Investigating an Ancient Temple | Lost Cities with Albert Lin

[music playing]

NARRATOR: I'm back on an ancient and Nabataean trading route.

One that leads to the ruins of Khirbet Edh-Dharih.

Archeologists are still excavating this city.

But it's clear something extraordinary

was happening here.

My guide is surveyor Ahmad Marafi.

Calvin, this is the Nabataean city.

Wow.

This is the new thing.

This a design, a layout that was created by somebody's mind

to try something new.

We're going to build walls.

Somebody's going to be over here.

And they're going to have a house over there.

And then somebody is going to have a place to cook over here.

Somebody sitting in a bath house right over there.

That's true.

And I'm sure they were very happy.

This is a completely new idea.

It seems like they were, you know, incrementally

moving forward, right.

You start out as a as a nomadic society and then

and then settle.

You know, that's step one.

And then this.

There's another innovation.

This city has a central focus, a temple.

Into the temple we go.

The Nabataean kings, they sacrificed

the animals here on this altar.

Right there?

Yeah, right there.

Walk me through the process.

I'm a Nabataean king.

I stand here in front of this altar.

What happens next?

First, you have to walk around the holy place.

[music playing]

Up here now?

Yeah, up.

So we are now on the altar.

So you lay your animal here.

Then what happens?

Cut the throat to let the blood,

which goes inside these holes.

These little holes, these are blood holes?

Yeah, these are blood holes.

Blood spilled from animals, went down these holes.

That's true.

NARRATOR: The statues I scanned at the museum

once adorned the facade of this temple.

To create a complete vision of this new Nabataean sight

requires a full digital scan.

It's the first time this has ever been done.

It's a complex undertaking, demanding detailed scanning

from the air and on the ground.

Merging the data creates a new vision

of this spectacular long lost temple.

Crowning the temple are the museum relics,

back in their original home.

This place reveals the evolution from their starter city

at Sela.

[music playing]