Early Exploration and Excavation of Petra
After
years of decline punctuated by a disastrous earthquake of A.D.363,
the site of Petra slowly diminished in size and importance and
was eventually
forgotten to the Western world. The first Westerner to see Petra since
the Middle Ages was a Swiss explorer named Johann Burckhardt.
Burckhardt heard of nearby “antiquities” while on a journey from
Syria to Egypt. Having spent years mastering the language and customs of the
Arabs with whom he lived, he was uniquely suited to pass through the areas
of the Transjordan controlled by people who were traditionally hostile to outsiders.
By 1812, he was able to get close to the site by passing himself as a Syrian
peasant on a pilgrimage to nearby Biblical sites—a wish to see Petra
out of historical curiosity would have aroused dangerous suspicion among the
local people. After only a cursory inspection of the site, he was able to surmise
that he had likely found the ruins of the ancient city of Petra.
After he returned to Cairo, word of Burkhardt’s find began to spread
throughout the European community of scholars and adventurers. Only six years
after Burckhardt’s first visit, other Westerners began to arrive in larger
numbers. The next European expedition was a much larger one: four Englishmen
were joined in Jerusalem by five other men, forming a huge caravan. After five
days of tense negotiations between local tribal leaders, the travelers were
allowed two days in the city of Petra, which they used to draw pictures, copy
inscriptions, and write a ten thousand-word description of the site. The makeup
and methods of this expedition would be common to most expeditions to Petra
in the nineteenth century.
The site received sporadic visits from tourists and scholars for years, but
it was not until the twentieth century that it became frequently visited, explored,
and cataloged. In 1904 the first extensive catalogue and analysis of Petra
was made by Ernst Brünnow and Alfred von Domaszewski, and many of their
categorizations are still used today.
In 1937, Dr. Nelson Glueck from Cincinnati’s Hebrew Union College excavated
Khirbet et-Tannur, a site some seventy kilometers north of Petra and near the
Dead Sea. The pieces uncovered there would later form the foundation of the
Cincinnati Art Museum’s exceptional Nabataean collection. Since Glueck’s
time dozens of teams from all over the world have worked at Petra, representing
institutions ranging from Brown University to the American Center of Oriental
Research in Amman. While it is believed that only 5 percent of the site has
been excavated to date, the analysis of these archeological finds have laid
the groundwork for the study of a civilization which is only beginning to be
understood by modern scholars.
Conservation and Protection of Petra Today
The dangers that the original inhabitants of Petra faced around
the turn of the first millennium are not those that threaten the
site today. Although the city was, at one time, essentially lost
to all but the local Bedoul tribes, its “rediscovery” in
1812 has drawn increasing waves of tourists. Although the Bedoul
peoples used the tombs as dwellings and cowsheds until Petra was
declared a World Heritage site in 1985, the real threat to maintaining
Petra for future generations has been local and international tourism.
By the mid-1990s, the site received four hundred thousand visitors
yearly, although that number has recently declined owing to local
political tensions.
Tourism at Petra can be a double-edged sword because, although
more visitors make conservation more of a priority, vandalism,
litter, and other problems associated with increased traffic pose
new threats to the site. In the last twenty years, many projects
have been undertaken by the Jordanian government and outside agencies
to preserve the site. Among the more successful conservation efforts
is one that has dealt with the infrastructure needed to serve the
tourism industry, which generates one billion dollars annually
and is essential to the local economy. In 1996, a $27 million plan
was set up to create an adequate drainage system and a new road
network to replace the one currently clogged with buses and taxis.
In addition, the Petra National Trust has commissioned a Swiss
company to create a series of dams on the site in an effort to
prevent possibly lethal flash flooding. Also, pine and olive trees
have been replanted and ancient terraces have been restored to
better manage torrential rainfalls. Local residences, vendors,
and businesses are being encouraged to move further away from the
site, creating a buffer between Petra and the local economy.
In more recent years, the Jordanian government has taken very seriously
their commitment to preserve this valuable historical site, considered
by many Jordanians to be a priceless national treasure. For long-term
restoration and conservation of the actual monuments, a German-Jordanian
consortium has created the Conservation and Restoration Center
in Petra (CARCIP) to provide permanent, on-site preservationists,
architects, and stonecutters whose sole responsibility is the upkeep
and protection of the site.
