Al-Khazneh — the Treasury — is the single most photographed thing in Jordan. Coach parties stand in its forecourt all day. In 2024 a team excavating that forecourt opened a chamber nobody knew was there, holding twelve burials and their grave goods, undisturbed.
Two things follow from that, and the second is the interesting one.
The first: the Treasury is a tomb, which archaeologists have argued for a long time and which the new burials support directly.
The second: this was found under the most-trodden square metres in the country. Not in an unexplored canyon — under the tourists’ feet. Roughly 15% of Petra has been excavated. The 2016 satellite survey that found a monumental platform hidden in plain sight made the same point from the opposite direction. The city is still mostly unopened, and the parts we walk on daily are included in that.