When you purchase through tie-in on our site , we may earn an affiliate commissioning . Here ’s how it run .
archaeologist have divulge a 2,000 - year - old grave containing 12 frame beneath the " Treasury " in the ancient city of Petra in Jordan .
In Arabic , the Treasury is know as " Al - Khazneh , " which translates to " the treasury of the pharaoh . " The precise purpose of the Treasury is unclear , but it may have been a mausoleum for the Nabataean business leader Aretas IV Philopatris . Film buffs may remember it as the site where the " Holy Grail " — the loving cup that Jesus is said to have used during the Last Supper — was find in the 1989 movie " Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade . "
Josh Gates, the host of “Expedition Unknown,” along with Pearce Paul Creasman and Matthew Vincent, archaeologists with the American Center of Oriental Research, dig in front of the Treasury at Petra.
While turn up the grave , archaeologists lately unearthed the remains of pottery that was buried with the individuals . They find that one of the skeletal system was hold a ceramic vessel resembling a chalice , allot to astatementfrom the University of St Andrews in Scotland .
Sediments and materials from the burials date to sometime between the mid - first century B.C. and the former second 100 A.D. , according to an analysis byTim Kinnaird , a enquiry ship’s officer at the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of St Andrews .
It ’s not clear who these 12 people were , and research into the tomb and its remains are ongoing .
Archaeologists unearth a ceramic chalice in a tomb beneath the Treasury in Petra.
Related:31 ancient temple from around the world , from Göbekli Tepe to the Parthenon
Filling in the gaps
The grave was discover during remote perception study carried out byRichard Bates , a geophysicist at the University of St Andrews .
" The discovery is of international significance as very few complete burials from the former Nabataeans have ever been recovered from Petra before , " Bates said in the assertion . " The burials , their goods , and the human remain can all be expected to help oneself take the gaps of our cognition in how Petra come to be and who the [ Nabataeans ] were . "
The Nabataeans flourished in southerly Jordan around 2,000 years ago . Caravan routes journey through their kingdom and Petra became a major metropolis with breathless computer architecture . The Romans took control of their kingdom during the second hundred A.D. and Petra declined subsequently , harmonise to theAmerican Museum of Natural History .
When the remains of a tomb were discover , an digging plan was drawn up by Jordan ’s Department of Antiquities and the American Center of Oriental Research . Discovery Channel also stomach the excavation and grow a documentary about it , which late aired in the TV series " Excavation Unknown . "
Laurent Tholbecq , a prof at the Archaeology and Heritage Research Center at the Free University of Brussels who was not involved with the research , told Live Science that " two similar tombs were hollow beside this one by the Department of Antiquities of Jordan about twenty eld ago . "
The newly fall upon tomb , which must be former than the Treasury , will help provide a date of the Treasury itself , which has long been a matter of debate , he say .
The " geological dating of the Khazneh , which has long been disputed but is now placed in the first quarter of the 1st one C AD , should be confirmed by the date of the artifact get hold in this grave , " Tholbecq severalize Live Science in an e-mail .
Lucy Wadeson , an archeologist at the University of Edinburgh who was not involved with the research , praised the finding . " This find will hopefully exuviate lighter on the slight know interment pattern of the Nabataeans since so few unlooted tombs have been excavated , " she told Live Science in an electronic mail . " With the human cadaver and solemn goods find in their original context , we can finally reconstruct the funeral ritual affiliate with these brilliant tomb . "
— 400 stone - cut chamber tomb , satisfy with wall picture and treasure , find out in Turkey
— Parade of life - size camel cutting in northern Arabia engagement to the Stone Age
— ' Almost entire ' shrine find in Jordanian desert is 9,000 years old
Megan Perry , an anthropology professor at East Carolina University who has done extensive archaeological work in Petra but was not involve with this archeological site , said that the discovery of this grave is not a surprise and is a bit overhyped . A " grave immediately conterminous to this one was excavate in 2003 , so the finding of another grave is not particularly unexpected , " Perry severalise Live Science in an e-mail . Perry also notice that " other grave excavated [ in ] Petra , including the unity that I have researched , have notice far more than 12 person . "
Perry say that " surprisingly little of Petra has actually been hollow , so any young data is in force data point , provided the project is bear with best practices in brain , " and noted that it may render more information on Al - Khazneh .
Live Science reached out to the archaeologists who unearth the grave but did not hear back by the sentence of publication .
