Petra

Cave tomb at Petra, in southwest Jordan. Petra was an ancient city, with many dwellings and tombs carved into the distinctively veined sandstone cliffs. It was the capital of the Nabataean civilization from 312 BC until AD 106, when the Nabataeans were defeated by the Romans.

Ancient city carved out of the red rock at a site in Jordan, on the eastern slopes of the Wadi el Araba, 90 km/56 mi south of the Dead Sea. An Edomite stronghold and capital of the Nabataeans in the 2nd century, it was captured by the Roman emperor Trajan in 106 and destroyed by the Arabs in the 7th century. It was forgotten in Europe until 1812 when the Swiss traveller Johann Ludwig Burckhardt (1784–1817) came across it.