It is a vast, unique city, carved into the sheer rock face by the Nabataeans, an industrious Arab people who settled here more than 2000 years ago, turning it into an important junction for the silk, spice and other trade routes that linked China, India and southern Arabia with Egypt, Syria, Greece and Rome.
In this city The Nabataeans have built temples and tombs, houses and halls, altars and aquaducts. The city reached its peak about 2,000 years ago with a population estimated at 20,000 inhabitants. In time, after the Roman annexation, the caravan trade petered out. Although the city was occupied in the Middle Ages, it was hit by a series of earthquakes and was eventually abandoned. The most famous remains of Petra are undoubtedly its buildings carved into the same rock of the Valley (hemispeos), in particular, the buildings known as the Khazneh (the Treasury) and the Deir ("the monastery").
Petra, which means "stone" in Greek, is perhaps the most spectacular ancient city remaining in the modern world, and certainly a "must-see" for visitors to Jordan and the Middle East. Petra is inscribed on the World Heritage list of UNESCO since 1985, and since 2007 is part of the new seven wonders of the world. Also, the stone town was chosen by the Smithsonian Magazine as one of the "28 Places to See Before You Die".
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