Petra Jordan 2012, Petra is a City of the Dead, a necropolis. Probably there is an adjacent City of the living near this site, no one has found it though. In the next few years Jordan plans to excavate 5-15 feet more of the sand that buries this area further [down]. Actually, no "graves" have been found in these sandstone ruins, but historically there are Roman and Egyptian references to the time when The Roman General Trajan won the war against the Nabateans (predecessors to the Bedoiuns) who lived and built here.