Petra was founded by Nabatean tribe in nine eighteenth dynasty of Egypt by the King Aretas IV as the city that are difficult to be attacked by enemy and secure from natural disasters such as sandstorms. Petra was the capital of the kingdom, which was built with an elaborate irrigation system and a theater that holds 4000 people.The site remained unknown to the Western world until 1812, when it was introduced by the Swiss explorer Johann Ludwig Burckhardt. It was described as "a rose-red city half as old as time" in a Newdigate prize-winning sonnet by John William Burgon. UNESCO has described it as "one of the most precious cultural properties of man's cultural heritage.
