Petra, the Treasury

The account

You come down through a slot canyon barely wide enough for a camel, the walls a hundred and fifty feet high and pressing close, and then the gorge opens and there it is, glowing pink in the gloom: the Treasury of Petra, forty meters of columns and gods and eagles carved straight into a sheer cliff of rose-red sandstone two thousand years ago. The Nabataeans, the caravan traders who grew rich on frankincense and spice, cut it as a royal tomb, and then their kingdom faded and the desert kept their city secret from the West until a Swiss traveler in disguise walked into it in 1812.

The name is a lie, and a wonderful one. Al-Khazneh means the Treasury, and it is called that because of a Bedouin legend that an ancient Egyptian pharaoh hid a hoard of gold inside the huge stone urn that crowns the facade, far up the cliff. For generations people believed it so fiercely that they shot at the urn, again and again, trying to crack it open and let the gold rain down. You can still see the bullet scars in the stone. The urn, of course, is solid sandstone. There was never any gold in it.

And yet Petra has a habit of proving that the absence of one treasure does not mean the absence of all of them. In 2003, archaeologists discovered an entire set of tombs hidden beneath the Treasury, rooms no one had known were there, under the most photographed monument in the Middle East.

That is the quiet open loop of the rose-red city. The famous treasure of the Treasury was always a myth, an urn full of nothing. But Petra is only a fraction excavated, most of it still locked in the rock and the sand, and even the one building that millions have stood in front of turned out to be hiding chambers underneath. The legend pointed at the wrong place. The city is still full of doors no one has opened.

Known intelligence

• Al-Khazneh, the Treasury, is a great rock-cut tomb carved into the sandstone of Petra in the early 1st century AD under the Nabataean king Aretas IV.
• Its name comes from a Bedouin legend that an Egyptian pharaoh hid treasure in the giant stone urn high on its facade.
• Believers shot at the urn for generations hoping gold would spill out; the bullet scars are still visible, and the urn is solid sandstone.
• In 2003 archaeologists found tombs hidden beneath the Treasury that no one had known were there.

Theories of the hunt

• The "treasure" was always a legend; the Treasury is a tomb, and the urn is solid stone.
• Petra is only partly excavated, and much of the rose-red city still lies buried and unexplored.

Leads, where the trail points now

• The Treasury's urn is solid sandstone with no chamber, but the 2003 discovery of tombs beneath the Treasury shows the monument still hides rooms, so ground-penetrating survey of the area is the live lead.
• Petra as a whole is only a fraction excavated; satellite work, including the 2016 discovery of a huge buried monumental platform, keeps finding new structures.
• Everything is a strictly protected UNESCO site, so this is professional archaeology under Jordanian permit, never private searching.
• New finds come from the Nabataean tombs and the unexplored side valleys at the back of Petra, not the famous facade.

The trail, in order

• early 1st century AD: Al-Khazneh is carved as a royal tomb.
• 19th century: Bedouins name it the Treasury and fire at the urn.
• 1812: the Swiss traveler Burckhardt reveals Petra to the West.
• 2003: hidden tombs are discovered beneath the Treasury.

Sources and the record

• Al-Khazneh (Wikipedia)
• Petra (Lonely Planet)