NHK World Heritage 100 Series

Narration Text

In the desert of Southern Jordan, the Bedouin have made the ancient city of Petra, a base for their nomadic life for generations. A deep and narrow passage runs through a crack in the rock. The 2000-year old city of Petra lies below. The gorge walls are 100 meters high. At the bottom runs a narrow corridor 1.5km long.

Petra, meaning "rock" in Greek, was built in 200 BC as the capital of the Nabataean Kingdom. The site was known only to the Bedouin until a Swiss scholar discovered it in 1812. There is a 30-metre tall monument at the end of the corridor. It is Petra's most elaborate monument - Al-Khazneh (the Treasury of the King). Petra enjoyed the peak of its prosperity during the 1st century BC when it had 30 thousand inhabitants. The ancestors of the Nabataean people traded spices from the Arabian Peninsula and India to the Mediterranean and Egypt. The Nabataeans used their wealth to build this Kingdom and rule the caravans of the desert. The monuments were sculpted from sandstone - ideal for detailed and elaborate sculpture work. The sculptures are a testimony to the various cultures that influenced the city; the Amazoness from the Greek legends and the Egyptian goddess Isis. There is also an Assyrian god.

Around 500 or so royal tombs are hewn from the rock. Believing in life after death, the most powerful people competed with each other to build a tomb. The largest is on top of the 1000 metre high mountain. The monument is said to be the place where the sun was worshipped – it tells us about the wealth and power of the Kingdom. The city was later overtaken by the Romans, and the Petra that once was became history. All that remained were ruins that only the Bedouin knew about.