The Nabataean Arabs, one of the most gifted peoples of the ancient world, are today known only for their hauntingly beautiful rock-carved capital - Petra, a magnificent city carved out of the mountains, and one of the most breath-taking achievements of the ancient world. Yet they were famous in their day - Herod the Great and his sons, and a kaleidoscope of Roman emperors and generals were keenly aware of this powerful and wealthy trading kingdom. The Nabateans became inspired patrons of the arts, creating some of the most sublime and perfectly individual architecture of the time, not only at Petra, but over much of the Middle East. This richly illustrated book recounts the story of a remarkable but lost civilization. It tells of their nomadic origins, the development of their rich culture in Jordan, Syria, Arabia, Sinai and the Negev, their relations with their more famous neighbours and the demise of their kingdom at the hands of the Romans.

The very scale of their achievement is breathtaking but beyond mere scale is their creative vision, for they transformed the living rock of Petra into an enduring architectural masterpiece.".

For more than four centuries the ancient kingdom of Petra, with its magnificent temples and rock-cut tombs, flourished at the intersection of two major trade routes running from Syria to the Red Sea and from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean. The Romans absorbed Petra into their empire in 106 A.D., and in 363 A.D. an earthquake left the city in ruins, forgotten in the West until European explorers rediscovered it in the 19th century. Today--largely as a result of the astonishing finds from ongoing archaeological excavations--this beautiful site has become one of the most visited tourist destinations in the Middle East. Petra Rediscovered brings us the discoveries from those excavations, in a spectacular volume that accompanies a major traveling exhibition on the history and art of this evocative ancient city. Vibrantly illustrated with on-site photography--most newly shot for this book--Petra Rediscovered presents the latest archaeological revelations and scholarly research on the city and the Nabataean people. Essays in lively prose by archaeologists who have worked at Petra and researched the art, objects, and inscriptions found there will fascinate history and archaeology buffs, art lovers, and travelers, who will be newly inspired to visit this spectacular site.

While Petra’s fame might often come second to things like the Egyptian pyramids at Giza, ancient Greece, or the Great Wall of China, you can now see that the Rose City certainly deserves its place under the Sun as one of the most precious jewels of our collective, human heritage. Petra surely has a surplus of beauty and other kinds of visual appeal, but you can now see that this is only half of the picture. Our world is filled to the brim with such wonders, bestowed upon us by countless different cultures from every corner of the planet. Some are older or more renowned than others, but all remnants of civilizations of the past have one thing in common: they tell us invaluable stories. These are stories of lives led by people who seem infinitely distant from our perspective but might have as well lived yesterday as far as the grand scheme of time is concerned. They might have had a different outlook and daily life, but the essence of humanity remains fundamentally unchanged.

The Nabataeans were ancient peoples of Arabia, whose civilization was headquartered at Petra, 'the rose red city half as old as time'. Their loosely controlled trading network covered the borderland between Syria and Arabia, from the Euphrates to the Red Sea. Incredibly wealthy from trade, they were significant regional players. Herod Antipas, for example, was married to a Nabataean princess. The Roman emperor Trajan annexed the Nabataean kingdom in the beginning of the 2nd century ad. Their distinct culture, easily identified by their characteristic finely-potted painted ceramics, became dispersed in the general Greco-Roman culture and was eventually lost. "The book is not intended as a substitute for any of the commercially available guidebooks on Petra. Instead it is meant to help the reader understand the whys, wherefores and whens of these fascinating people," explains the author. "What I wanted was a book that would relate Petra and Madain Saleh to the Nabataeans' story in terms of present day scholarship. The problem with Nabataean history is that they left no records of their own and a lot of scholarly research is simply well informed educated guess work that has had to be revised several times." This new title will be published on the 200th anniversary of the first European to describe the historic Nabataean site of Petra by the Swiss traveller Johann Ludwig Burckhardt. What makes this book unique is that it will provide a popular and accessible account of the two major Nabataean sites: Petra in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan as well as its important sister city of Madain Saleh in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Both are UNESCO World Heritage sites, and the author knows them intimately. This book will provide visitors to both the Saudi Arabian and Jordanian sites more substance than found in a guidebook of listings and pictures. It should also appeal to students and anyone with an interest in one of the last great puzzles of history.

The aim of this book is to explore the history and culture of the Nabataeans, using the inscriptions not just as a complement to ilustrate the text but as a primary source of information. It is based on the conviction that the inscriptions can be enjoyed not only by the specialists but also by those who are curious and want to learn about them.