EXHIBITS

Lifestyles of the Lush and Lavish

The Nabataeans of Petra ruled a far-flung trading empire that was fueled by one simple liquid: water

By Eric Powell

Petra: Lost City of Stone

American Museum of Natural History, New York

Through July 6

www.amnh.org/exhibitions/petra

Two panthers peer at each other with teeth bared and limbs taut, ready to pounce. Yet the muscular felines are fated to remain forever immobile, for they form the handles of a three-foot-tall marble vase unearthed near the mountainous desert of Wadi ‘Arabah in southern Jordan. The vase now sits, cracked but still imposing, in a corner of the American Museum of Natural History’s elegant exhibition Petra: Lost City of Stone. The urn most likely graced a luxuriant garden or opulent villa owned by one of Petra’s wealthy residents and later served as a ritual cleansing basin at a Byzantine church destroyed by fire in the sixth century A.D.

How the people of the ancient kingdom of Petra managed to grow verdant gardens amid a landscape of arid sandstone canyons can be summed up in one word: plumbing. Capital of the Nabataeans, a desert people whose name derives from the Arabic verb anbata, “to dig for water,” Petra flourished from the second century B.C. to the second century A.D. on only six inches of rain a year. Life in the rose red city was made possible through a sophisticated water system that supplied 20,000 citizens with 12 million gallons of water a day—enough for an American city of 100,000. Cisterns and reservoirs captured rainwater and kept it separate from springwater, which was brought to the city via terra-cotta pipes. A seven-inch-wide pipe on display at the exhibit resembles modern-day conduits and probably carried about four gallons of water a minute. The gravity-powered system even incorporated filtration centers to purify the water. Hard water ran downward through seven tanks that churned passing water like cataracts in a river, shaking out minerals.

Petra’s water supply fueled more than simple subsistence. One residence even boasted a 140-foot-long, 75-foot-wide, near Olympic-size swimming pool in the backyard. That recently excavated pool—or a digital re-creation of it—is a sample of the conspicuous consumption on view at the exhibit, which brings together artifacts from collections in Jordan, Europe, and the United States and gives a unique look at the wealth and ingenuity of the Nabataeans. The previously nomadic people rose to prominence in the third century B.C., when important Near Eastern trade routes fell under their control. Camel caravans bearing silk from China and spices and gemstones from India all made their way through Petra, entering the city through a winding gorge that led to a spectacular cut-rock facade known as the treasury (which also starred as the home of the Holy Grail in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade). With water fees, tolls, and customs, the Nabataeans could collect, in silver coins, as much as $4,000 in today’s dollars per camel.

More than 3,000 tombs, dwellings, and temples are etched into the sandstone cliffs surrounding Petra, and recent excavations have revealed a caravan of camels carved into the canyon walls. Artifacts at the exhibit include a spectacular column topped with the carved heads of Indian elephants and a huge 2,100-pound sandstone bust of the people’s chief deity, Dushara, the god of water and agriculture. A sculpture of the Greek goddess Nike shows her holding aloft a disk inscribed with the 12 symbols of the zodiac. Probably broken into two pieces during an earthquake in A.D. 363, the exhibit has reunited the two halves for the first time in more than 1,500 years.

Once the Roman Empire took control of the Nabataean kingdom in A.D. 106, Petra’s influence began to wane. The Romans shifted the caravan routes to the north, depriving the city of its major source of income. The A.D. 363 earthquake destroyed parts of the city and seriously disrupted the water supply. Still, the precious liquid continued to play a crucial role long after Petra ceased to be a major center. According to legend, the city was enduring a four-year drought when the Syrian monk Barsauma arrived in A.D. 423. When Barsauma beseeched God to end the drought, a downpour ensued and washed away the city walls. The people of Petra, always dedicated to dependable water supplies, promptly abandoned their old water god, Dushara, and converted to Christianity.