With its striking red sandstone buildings , the city ofPetrainJordan is one of the man ’s most famous ancient wonder . expert are still learning about the metropolis to this day , which was set up sometime during the mid 2nd century BCE by an Arab kin call the Nabateans , abandoned during the 7th century CE , and rediscover by adventurer Johann Burckhardt in 1812 .
According toNational Geographic , archaeologists lately discovered a massive monument at Petra that circumvent other diggers for age . It sit in unpatterned spate , half a mile south from the urban center ’s centre — but it took Google Earth , high - resolution satellite imagery , and aerial lagger photography to spot it . The findwas recently publishedin the journalBulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research .
The building , NatGeo account , is as long as an Olympic - size swim pool and twice as all-encompassing . It consists of several contribution : a large , 184 - by-161 - substructure weapons platform understructure surround a smaller , flagstone - paved platform on which alarge , eastern United States - facing staircase crowned by a row of columns once put up . A 28 - square - foot complex body part , which sit down atop the interior program , once faced the stairs .
Excavators found clayware dating from the mid second century BCE , indicate that the social system was build during Petra ’s other age , as the Nabataeans first depart construct public buildings .
" We know it ’s big , it ’s pregnant , it ’s important . It in all probability would have had some kind of a public affair , ” archaeologist Sarah Parcaktold NPR . She discovered the complex body part along with Christopher Tuttle , executive theater director of the Council of American Overseas Research Centers . “ Could it be used for religious design ? Was it some sort of public administrative structure ? I wish well I knew . "
Parcakis a prominent “ space archaeologist ” who uses satellite simulacrum taken by cameras century of international mile above Earth to discover lost site . She ’s used this sophisticated applied science to search the Canadian coastline forpotential Viking sites , and to scour Egypt for lose urban center , temples , and tombs . This metre around , she wanted to see for likely newfangled feature at Petra .
Parcak earlier dismissed satellite mental imagery of the large structure , but she informed Tuttle , who was carry groundwork at Petra , about the find . He finish up finding the site ’s foundations and column bases .
The memorial ’s existence surprise Parcak , who enjoin NPR that she “ thought that maybe we ’d incur some lowly stone structures or roadstead , but we did n’t retrieve at all that we would find anything declamatory just because Petra is a World Heritage Site and it ’s been work on intensively for about 200 days . ”
Tuttle , who ’s investigated Petra for 20 years , was a fiddling less shocked . “ I knew thatsomethingwas there , but it ’s for sure legitimate to call this a breakthrough , ” he toldNational Geographic .
[ h / tNational Geographic ]
