Al-Khazneh, Petra belongs to the years before the Common Era — dated here to c. 40 BCE at Petra, Nabataea. The date is a scholarly centre of gravity, not a foundation-stone timestamp.
A Hellenistic-Baroque façade 40 metres high, cut from rose sandstone at the Siq’s punchline — probably a royal tomb.
How it was made
Nabataean masons worked top-down, inventing the architecture as they subtracted the cliff. Urns, capitals, and Amazons are all one rock.
Why it still counts as a wonder
It never needed a Greek list to be a wonder: the labour, the alignment, or the survival is enough.
It is first-century BCE theatre geology: the wonder is that the building never had to be assembled.
On dating
BCE in this series means years before the traditional birth of Christ, counted backward. A monument listed as c. 40 BCE may have been founded earlier, rebuilt later, or famous only in one phase. Where ancient writers disagree — as they do for Babylon’s gardens — we say so.
This is story 46 of 100 in The Trend Ledger’s illustrated desk on world wonders raised before the Common Era.