Petra Site Features

Petra's architecture blends Hellenistic, Assyrian, Roman, and Egyptian influences into something distinctly Nabataean -- a fusion that reflects the city's position at the crossroads of ancient trade routes rather than any single cultural tradition.

Most of Petra's most famous structures, including the Treasury, are rock-cut -- carved directly into sandstone cliff faces from the top down, rather than built up from a foundation, an approach that left the facades structurally part of the mountain itself. Elsewhere in the city, more conventional free-standing buildings, temples, and colonnaded streets were constructed from quarried stone.

Just as significant as the carved monuments is Petra's water engineering -- an extensive system of channels, dams, and cisterns captured and distributed the region's scarce rainfall, making it possible for a substantial population to live year-round in an otherwise inhospitable desert canyon.

El-Khazneh

The Treasury (or El-Khazneh) features an intricately carved facade filled with Nabataean gods and mythological figures -- Medusa heads, the horse-like figures of Pollux and Castor, winged Victories, and dancing Amazons. Roughly 800 individual monuments are scattered through Petra in total, lining streets of temples, arched gateways, baths, tombs, and funerary halls carved from the same sandstone. The square in front of El-Khazneh's facade also served as a filming location for Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

Nearby, in the same courtyard, are the Bab Al-Siq Triclinium and the Obelisk Tomb -- the Triclinium a rock-cut chamber lined with carved benches. Further into the city, the Street of Facades, a 3,000-seat Theater, and the Royal and Urn Tombs continue the same pattern. The Royal Tombs are believed to hold Nabataean kings, while the Urn Tomb's small niches lead to individual burial chambers.

The city center

At the center of the archaeological complex are the remnants of the Nymphaeum, a public fountain dedicated to water nymphs, and the Colonnaded Street, which leads to the Temple of the Winged Lions. At its end, the Arched Gate -- a ceremonial entrance of Greco-Roman design -- opens onto the Qasr Al-Bint Temple.

Qasr Al-Bint Temple

With walls rising 23 meters, this is Petra's most important temple, built in honor of Dushara, a deity later associated with the Greek god Dionysus. It holds three interior rooms centered on a stone god-block.

Al-Habees Museum

For more on Nabataean culture, the Al-Habees museum and the nearby Habees High Place are worth the climb. Higher still, the High Place of Sacrifice sits atop Attuf Ridge, one of several elevated monuments scattered through the wider site.

Petra sits within a narrow desert canyon in the mountains east of the Wadi Araba valley, reached through the Siq, a natural gorge in places barely wide enough for two people to pass, its walls rising as high as 80 meters on either side.

The site's defining feature is its sandstone -- banded in shades of red, pink, orange, and white, the same rock that gives the "rose-red city" its name and that the Nabataeans carved their monuments directly into rather than building separately upon.

The modern town of Wadi Musa sits just outside the main archaeological park and serves as the practical base for most visitors, while the wider Petra Archaeological Park extends well beyond the most-visited core, into surrounding hills and valleys most tourists never reach.