Burckhardt Reaches Petra

In August 1812, the Swiss explorer Johann Ludwig Burckhardt became the first European in centuries to reach Petra, the rose-red Nabataean city hidden in the mountains of what is now southern Jordan. His brief visit brought the site to Western attention and set off a wave of interest that turned Petra into one of the most celebrated archaeological sites in the world.

Petra had once been a major center of caravan trade. The Nabataeans, an Arab people, grew wealthy from the commerce in incense, spices and other goods moving between Arabia and the Mediterranean, and they carved elaborate tombs and temples into the sandstone cliffs. The Romans annexed the Nabataean kingdom in 106 AD, and Petra continued as a provincial city for some time. Changing trade routes, earthquakes and shifting political fortunes gradually reduced its importance. The Crusaders built a few outposts in the region in the twelfth century, but by the later Middle Ages Petra was largely unknown to Europeans, though local Bedouin communities never forgot it.

Burckhardt was working for the African Association, a London-based group that sponsored exploration. He had studied Arabic in Britain and in Aleppo, where he lived for several years, adopting Muslim dress and the name Sheikh Ibrahim ibn Abdallah. Traveling south from Syria toward Egypt, he heard local reports of ancient ruins near the tomb of Aaron, a site venerated in the area. Wary of arousing suspicion, he said he wished to sacrifice a goat at the tomb, which gave him a reason to be guided through the valley. His guide grew impatient, and Burckhardt was able to see only a limited portion of the site, including the Treasury and the theater, and he could not make detailed notes or drawings.

He nonetheless recognized what he had seen as probably the lost city of Petra, and he described it in his account of travels in Syria, published after his death. He died in Cairo in 1817, still in his early thirties, before he could return. Some details of his identification were tentative, but later visitors confirmed his judgment.

In the following decades, travelers, artists and scholars followed him. The paintings and lithographs of David Roberts in the 1830s made the monuments famous across Europe, and Petra became a fixture in Victorian imagination. Systematic archaeology followed in the twentieth century. Petra was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1985 and is now Jordan's most visited attraction. Burckhardt's visit is often described as a "discovery," though the site was never truly lost to the people who lived nearby.