Investigating ancient dams in Petra's northern hinterland with ground-penetrating radar

Abstract

The ancient city of Petra (in Jordan) has captured the imagination for nearly a century in popular media, as witnessed by Agatha Christie's 1938 novel Appointment with Death, and films such as Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) and, most recently, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009) (Figure 1 and Figure 2). A UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1985, Petra was also elected in 2007 as one of the “New Seven Wonders of the World.” As this famed archaeological site celebrates the 200th anniversary of its western re-identification by Swiss explorer Johann Ludwig Burckhardt in 1812, a variety of research is underway to gain fresh insight into how this ancient trading hub successfully sustained a population of more than 20,000 residents in an arid, desert environment, some 2000 years ago.

We wanted to take real information: public engagement and regional survey at Petra, Jordan

“…The landscape is currently crisscrossed by thousands of meters of terrace walls constructed mostly in the Nabataean-and Roman-period floruite of Petra (see Fig. 2), designed to catch water running down the slopes of the Shara and distribute it through the soils (Urban et al 2013). We also documented numerous cisterns and systems of rock-cut channels throughout the hinterland, some of which have been modified or rebuilt and remain in use today.…”