The veil of mystery surrounding the Treasury Monument in Petra, Jordan has been lifted once again.
Beneath an ancient building carved out of rock, archaeologists discovered a hidden tomb containing 12 relatively well-preserved human bones and a vast array of grave offerings.
A similar tomb was discovered more than 20 years ago opposite the famous Treasury Building, also known as Al-Khazneh, one of the Seven Wonders of the World and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Earlier this year, a team of researchers received permission from Jordanian authorities to conduct a week of remote sensing in and around the Treasury, a city center hand-carved into the walls of a desert canyon by the Nabatean people.
“There was always the idea that there might be more graves, but no one has yet been found,” Richard Bates, a geophysicist and professor at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, said in an email. “The hope was to find an intact grave.”
A joint Jordanian-American team, which also included the Jordanian Department of Antiquities and the Amman-based nonprofit American Research Center, used ground-penetrating radar to detect the cavity and pinpoint its location and depth. Instead of digging straight through, which would have cut through solid rock and damaged parts of the building, Bates said they carefully dug by hand into the cavity from the outside.
Kindly provided by Professor Richard Bates, University of St Andrews
Inside, in the original burial site, are 12 human bones, one of which is clutching the top of a broken pitcher, most likely dating from the 1st century BC. Bates said the bodies likely included both men and women and ranged in age from children to adults. Although that is not confirmed yet.
“No complete burial has ever been found here before, so this discovery could potentially tell us more about the Nabataean kingdom,” Bates said.
The discovery could also provide new insights into the Treasury itself, whose purpose is still unknown.
“Despite its fame, the Treasury Department remains a mystery to us in many ways,” Pierce Paul Creesman, director of the Center for American Studies, said in an email. “Anything we can do to understand it more deeply is important.”
Visited by more than 1 million visitors a year, the Treasury is the most famous of Petra’s iconic monuments. In Steven Spielberg’s 1989 film Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, it was featured as the resting place of the Holy Grail in the film.
The newly uncovered tomb excavation was featured in a two-part episode of the American reality television series Expedition Unknown, which aired on the Discovery Channel.
Bates said there are signs of other cavities in the area that could be graves.
“It’s very likely that more will be discovered, so we need to get the funding back and continue the research,” he said.
Source: www.nbcnews.com
