Archaeologists have discovered the ruins of a 2,000-year-old temple built by an ancient civilization featured in Indiana Jones.
The religious temple had a rectangular floor plan and two rooms with access to the internal roads of the vicus Lartidianus, an area intended for foreigners engaged in commerce.
The discovery off the coast of Puteoli, modern-day Pozzuoli, marks the first known temple built by the Nabataeans, a nomadic Arab merchant civilization that came from Jordan, outside the Middle East.
The civilization was also responsible for the construction of Al Khazneh, an elaborate tomb carved into a sandstone wall in Petra, Jordan, where the 1989 film Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was filmed.
‘The existence of a Nabataean sanctuary within the port area confirms that there was a community from that region participating in the commercial activities of Puteoli,’ share the research in the study published in the Antiquity magazine.
‘The building of the sanctuary was possible when the Nabataeans enjoyed the freedom and opportunities offered by friendship with Rome and the independence of their homeland.’
Each room features Roman-style walls and marble slabs engraved with the Latin inscription “Dusari sacrum,” meaning “consecrated to Dushara,” the chief god of the ancient Nabataean religion.
The long-lost temple had two halls with altars and inscribed marble slabs. It was built by the Nabataeans from Jordan and they also built the famous Al Khazneh.
The underwater structure It lies about 150 feet off the coast of Pozzuoli, which was once a large port for Roman ships to bring in trade goods from different parts of the empire.
But centuries of volcanic activity in the region covered the ancient temple in layers of magma until it was rediscovered by archaeologists exploring the Gulf of Pozzuoli in search of long-lost treasures.
The discovery was made in 2023 during underwater archaeological documentation of the port of Puteoli, but the team has spent the last year further excavating the underwater temple.
The structure was probably built during a period of Nabataean wealth and independence and when they were one of the trading partners of the Romans.
For this reason, the team estimated that the temple was built during the reigns of Augustus (31 BC – 14 AD) or Trajan (98 – 117 AD).
The Nabataean Kingdom was an independent political entity from the mid-3rd century BC until it was annexed by the Roman Empire in 106 AD.
The ancient Arab civilization controlled booming trade routes that allowed luxury goods to be transported from the Indian Ocean via desert caravans to the Mediterranean, but also stopped at Puteoli and strengthened relationships.
Archaeologists identified Room A and Room B beneath the blue waters, which they discovered were built from locally sourced materials.
Room A featured two white marble altars, one of which once housed sacred stones used in the Nabataean cult within eight rectangular recesses.
Indiana Jones and his father go hunting for the Holy Grail in the movie ‘The Last Crusade’. They end up at Al Khazneh in Petra, Jordan, a massive structure built into the side of a stone face that was built by the Nabataeans.
Archaeologists discovered large stone slabs and altars among the temple ruins. A marble slab was engraved with the Latin inscription “Dusari sacrum,” meaning “consecrated to Dushara,” the chief god of the ancient Nabataean religion.
A second altar at the bottom of the sea had three rectangular holes.
Room B also included white marble stone slabs with the same Latin inscription.
The Nabataeans practiced a polytheistic religion influenced by the cultures of the Greeks and Egyptians.
They had many deities created in the form of sacred stones, which were found inside the holes of the altars.
Puteoli was a Roman colony founded in 195 BC. C. and later became the empire’s main port for goods sent across the Mediterranean Sea.
From different parts of Europe, the Levant and the Near East, everything from wines to perfumes, textiles and grains arrived at the docks.
The submerged temple was found during underwater research. It is located about 150 feet from the shore.
The Nabataean population was based in the desert areas of the Arabian Peninsula.
About 2,000 years ago they established a settlement in Pozzuoli, building the largest commercial port in the Roman Mediterranean area.
During its heyday around the birth of Christ, the Nabataean Empire spread throughout the Middle East to include Jordan, Israel, Egypt, Syria, and Saudi Arabia.
Things changed drastically for the Nabataeans and Petra when the Romans peacefully took control of Petra (the capital of the kingdom) and all the Nabataean people.
The enormous tomb of Petra, also known as The Treasury, was recently excavated and revealed a “previously unknown” tomb containing 12 skeletal remains and grave goods.
Among the products was a grail-shaped mug remarkably similar to the one in the movie starring Harrison Ford and Sean Connery.
Experts hope that analysis of the human remains can reveal more about the Nabataeans, the ancient Arab people who built Al Khazneh.
