Celebrating Petra’s storied past
The Monastery in the ancient city of Petra. (Tim Barker/LPI/Getty) Exactly 200 years ago this month, 27-year-old Swiss explorer Jean Louis Burckhardt became the first Western tourist of modern times to visit the ancient city of Petra – the three-millennia-old capital of the Nabataeans. Burckhardt was the Indiana Jones of his day – learning Arabic and adopting the name Sheikh Ibrahim Ibn Abdallah, he spent much of his life traveling around the Middle East in disguise, visiting ancient sites and scribbling down notes as he went. Hearing stories about a ruined city hidden in the canyons at Wadi Musa, Burckhardt hired a local guide and said that he wanted to pay a visit to the tomb of the prophet Aaron, conveniently located on the far side of the city. Passing through Petra, Burckhardt pretended he had little interest in the heathen monuments around him – but his guides caught him admiring the ruins and, suspecting that he was a treasure robber, hastened their journey. As ...