Johann Ludwig Burckhardt and the discovery of Petra

On August 22, 1812, Swiss traveller Johann Ludwig Burckhardt became the first European to witness the Nabataean city of Petra since the Crusades. An excerpt from the article:

"On August 22, 1812, Swiss traveler and orientalist Johann Ludwig Burckhardt, in the disguise of an arab traveler discovered the ruins of the ancient city of Petra, one of the most compelling archaeological sites in existence, in today’s Jordan.

Petra – Location and Meaning
Petra is located east of the Arabah, half way between the Gulf of Aqaba and the Dead Sea at an altitude between 800 and 1350 m in a wide basin in the mountains of Edom. . Its location caused several religious rumors, fact is only that many caravans came to Petra in order to exchange luxury goods and medicine. Its history is highly connected with the Empire of the Nabateans, the first Arabic Empire in history. From 9000 BC, the city is known to be permanently settled and during the 4th century BC, the Nabateans have become so wealthy through trades that they managed to avoid several conquest attempts. Stable housing followed in the century after along with the most flourishing period of the city. Rabell II was the last King of the Nabateans and was defeated by Tajan in 106 AD. Thanks to its strategic location at the crossroads of several caravan routes connecting Egypt with Syria and southern Arabia with the Mediterranean Sea, the city was an important trading centre from the 5th century BC to the 3rd century AD. In particular, Petra controlled an important junction of the incense road. Petra’s influence rapidly decreased and during the 12th century, two castles were built in the city. They were supposed to be defended against Saladin, but it was hopeless.

The advantages of the special topography were added to the traffic-technically favourable location. On the one hand Petra lies hidden and well protected between rugged rock faces. The village is only accessible from the northwest via a narrow mountain path or from the east via a 1.5 kilometre long and 70 metre deep gorge, the Siq (shaft), which is only 2 metres wide at its narrowest point. The close connection of rock and water in the region gave rise to the legend that Petra was the place where Moses, during the exodus of the people of Israel from Egypt, made a spring bubble out of the stone with the blow of his staff. The region around Petra therefore bears the name Wadi Musa (Valley of Moses). The fact is that the Nabataeans, with their skills in water management, created an artificial oasis and thus an essential prerequisite for the city’s prosperity and growth. As the Nabataeans themselves have called their capital city, it is still not possible to clarify without any doubt. According to a not completely certain testimony, the Antiquitates Judaicae of Flavius Josephus, their name was Reqem, Reqmu or Rakmu (English: “the Red”), which could have been an allusion to the reddish colouring of the sandstone of Petra. The Old Testament mentions a place in Edom called Sela in the Book of Judges (1,36) and in the 2nd Book of Kings (14,7). It is controversial, however, whether this place is identical with the Nabataean metropolis, which is testified by Strabo and Pliny the Elder for the time after 169 BC under the Greek name Petra, which also means “rock“.[4]

Johann Ludwig Burckhardt
No European had entered Petra since the time of the Crusades. Around 1800, only a few scholars rumouredly knew of a legendary “city cut out of the rock” in the Middle East. In 1812, the Swiss Oriental traveller Johann Ludwig Burckhardt (also Jean Louis Burckhardt) rediscovered the interest for the legendary city. Burckhardt was born on 24 November 1784 in Lausanne, Switzerland to a wealthy Basel family of silk merchants, the Burckhardt family. After studying at the universities of Leipzig and Göttingen, he travelled to England in the summer of 1806 with goal of obtaining employment in the civil service. Unsuccessful, he took employment with the African Association with the objective of resolving some of the problems of the course of the Niger River. The expedition called for an overland journey from Cairo to Timbuktu. To prepare for the journey, he attended Cambridge University and studied Arabic, science and medicine. At this time he also began to adopt Arabian costume. In 1809 he left England and travelled to Aleppo, Syria to perfect his Arabic and Muslim customs. En route to Syria, he stopped in Malta and learned of Ulrich Jasper Seetzen who had left Cairo in search of the lost city of Petra and had subsequently been murdered. Once in Syria, he adopted the moniker Sheikh Ibrahim Ibn Abdallah to hide his true European identity."