What-if Wednesday #6

What if Petra had never been abandoned? In 363 CE there was a large earthquake which shook the region and disrupted the ingenious water carrying system which was in place at Raqmu, (what we know as Petra). Another major earthquake in 551 CE caused even more damage, and yet even then people continued to live at Raqmu. It wasn't until almost one hundred years later when it was considered to be truly abandoned.

While is it unknown what caused the final inhabitants to abandon the city, it is speculated that the damage from the earthquakes coupled with the rise of sea trade routes, which drew people away from the overland routes, precipitated in the once great city's decline. The precious water which Raqmu sold to traders was no longer as important, not with its delivery and storage systems damaged, and with the traders traveling elsewhere.

Raqmu also suffered from flash flooding, which the Nabataeans controlled and contained, taming to fill their city with water for agriculture, saved for times of drought, and for sale. It is not hard to imagine how the earthquakes damaged those systems and made the location dangerous to inhabit.

But what if the damage from the earthquakes had been fixed? What if the populace had stayed despite the drop in trade? What if the Nabataean cities continued to thrive? The Nabataeans were masters of collecting water in the desert landscape, creating secret cisterns, and practicing farming techniques unique to the region which allowed their crops to flourish in the desert.

The Nabataeans were also a highly literate people, based on the inscriptions in stone that were left behind at their various locations – though if they wrote on anything else, nothing has survived. And above all else they were master stone carvers, coaxing entire cities out of the rocks, not to mention they used their skills with rocks to carve monuments, build dams, and carve conduits to direct the water. Imagine if there were even more cities carved from stone scattered across the world.