the full price of a thousand Selas, [81:32] and to our lord King Haretat for the same amount. [81:37] In the month of Shebat, the 13th year of Haretite, [81:41] king of the Nabataeans, lover of his people. [81:48] Inside the tomb, the niches are marked with a shorter inscription. [81:55] These are the two burial niches of Hawshabu, son of Nafiyu, [81:59] and Abdalga and Habbu, his children, and may he who separates night from day [82:05] curse whoever removes them forever. [82:10] These tomb inscriptions all more or less follow this format, and while they are [82:16] limited in what they can teach us, they do take on a remarkable significance and [82:21] even poignancy when we consider that these are the only texts left behind [82:27] actually written by Nabataeans. Theirs is a culture whose only surviving [82:32] testament is their tombstones. In these brief carved messages, we can [82:39] learn little glimmers of information. [82:44] We learn about the names of their gods and get some sense of how they thought [82:48] of them. We can hear Nabataean names, and sometimes we can recreate their family [82:54] trees, their wives and sisters and children. [82:58] We can hear hints of a society in which the temple and the king both held some [83:03] kind of independent authority, and where a complex legal system was [83:08] enforced with laws and fines. In some of these inscriptions, credit is [83:15] even given to the masons who carved the tomb, giving some hint as to the [83:19] importance that these artists held in this city of stone. [83:26] In the month of Nisan, the 36th year of Haretite, king of the Nabataeans, love of his [83:34] people, Aftah, son of Abdo-Bodat, and Wahbu, son of Afsa, and Huru, [83:42] the masons, made this tomb. [83:46] Since the professions of the people buried in the tombs are usually listed, [83:52] we also get a wonderful account of the variety of ways that a Nabataean could [83:57] make their living in the cities of Hegra and Petra. Malkion the omen-diviner; Sullay [84:03] the governor; Aydu the prefect; Manotu the exorcist priest; Kahlan the physician; Sadallahi [84:15] the centurion. [84:22] All of these people lived full lives in the streets and markets and houses of [84:28] these cities. They had friends, families, lovers, secrets, and dreams, and now all [84:35] that is left are the faded inscriptions in stone, slowly disappearing under the [84:42] desert winds and rain. [84:49] Despite their centuries of domination of trade in this region, the Nabataeans [84:55] would eventually encounter an enemy that could neither be defeated nor bought [85:00] off. That was a growing imperial power based [85:05] on a peninsula far off in the central Mediterranean that would soon expand to [85:10] its most enormous height, encompassing the entire Mediterranean [85:15] Sea and the lands of Arabia beyond. [85:20] That was the power of Rome. [85:36] By the end of the first century BC, the Roman Republic had given way to the [85:41] Roman Empire, a confident expanding military power. [85:46] By this time, Rome had conquered Judaea and installed a tyrannical puppet king, [85:52] Herod the Great, to rule it as a colony. In 30 BC, [85:58] Rome also conquered the Greek kingdom of Ptolemaic Egypt and brought Roman [86:03] legions to the banks of the Nile. Then, like so many empires before [86:09] them, the Romans began to look hungrily east to the rich lands of Nabataea [86:15] and the incense fields of Arabia. [86:22] Rome was an enormous consumer of incense. Roman temples burned frankincense and [86:30] myrrh as part of their rituals, and with the rapid growth of the empire, these [86:35] temples would now stretch across all of Europe, from Tunisia to Scotland, from [86:41] Morocco to Mesopotamia. At the height of its trade, it's [86:47] estimated that each year, well over a million kilograms of frankincense was [86:53] imported into the Roman Empire. Considering the exorbitant 25% [86:59] tax that the Nabataeans charged on this, it's no wonder that the Romans soon [87:04] began to consider ways of cutting out the middleman and taking charge of the [87:10] incense trade themselves. In the year 26 BC, the new Roman emperor [87:17] Augustus sent one of his prefects who had been stationed in Roman Egypt to [87:23] explore the south of Arabia, accompanied with a small expeditionary force, [87:29] and to establish new direct trade routes with the people who lived there. [87:35] This man's name was Aelius Gallus. [87:43] The geographer Strabo recalls the purpose of this expedition. [87:50] Aelius Gallus conceived the purpose of winning the Arabians over to himself, [87:55] or of subjugating them. Another consideration was the report [88:00] which had prevailed from all time, that they were very wealthy and that they [88:04] sold aromatics and the most valuable stones for gold and silver, [88:09] but never expended with outsiders any part of what they received in exchange, [88:14] for he expected either to deal with wealthy friends [88:18] or to master wealthy enemies. [88:23] Curiously, the Nabataeans seemed all too eager to help the Romans on their [88:29] expedition. They even offered to send one of their [88:32] own people as a guide. He was encouraged also by the [88:37] expectation of assistance from the Nabataeans, since they were friendly and [88:42] promised to cooperate with him in every way. [88:46] Considering that the Nabataeans stood to lose a great deal if Gallus' expedition [88:52] was a success, the Romans should perhaps have been more [88:55] suspicious of these offers of help, but apparently they were not. [89:02] The guide that the Nabataean king sent to help this Roman expedition was a man [89:08] named Syllaeus, a cunning politician high up in the Nabataean establishment. [89:15] Syllaeus faced an unenviable task; he had to appear to cooperate with the [89:21] Roman expedition so as not to arouse the anger of the mighty empire, but the [89:26] Nabataean king had made quite clear that the expedition must be a failure. [89:33] Trapped between the Romans and his own king, Syllaeus must have experienced [89:38] sleepless nights as he guided the Roman army through the deserts of Arabia. [89:45] Strabo recounts how the mission unfolded. [89:51] Gallus set out on the expedition, but he was deceived by the Nabataean [89:55] administrator Syllaeus, who, although he had promised to be guide [90:00] on the march and to supply all needs and to cooperate [90:04] with him, acted treacherously in all things [90:08] and pointed out neither a safe voyage along the coast [90:12] nor a safe journey by land, misguiding him through places that had [90:17] no roads and by circuitous routes, [90:20] and through regions destitute of everything, [90:23] or along rocky shores that had no harbors or through waters that were [90:28] shallow or full of submarine rocks, and particularly in places of that kind [90:33] the flood tides, and also the ebb tides [90:37] caused very great distress. [90:42] It's clear that at every turn, the Nabataean Syllaeus worked to frustrate [90:47] and weaken Aelius Gallus' expedition, using every deception available to him. [90:55] After many experiences and hardships, he arrived in 14 days at Leuke Kome, in the [91:01] land of the Nabataeans, although he had lost many of his boats, [91:05] some of these being lost, crews and all, on accounts of difficult sailing, [91:10] but not on account of any enemy. This was caused by the treachery of [91:16] Syllaeus, who said that there was no way for an [91:19] army to go to Leuke Kome by land, and yet, [91:24] camel traders travel back and forth from Petra to this place [91:27] in safety and ease. [91:32] The expedition of Aelius Gallus would take six months to work its weary way up [91:38] the coast of southern Arabia, suffering from disease, shipwrecks, even eating [91:45] poisoned herbs and drinking tainted water, so that the soldiers suffered from [91:50] sickness and disease. They would travel around in circles [91:55] across the stony desert wastes, and take the longest possible routes along rough [92:00] terrain, baking in the searing Arabian sun, [92:04] suffering from heat stroke and fatigue. Finally, with only a fraction of his [92:11] original force remaining, Gallus was forced to admit defeat. [92:16] Although he was within reach of his goal, he now feared that if he pushed on, none [92:21] of them would survive, and he feared that the journey home would take another six [92:26] months. He ordered his men to turn around [92:30] and march back along the desert roads, and it's only on the way home that he [92:35] realized the trick that had been played on him. [92:40] He was indeed only two days’ journey from the country that produced aromatics, as [92:45] informed by his captives, but he used up six months’ time on his [92:50] marches because of bad guidance, and he realized the fact when he turned [92:54] back, when at last he had learned the plot [92:57] against him and had gone back by other roads. [93:01] On his return, he accomplished the whole journey within sixty days. [93:06] He'd used up six months in his first journey. [93:14] It's not recorded whether Syllaeus stuck around to face the anger of the Roman [93:19] commander or whether he slunk away in the night. [93:24] Strabo recounts the sorry sight of the expedition as it returned to its base in [93:30] Alexandria, empty-handed. [93:34] Thence he carried his army across the Myus Harbor within eleven days, [93:38] and with all who had been fortunate enough to survive, landed in Alexandria. [93:44] The rest he had lost not in wars, but from sickness and [93:48] fatigue, and hunger and bad roads, for only seven men perished in war. [93:55] For these reasons, this expedition did not profit us to a great extent in our [94:00] knowledge of these regions. [94:06] For his part, Syllaeus seems to have returned to Petra to a hero's welcome. [94:12] The failure of this disastrous expedition set Rome back significantly. [94:18] The empire would soon be convulsed by civil wars, and was soon far too [94:24] distracted to think about expanding any further into Arabia. [94:29] Syllaeus' actions would buy his people more than a century of independence, but [94:36] Rome's civil wars would not last forever, and for the kingdom of Nabataea, the [94:41] writing was on the wall. As the first millennium BC became the [94:46] first millennium AD, Rome officially absorbed Judaea, Mesopotamia, and Syria [94:53] into its enormous empire. Nabataea gradually found itself [94:59] surrounded by this overwhelming power, and the era of its existence as an [95:05] independent kingdom was soon to come to an end. [95:17] The last king of the Nabataeans was a man named Rabbel II, [95:23] who had ruled for thirty-six years. When he died in the year 106 AD, the [95:31] Roman emperor Trajan ordered two legions to march into the region and capture the [95:37] lands of Nabataea. There doesn't seem to have been any [95:41] particular pretext for the invasion; Rabbel had a legitimate heir named Obodas [95:48] who was ready to take the throne, but it's clear that Rome didn't want to [95:53] waste its opening. The man who led this campaign was the [95:57] Roman governor of Syria, a man named Cornelius Palma. [96:02] Under his command, the Third Cyrenaica legion moves north from Egypt into Petra, [96:09] while the Sixth Ferrata legion, a Syrian garrison unit, moved south to occupy the [96:15] town of Bostra. As far as we can tell, the Romans faced [96:20] little resistance. In fact, the campaign was so [96:24] underwhelming that the Roman historian Cassius Dio, normally a colorful and [96:29] detailed writer, had only the following to say about it. [96:35] About this time, Palma, the governor of Syria, subdued the [96:40] part of Arabia around Petra and made it subject to the Romans. [96:46] This sparse report is wedged in between colorful accounts of Trajan's campaigns [96:52] against the Dacians and his spectacles involving 10,000 gladiators. [96:58] Even the Roman coins minted to celebrate the victory seem to reflect the [97:03] understated nature of the campaign. They were marked with the words ‘Arabia [97:09] adquisita’ rather than the more normal ‘capta’. [97:13] For the Romans, Arabia had not been captured, but simply acquired. [97:20] Some units of the Nabataean's elite royal guard do seem to have resisted the [97:25] invaders, but for the most part, the regular troops [97:29] saw no point in fighting the inevitable. Roman legions marched into Petra, and the [97:36] age of Nabataean independence finally came to an end. [97:42] Rome would name the province they founded there Arabia Petraea after the [97:48] great city, and the period of Roman Petra began. [98:02] From what we can tell, it seems that for the average citizen of the Nabataean [98:06] kingdom, the annexation by Rome had little effect on their lives, at least at [98:12] first. The historian Jane Taylor describes the [98:17] situation. It was only the top management that [98:22] changed, the governors and a handful of officials. [98:26] In due course, the old royal army was absorbed into the Roman auxiliary forces [98:31] as six portraying cohorts, a total of 6,000 men. [98:37] As for the non-military majority, landowners, stonemasons, ceramicists, [98:42] scribes, priests, musicians, jugglers, or minor officials, most stayed where they [98:49] were, paid their taxes to the new authority, [98:52] and pursued the accustomed daily pattern of their lives, more or less unchanged. [99:00] Usually when Rome captured an area, they would set about immediately building new [99:05] aqueducts and water systems, but conspicuously in Petra, they left the [99:11] Nabataean water system virtually untouched. [99:15] This suggests that they saw little room for improvement to the already skillful [99:21] engineering. [99:24] To ensure the security of their new conquest and perhaps with bitter [99:29] memories of Aelius Gallus' expedition still in their minds, the Romans built a [99:35] highway through the entire territory. They named this the Via Nova Traiana, or [99:41] Trajan's New Road, a 400-kilometer highway connecting Petra and Bostra to [99:47] the sea port of Aqaba on the Red Sea. The road was lined with forts, ensuring a [99:54] permanent control of the trade routes, to the rich incense fields of the south, [100:00] and meaning that the Romans could now move their forces with ease. [100:06] One Roman citizen, Aelius Aristides, who lived during the second century AD [100:12] in the Roman province of Asia, wrote the following description of the times and [100:18] shows that the Romans believed that the uncontrollable lands of Arabia had [100:24] finally been pacified. Wars have so far vanished as to be [100:30] legendary affairs of the past. Now, a man simply travels from one [100:35] country to another as though it were his native land. [100:39] We are no longer frightened by the Cilician Pass or by the narrow, sandy [100:44] tracks that lead from Arabia to Egypt. We are not dismayed by the height of [100:49] mountains or by the vast breadth of rivers or by inhospitable tribes or [100:54] barbarians. To be a Roman citizen is a sufficient [100:58] guarantee of personal safety. [101:02] For the city of Petra, the period of Roman annexation would be the beginning [101:08] of the end. Over the coming centuries, Petra would [101:13] ultimately be undone by cultural and economic shifts that swept the whole [101:19] world along with them. [101:28] In the third and fourth centuries, the Roman Empire would undergo some dramatic [101:34] changes. The cult of Jesus Christ, once a small [101:39] fringe group of worshipers based around the veneration of an executed Jewish [101:44] prophet, had grown to become a real threat to Roman power. [101:49] For a time, Christianity was outlawed in the empire, and during the reign of the [101:55] emperor Diocletian, records show that the Christians of Petra were punished for [102:01] their refusal to sacrifice to Roman gods. Many of them were sent to die by forced [102:08] labor in the nearby Roman copper mines of Phaino. [102:13] Christianity was finally adopted by the emperor Constantine, and would become the [102:19] major belief system of the late Roman Empire. [102:23] But as Christian modes of worship spread, the way that people conducted ceremonies [102:28] also changed, and this would have a dramatic effect on [102:33] the commodities that people consumed and on the people of Petra. [102:43] While today we think of incense as an integral part of worship in the Catholic [102:48] and orthodox churches, early Christians were keen to emphasize the difference [102:53] between themselves and the old pagan temples. [102:57] For this reason, Christians at this time did not use incense in their ceremonies. [103:03] As pagan temples were shut down, demand for incense crashed, and the price began [103:09] to fall. This broader cultural and economic [103:14] change came at the same time as Egyptian ports began to supersede the land-based [103:21] trade routes for incense, spices, and silks. [103:25] As an independent kingdom, the Nabataeans had jealously guarded their source of [103:30] frankincense, but with Nabataea conquered, the Romans began extracting incense by [103:36] the more efficient route; carrying goods by sea to Egypt rather than on the [103:42] arduous desert roads by land. As a result, the very thing that the [103:47] Nabataeans had feared came to pass. The importance of Petra as a trading hub [103:54] began to fall. [104:03] Although it had given its name to the province of Arabia Petraea, the Romans [104:09] also seemed to have had little use for the Rose City. [104:13] The very things that had made Petra attractive to the Nabataeans, that is how [104:19] remote, hidden, and difficult to reach it was, made it an unattractive place for a [104:25] Roman administration which needed good links to the capital. The Romans [104:30] increasingly conducted the running of the province from the more northern and [104:34] well-connected town of Bostra, and the prominence of Petra as the [104:40] administrative center of the region fell even further. [104:45] Petra at this time must have been a sad place. [104:49] The former markets and workshops that had once boomed with life and noise must [104:55] have grown smaller every year as fewer and fewer caravans passed through. The [105:02] fine cliffside houses, where once children ran and played, where families [105:08] hung up their laundry and watched the sunset, [105:11] would have become abandoned one by one, home only to desert bats and wild dogs [105:18] that would have howled to one another at night [105:21] in the gradually emptying valleys. Despite its declining importance, Petra [105:29] may still have continued as an important trading spot were it not for the events [105:34] of the 18th of May, in the year 363 AD. [105:43] It was the middle of the night when the first tremors began, [105:48] a shuddering and shaking in the earth, accompanied by a low rumble. [105:54] Somewhere deep in the faultline of the Red Sea, [105:58] the edges of the African and Arabian Plates gave way against one another, and [106:04] an earthquake shook the region. [106:08] This would be known as the Galilee Earthquake, a pair of severe tremors on [106:14] the 18th and 19th of May in the year 363. One letter, thought to be written by the [106:23] bishop Cyril of Jerusalem, recalls the tremendous impact of the earthquake. [106:30] This event took place on Monday at the third hour, [106:35] and partly at the ninth hour of the night. [106:38] There was a great loss of life here. The land was shaken [106:43] and mighty prodigies took place, and fire consumed great numbers of them. [106:49] The land shook considerably and there were great tremors in the towns round [106:54] about. Many Christians, too, living in these [106:58] regions, as well as the majority of the Jews, perished at that scourge, and not [107:04] just in the earthquake, but also as a result of fire and in the [107:10] heavy rain they had. [107:14] Cyril goes on to list the settlements most damaged by the tremors, and notes [107:20] that more than half of the city of Petra was destroyed. [107:25] Now we should like to write down for you the names of the towns that were [107:29] overthrown; Beit Gubrin, [107:32] more than half of it, part of Baishan, the whole of Sebastia and its territory, the [107:39] whole of Nikopolis and its territory, more than half of Petra, part of Tiberias, [107:46] too, and its territory. [107:48] Haifa flowed with blood for three days. Another chronicler named Thomas from the [107:56] Rhesaina region wrote the following account, in which he views the earthquake [108:02] as a punishment from god for the continuing pagan worship in the region. [108:09] At that time, the Lord was angry with the cities of the pagans and Jews and the [108:15] Samaritans and of the false teachings in the south that are joined in with the [108:20] madness of the pagan Julian, and anger went out from the Lord's [108:24] presence and began to destroy the unclean and pagan cities because they [108:29] had defiled them with blood which they shed unjustly in them. [108:35] It began to destroy the cities, 21 in number, some of which were overturned, [108:40] some collapsed, and yet others survived in the month of Iyyar, of the year 674, [108:47] and on the 27th day in that month, in the month of Haziran. [108:53] Archaeological evidence in Petra supports the picture of a sudden and [108:58] devastating disaster. [109:04] One house excavated by archaeologists was reduced to a pile of rubble around [109:10] this time. Beneath the collapsed roof, a great [109:14] number of everyday domestic items were found; [109:17] lamps, shattered ceramics and glass, spindles [109:22] and coins, even a copper pot with an iron handle. [109:27] Near the door, a smashed pot contained 85 small-denomination copper coins, [109:34] apparently kept there for everyday expenses. [109:38] The fact that these were never reclaimed or even looted [109:42] suggests that the damage in the city was too great for its declining population [109:47] to even pick through, let alone rebuild from. [109:52] Many of Petra's great public buildings were severely hit by the earthquake. [109:58] The so-called Temple of the Winged Lions, the building known as the Great Temple, [110:04] and the public theater were all damaged, and they would never be repaired. [110:12] Particularly devastating seems to have been the earthquake's effect on the [110:17] city's water systems. Subterranean pipes were cracked and [110:23] would have leaked their precious water into the sands, and some of its aqueducts [110:28] split open. Dams designed to hold in reservoirs of [110:32] rainwater collapsed, causing widespread flooding and severely depleting the [110:38] city's supplies. Petra's capacity to support life was [110:43] directly linked to its capacity to store water, and with the complicated system [110:49] now coming apart at the seams, its water and the city's remaining life would now [110:55] leach away into the dust of the desert. [111:00] It's clear that some of Petra's people did creep back to repopulate the city [111:06] after the earthquake. In the area known as the Colonnaded [111:10] Street, archaeology shows that some of the earthquake debris was cleared away, [111:16] and a shanty town of simple shops and shelters was built out of material [111:21] reclaimed from the rubble. But the destruction of the city's water [111:26] system meant that the annual flash floods were no longer being controlled. [111:32] We can see the evidence of these floods in the build-up of silt and sand in the [111:37] floors of these humble buildings, as the waters crash down from the rocks [111:43] in the rainy season, flooding everyone's homes, and then giving way to months of [111:49] punishing drought. Some domestic structures were rebuilt [111:54] after the earthquake, and it's clear people tried to continue [111:58] their lives. They even constructed some new churches, [112:02] although they were largely built from material scavenged from other destroyed [112:07] monuments. But in the early 5th century, another [112:11] earthquake struck and after that, most of the grand houses were abandoned for good. [112:18] The dream of Petra had died, and the city gradually fell into disrepair and ruin. [112:27] Despite all of this damage, people did continue to live in reduced numbers [112:33] around the ruins of Petra, and it would continue as a humble [112:38] caravan stop for several more centuries. People continued to live in the [112:43] hollowed-out cave houses, and farmed on the terraces of its hills [112:49] right up to the modern era. As the Eastern Roman Empire morphed into [112:55] the Byzantine Empire, the old city of Petra was even named the capital of the [113:01] province of Palaestina Tertia, and several churches were built in and [113:07] around the city. In one of them, 140 papyruses were [113:12] discovered, which contained mainly contracts dated up to the year 590, [113:19] showing that people were still living in the city. [113:22] According to the writer John Moschus, Petra even had a bishop in the first [113:27] decades of the 7th century, a man named Athenogenes. [113:32] But some time before the year 687, the declining fortunes of the city meant [113:38] that the position ceased to exist. When Arab armies, inspired by the new [113:45] faith of Islam and the teachings of the prophet Muhammad swept across the region, [113:51] Petra doesn't seem to have featured in their interests at all. It's not [113:56] mentioned once in the narratives of the Muslim conquest, and nor does it appear [114:01] in any early Islamic records. As power in this region underwent [114:07] another of its great reshufflings, it seems the [114:11] city of Petra was finally abandoned for good. [114:15] The Arabic that these new rulers spoke was directly descended from the old [114:20] Nabataean spoken by the ancient peoples of Petra, but to these new conquerors, the [114:27] Rose City was an irrelevance, a city of tombs and ruins lost among the desert [114:33] stones. [114:36] The Muslims who came after and built their own empires in the region were [114:42] struck by the incredible sight of these monumental stones [114:47] still left at the sites of Hegra and Petra. [114:51] To explain them, they told stories about a tribe that they called the Thamud, who [114:57] were punished by god for refusing to listen to a prophet named [115:02] Salih. One version of this is given in the Quran, in the Surah Al-A’raf, [115:09] or the Chapter of the Heights. [115:15] And they flouted the commandment of their lord, [115:18] and they said, oh Salih, [115:21] bring upon us that thou threatenest if thou art indeed of those sent from [115:26] Allah. So the earthquake seized them, [115:30] and morning found them prostrate in their dwelling place. [115:34] And Salih turned from them and said, [115:38] oh my people, I delivered my lord's message unto you and gave you good [115:42] advice, but ye love not good advisors. [115:48] As for the earth, we spread it out and placed it upon its firm mountains [115:52] and caused everything to grow there in perfect balance. [115:56] We made in it means of sustenance for you and others. [116:00] We send fertilizing winds and bring down rain from the sky for you to drink. [116:05] But the residents of the stone valley also denied the messengers. [116:10] We gave them our signs, but they turned away from them. [116:15] They carved their homes in the mountains, feeling secure, [116:20] but the mighty blast overtook them in the morning, [116:23] and all they achieved was of no help to them. [116:29] For these later people, the towering ruins of the Nabataean cities became [116:34] warnings about excessive pride, and a reminder that the power of nature or the [116:40] power of god can always undo the works of man. [116:46] For others, the ruins inspired poetry. [116:53] I want to end the episode with a reading from one of the great pre-Islamic poets, [116:59] a man named Tarafa. He wrote poetry that responded to the [117:04] ruined sights that littered the horizon of the Arab Peninsula left by peoples [117:11] like the Nabataeans. In this poem, he describes how the sight [117:16] of these ruins leads him to think about the transience [117:20] and the injustice of life. As you listen, imagine what it would feel [117:26] like to live in the great city of Petra during its final days, to watch the life [117:32] slowly ebb from the city around you, as the caravans arrived in fewer and fewer [117:38] numbers across the sands. Imagine the earthquakes cracking the [117:43] great stones of the city, the feeling of hopelessness as the water systems broke, [117:50] and no one left knew how to repair them, as people [117:54] departed across the desert to begin new lives in other places. [118:00] Imagine watching the sands creep in to cover the streets, the homes, and markets, [118:07] the stables and the workshops, finally leaving nothing in the city but its [118:13] tombs. [118:16] The ruins Khawla left on the mottled flatlands of Tamhad appear and fade [118:22] like the trace of a tattoo on the back of a hand. [118:26] There, my friends halted tall camels over me, saying [118:30] don't lose yourself in grief, man. Endure. A man's soul flies to his throat in fear [118:37] and he imagines impending ruin, though no one stalks his evening journey, waiting. [118:43] Death does not miss the brave - - its slackened ropes around him, hand [118:48] around the twisted coils. A generous man quenches his soul while [118:54] he is still alive. I see the tomb of the hoarder, panting [118:59] for his wealth, like the tomb of the wasteful evildoer; both the same. [119:05] Two heaps of earth were silent slabs of hard, death stone piled up upon them. [119:11] I see death choose the generous and the noble, [119:15] while picking over the best part of the hardened, rich man's spoil. [119:20] I see a life, a treasure, shrinking every night, [119:25] shrunken by days and time, then gone. [119:36] Thank you once again for listening to The Fall of Civilizations Podcast. [119:42] I'd like to thank my voice actors for this episode; [119:44] Nick Denton, Jay Forrester, Shem Jacobs, Annie Kelly, and Paul Casselle. [119:52] I love to hear your thoughts and responses on Twitter, so please come and [119:56] tell me what you thought. You can follow me @PaulMMCooper, and [120:01] if you'd like updates about the podcast, announcements about new episodes, as well [120:06] as images, maps, and reading suggestions, you can follow the podcast at Fall_of [120:12] Civ_Pod with underscores separating the words. [120:17] This podcast can only keep going with the support of our generous subscribers [120:21] on Patreon. You keep me running, you help me cover my [120:26] costs, and you let me dedicate more time to researching, writing, recording, and [120:31] editing to get the episodes out to you faster and bring as much life and detail [120:37] to them as possible. I want to thank all my subscribers for [120:41] making this happen. If you enjoyed this episode, please [120:45] consider heading onto patreon.com forward slash fall of civilizations [120:51] underscore podcast, or just Google [120:54] Fall of Civilizations Patreon. That's P-A-T-R-E-O-N. [121:01] For now, goodbye, and thanks for listening.