Tomb full of skeletons found under the Treasury of Petra

With a film crew, the team excavated the newly discovered tomb in August. But the real surprise was what was inside the tomb. While many tombs discovered inside Petra are empty or altered, the chamber was filled with complete skeletal remains and grave goods made of bronze, iron and pottery. The intact burial found beneath the Treasury provides a rare glimpse into the life of the Nabataeans, ancient Arab nomads whose desert kingdom flourished from the fourth century BC to AD 106, Creasman said.

“This is a very rare discovery: in the two centuries that Petra has been investigated by archaeologists, nothing like it has been found before,” Gates said. “Even in front of one of the most famous buildings in the world … there are still great discoveries to be made.”

The significant find may be the largest collection of human remains found at one site inside Petra, according to researchers, and was featured in the season premiere of “Expedition Unknown” on Wednesday. (Discovery Channel is owned by CNN’s parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery.)

Petra was voted one of the New Seven Wonders of the World in the 2000s for its unique architecture and the many mysteries that still surround the city. While experts have debated the Treasury’s purpose for centuries, the most popular theory is that the monument served as a mausoleum, although no skeletal remains have been found inside the building, Gates said.

The Treasury receives hundreds of thousands of tourists a year and has also been featured in several movies, most notably as the site of the Holy Grail in the 1989 film “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.”

Among the artifacts were several vessels, with a skeleton found holding a ceramic chalice that resembled the shape of the Holy Grail. “It was really this great moment in history imitating art,” Gates said.

The artifacts are extremely well preserved, Creasman said. However, the human remains, although intact, are in a more delicate form than expected. Its condition may be the result of humidity and seasonal flooding in Petra, as well as the porous sandstone surrounding the tomb that has trapped moisture, he said. Some of the skeletons were found with mold.

Only a handful of tombs discovered in Petra in recent decades have been found to contain green burials, Creasman said. He added that the serious disturbances were probably due to travelers seeking shade and protection in the desert.

The two tombs discovered below the left side of the Treasury two decades ago by archaeologists from the Jordanian Department of Antiquities had partial skeletal remains, but the data was not released, so it is unclear how many individuals were found, he said Creasman.

“We were hoping to find anything that could tell us more about the ancient people and place — human remains can be a really valuable tool in that regard,” Creasman said. “The burials in this grave are articulated, so the bones haven’t been shuffled and moved, so that’s extremely rare.”

One mystery that remains surrounding the Nabataeans is their burial practices. In literature, Nabataean society is often described as more egalitarian, with the king more integrated with the lower classes than leaders in other civilizations, Creasman said. From the Nabataean tombs found so far, there doesn’t seem to be much of a difference between royal and regular burials, so it’s hard to say whether the recently discovered tombs under the Treasury were designed for royalty.

The researchers also suspect that many of the textiles and jewelry commonly found in Nabataean burials, such as cloth wrappings and necklaces and other beads adorning the bodies, were lost due to moisture and seepage into the grave, Gates said.

As researchers continue to study the skeletons, Creasman said they hope more details about who the people were in life will come to light. Researchers would like it dating the skeletons and artifacts, as well as using the extracted DNA to determine if the dozen skeletons are related. Other tests can help assess their diets and find out if they were physically active, Creasman said.

“They must be very important people, because where they are buried there is prime real estate; it really is the main entrance to the city,” Gates said. “I think knowing who they really are will help unlock some of the history of the Treasury.”