The area around Petra has been inhabited from as early as 7000 BC and became the capital of the Nabatean kingdom around the 4th century BC.
Set within a series of valleys or wadis, the entrance to the city is through a narrow gorge. The first thing you see is the two story facade of Al-Khazneh which is cut into the rock face. The structure may have originally been a temple.
Further is a Roman theater constructed in the early part of the second century CE. The upper part of the seating is cut through an earlier Nabatean street.
The stage, in the Roman style, was erected in front of the auditorium.
A colonnaded street, also Roman, at the eastern end is a fountain fed water by a system running through the Siq. Markets flanked the south side of the colonnade.
Archaeology Study Unit 