The guide warned him of the spiritual significance of the ancient rocks, and a chastened Burkhardt left—but announced his discovery to the world. In the nearly two centuries since, Petra has been molested by visitors ranging from the film crew of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade to tourists from Big Sky, Montana, asking, “Where’s the ladies’ room?'’

The area’s principal water source, Ein Musa (Spring of Moses), is one of the many places where Moses supposedly struck a rock with his staff and extracted water (Exodus 17). Human history in the area dates back to the 8th millennium BC, when farmers settled in this area and put to use the newly developed techniques of agricultural cultivation. By the 6th century BC, the Nabateans, a nomadic Arab tribe, had quietly moved onto land controlled by the Edomites and had begun to profit from the trade between lower Arabia and the Fertile Crescent. Over the next three centuries the Nabatean Kingdom flourished, secure in its easily defended capital.

During this era the Nabateans carved their monumental temples out of the mountains, looking to Egyptian, Greek, and Roman styles tor inspiration. Unique to the Nabateans are the crow-step (staircase) patterns that grace the crowns of many of the memorials. The people of Meda’in Salih (a miniature Petra in Saudi Arabia) claim that the crow-steps so decidedly resemble inverted stairways that, to punish Petra’s wickedness, God threw Petra upside down and turned it to stone.