Archaeologists have uncovered the ruins of a 2,000-year-old temple built by an ancient civilization featured in Indiana Jones.
The religious temple had a rectangular plan and two rooms with access to internal routes of the vicus Lartidianus, an area designated for foreign people engaged in trade.
The discovery off the coast of Puteoli, modern-day Pozzuoli, marks the first known temple built by the Nabataeans, nomadic Arabian merchant civilization who hailed from Jordan, outside of the Middle East.
The civilization was also responsible for the construction of Al Khazneh, an elaborate rock-cut tomb carved out of a sandstone rock face in Petra, Jordan, where the 1989 movie 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,’ researches shared in the study published in the journal Antiquity.
‘The edification of the sanctuary was possible when the Nabataeans enjoyed the freedom and opportunities offered by the friendship with Rome and the independence of their motherland.’
Each room features Roman-style walls and marble slabs etched with the Latin inscription ‘Dusari sacrum,’ meaning ‘consecrated to Dushara,’ the main god in the ancient Nabataean religion.
The long-lost temple featured two rooms with alters and inscribed marble slabs. It was built by the Nabataeans who hailed from Jordan and also constructed the famous Al Khazneh
The underwater structure sits about 150 feet off the coast of Pozzuoli, which was once a large port for Roman ships to bring 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 for long-lost treasures.
The discovery was made in 2023 during an underwater archaeological documentation of the port of Puteoli, but the team has spent the last year further excavating the underwater temple.
The structure was likely built during a period of Nabataean wealth and independence and when it was one of the Roman’s made trading partners.
For this reason, the team estimated that the temple was built during the reigns of Augustus (31 BCE – 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 saw the transport of luxury goods from the Indian Ocean across desert caravans to the Mediterranean, but also stopped in Puteoli and bolster the relationships.
Archaeologists identified Room A and Room B under the blue waters, which they found were constructed by locally sourced materials.
Room A featured two white marble alters, one that once housed sacred stones used in Nabataean worship inside eight rectangular recesses.
Indiana Jones and his father are on the hunt for the Holy Grail in the ‘Last Crusade’ film. They end up at Al Khazneh in Petra, Jordan, an enormous structure built into the side of a stone face that was built by the Nabataeans
Archaeologists uncovered large stone slabs and alters among the Temple ruins. A marble slab was etched with the Latin inscription ‘Dusari sacrum,’ meaning ‘consecrated to Dushara,’ the main god in the ancient Nabataean religion
A second alter on the seafloor had three rectangular recesses.
Room B also included white marble stone slabs with the same Latin inscription.
Nabateans practiced a polytheistic religion that was influenced by the cultures of the Greeks and Egyptians.
They had many deities created in the form of sacred stones, which sat inside the recesses of alters.
Puteoli was a Roman colony founded in 195 BC and later become the empire’s main port for goods shipped through the Mediterranean sea.
Everything from win, to perfumes, textiles and grain were brought to the docks from different parts of Europe, the Levan and Near East.
The submerged temple was found during an underwater investigation. It sits about 150 feet from the coast
The Nabataean population was based in the desert areas of the Arabian Peninsula.
Around 2,000 years ago they established a settlement at Pozzuoli, building up the largest commercial port in the Roman Mediterranean area.
During its peak around the birth of Christ, the Nabatean Empire stretched across the Middle East to include Jordan, Israel, Egypt, Syria and Saudi Arabia.
Things drastically changed for the Nabataeans and Petra when Romans peacefully took control of Petra (the capital of the kingdom) and all of the Nabataen people.
The enormous tomb in Petra, also known as The Treasury, was recently excavated, revealing a ‘previously unknown’ tomb containing 12 skeletal remains and grave goods.
Among the goods was a grail-shaped cup remarkably similar to the one in the movie starring Harrison Ford and Sean Connery.
Experts hope analysis of the human remains could reveal more about the Nabataeans, the ancient Arab people who built Al Khazneh.
