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Archaeologists Discover 116-Meter Lead Aqueduct In Situ at Petra
For years, Petra’s water system was described as practical, efficient, mostly gravity-driven. That picture just shifted. On the slopes of Jabal al-Madhbah, archaeologists have identified a 116-meter pressurized lead pipeline preserved in situ — a feature rarely documented in open-air aqueduct corridors in the eastern Mediterranean. The find sits within a 2,500-square-meter survey zone and…
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Petra’s “Back Door”? Excavations at Umm Huwaiwitat Reveal Layers of History From the 6th Millennium BC to the Roman Era
Archaeologists working above Wadi al Ghurab, on Petra’s western edge, are uncovering evidence of a complex settlement history stretching back more than 8,000 years. The site, known as Umm Huwaiwitat (“the place of walls” in local Bedouin dialect), may once have served as a secondary gateway to Petra—a hypothesis based on its rock-cut path, commanding…