The Nabataeans carved a capital out of rock, filled it with water in the middle of the desert and grew rich on incense. Rome absorbed it, earthquakes emptied it and Europe forgot it until 1812. Thirteen stops: the tombs at the entrance, the Siq and its channels, the Treasury, the street of facades, the theatre, the royal tombs, the colonnaded street, the Great Temple, the temple of the winged lions, the Qasr al-Bint, the staircase of more than eight hundred steps, the Monastery and the viewpoint over the end of the world. Approximate audio duration: 24 minutes.
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Petra: la ciudad rosa que nadie sabía que existía
Los nabateos tallaron una capital en la roca, la llenaron de agua en medio del desierto y se hicieron ricos con el incienso. Roma la absorbió, los terremotos la vaciaron y Europa se olvidó de ella hasta 1812. Trece paradas: las tumbas de la entrada, el Siq y sus canales, el Tesoro, la calle de las fachadas, el teatro, las tumbas reales, la calle de columnas, el Gran Templo, el templo de los leones alados, el Qasr al-Bint, la escalera de más de ochocientos escalones, el Monasterio y el mirador sobre el fin del mundo. Duración aproximada de audio: 24 minutos.
Tour stops
13 stops · ~24 min of audio · 9 km on foot (~2 h 15 min walking) · about 2 h 45 min in total
You are on the Bab as-Siq, the path leading from the entrance to the gorge of Petra. On your right you will see huge cube-shaped blocks carved from the rock: the Bedouin call them djinn blocks, blocks of the spirits. On your left, in the cliff, a facade with four obelisks.
That is the Obelisk Tomb, and it is a good place to start because it sums up who the Nabataeans were. Below is a Greek-style banqueting hall; above, obelisks that were an Arab way of representing the dead. Two worlds in the same rock.
The Nabataeans were an Arab people, nomads in origin. By the fourth century BC they alrea…
2
The Dam and the Flood
You are at the entrance to the Siq. Look to your right: that retaining wall and the tunnel opening in the rock divert the water of Wadi Musa so it does not enter the gorge. The dam you see is modern, but it reproduces a Nabataean work from two thousand years ago.
In the desert, the danger is not only drought. When it rains in the mountains, the water rushes down the dry riverbeds all at once and becomes a flash flood. The Siq, narrow and deep, is a perfect trap.
The Nabataeans knew it. They built a dam right here and dug a tunnel of about eighty metres to divert the floodwater into another v…
3
A Kilometre of Water
You are inside the Siq. Look up: the walls rise up to eighty metres and at times almost touch. The gorge is just over a kilometre long, and nobody dug it: it was opened by a tectonic movement that split the mountain in two.
Now look at waist height, along the walls. That channel carved into the rock carried water from the springs of Wadi Musa to the centre of the city. In some stretches the water ran through embedded ceramic pipes. On the other side, another channel did the same.
Thanks to systems like this, along with cisterns and dams, Petra had fountains, baths and gardens in the middle o…
4
The Treasury That Was Not a Treasury
You are in front of Al-Khazneh, the Treasury. Take your time: it is one of the most famous views in the world. The facade is about forty metres high and carved out of a single wall of rock, with columns, pediments, statues and an urn at the very top.
Now look carefully at that urn: it is full of holes. They are bullet marks. For generations, the Bedouin believed there was hidden treasure inside, perhaps a pharaoh's, and shot at it to break it open. That is where the name comes from. The urn is solid: there was never anything inside.
In fact, this was a monumental tomb, probably of the Nabata…
5
The City of the Dead
You are on the Street of Facades. Look to your left: a row of tombs carved into the rock, one beside the other, with stepped crowns that look like battlements. Some are at ground level; others several metres higher.
Those steps are typically Nabataean. Many historians link them to the architecture of Mesopotamia and Arabia, before the Greek influence of the Treasury arrived. They are older, simpler tombs.
Hundreds of carved tombs are known in Petra. For a long time, visitors believed the city was only that: a gigantic necropolis. The houses, by contrast, were built of stone, and they collaps…
6
A Theatre That Cut Through Tombs
You are in front of the theatre of Petra. Look at the tiers: they are not built, they are carved directly into the hillside, in a semicircle. It is estimated that several thousand spectators could fit, perhaps up to around eight thousand.
Now look at the highest part, behind the last row. You will see square openings cut in half: they are older tombs. To make the theatre, the Nabataeans dug straight through the tombs of their ancestors.
The theatre was carved around the first century AD, in the time of King Aretas IV. It follows a Roman model, but the Nabataeans made it before Rome annexed t…
7
From Royal Tomb to Church
You are on the terrace of the Urn Tomb, the first of the so-called Royal Tombs. Look down: the arches supporting the terrace were built to enlarge the space. And look inside: a huge room with wavy colours like natural marble.
We do not know for certain whom these tombs belonged to. Their size and their position, overlooking the whole city, suggest they were for kings or the most powerful families. One hypothesis attributes this one to Malichus II, one of the last Nabataean kings.
Look at the back wall of the room. In 446, when Petra was already a Christian city of the Byzantine Empire, this …
8
When Rome Arrived
You are on the colonnaded street, the main avenue of Petra. Look at the paving slabs, the column bases on either side, the steps leading up to the temples. Merchants, priests and officials walked here almost two thousand years ago.
This street has the shape it has because of Rome. In 106, the emperor Trajan annexed the Nabataean kingdom without any major known war and turned it into the province of Arabia. Petra became just another city of the empire.
At first it remained prosperous. But trade routes began to change: more and more goods arrived by the Red Sea and Egypt, or from the north, th…
9
The Temple Nobody Saw
You are at the Great Temple. Walk around it slowly: a great staircase, a lower courtyard with colonnades, an upper courtyard and, in the centre, a building with columns more than fifteen metres high. Inside there is something unexpected: a small theatre.
This place is not a tomb cut into the rock: it is a built structure, stone on stone. That is why for centuries it lay buried under earthquake rubble and few suspected its size.
Systematic excavations began in 1993, led by a team from Brown University in the United States together with the Jordanian authorities. They lasted many years and rev…
10
The Goddess of the Lions
You are at the Temple of the Winged Lions, on the northern slope. Today it is low walls and broken columns. Its name comes from the capitals found here, decorated with winged lions.
It was probably dedicated to a goddess. Many specialists think of al-Uzza, one of the great female deities of the Arabs before Islam, whom the Nabataeans associated with Aphrodite or Isis. But the identification is not certain.
Archaeologists also found workshops around the temple: remains of metalworking, stonework and painting. And an inscription that made it possible to date part of the building to the time of…
11
The Palace of Pharaoh's Daughter
You are in front of the Qasr al-Bint. Look at the building: a massive block of stone more than twenty metres high, with a great staircase and an altar in front. It is the most important temple of Nabataean Petra and one of the few built structures still standing.
Its full name, in Bedouin tradition, is Qasr al-Bint Firaun: the palace of Pharaoh's daughter. A local legend said a pharaoh's daughter lived here. It has nothing to do with real history, but it shows how later inhabitants tried to explain ruins they did not understand.
In fact, it was probably the sanctuary of Dushara, the chief go…
12
The Monastery That Was Not a Monastery
You have reached the Monastery, Ad Deir. Catch your breath and look at the facade: it is about forty-five metres high and nearly fifty wide. It is larger than the Treasury, more austere, and carved at the top of the mountain, far from everything.
To get an idea of the scale, look at the doorway: it is about eight metres high. And the urn on top, which looks small from below, is around ten metres tall.
The name Monastery comes from crosses carved on the interior walls, from the Byzantine period, when hermits may have lived here. But the building is much older. It was probably carved in the fi…
13
The End of the World and the Swiss in Disguise
You are at the viewpoint. Look west: the mountains plunge down towards the Wadi Araba valley, the great rift running from the Dead Sea to the Red Sea. On clear days you can see the lands of the Negev in the distance. The signs call it, with some exaggeration, the end of the world.
From here you can also see, to the south-west, a peak with a small white building: it is Jebel Harun, where tradition places the tomb of Aaron, the brother of Moses. That tomb is the key to how Petra reappeared on the maps of Europe.
In August 1812 a young Swiss man, Johann Ludwig Burckhardt, arrived in this area. …
How long does the "Petra: the Rose City Nobody Knew Existed" audio tour take?
It has about 24 minutes of audio across 13 stops and a 9 km walking route (~2 h 15 min on foot). Plan roughly 2 h 45 min in total, or split it up: you can pause and resume anytime.
Where does the tour start?
At stop 1, "The Blocks of the Spirits" (coordinates 30.3216, 35.4635). The app guides you from stop to stop with a map.
Is it free?
Trevurs is a free app for iOS and Android. There is also an optional Premium version, from USD 1.99, with unlimited offline downloads, access to every tour and no ads. It also helps keep an independent app alive.
Why use an audio tour instead of a guided group tour?
No group to keep up with and no guide to wait for. Start at any time of day, on your own schedule. Go at your own pace: pause, rewind or skip any stop. No need to commit 2 or 3 hours to a single tour: do one stop or the whole route. Works offline once downloaded.
What languages is this audio guide available in?
This tour is available in Spanish, English, Portuguese, French, Italian. Switch languages anytime from inside the app.
Do I need wifi to listen to this tour?
No. Download the tour over wifi before you go, then listen without any data connection.
How do I access this tour?
Download Trevurs on iPhone (App Store) or Android (Google Play), then open Petra and pick "Petra: the Rose City Nobody Knew Existed". No account required to start.
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No wifi needed · Spanish, English, Portuguese, French, Italian
