these are actual nabataean skulls.leagues have pieced together what a nabataean may have looked like. this skull went away for ct scanning. and then this is a 3d print of the skull. and these pegs are to give the depth of your skin. your skin would go right up to the top of these pegs? yes. with almost no nabataean images to refer to, the team have had to infer what they might have worn from other artefacts such as these coins. so if you want to hold your hand out, you can have this in your hand. this is queen huldu, who was the wife of aratus iv. and if you can see her headdress. it's very clear. it's kind of straight down like that. and she has a beautiful aquiline profile. yes. moving on from queen huldu, we have our next queen. and this one is slightly different. 0h, there's two people on the coin. there's two people on there, showing that the queens and the kings appear to have equal status in their society. but the last coin i have for you is this one. so again, this is a double profile coin, but this is the daug

join me as i uncover the secrets of the nabataeans. nabataeans forged a successful empire around 300 bce. that's towards the end of the civilisation of the far better—known ancient egyptians. they were nomads and traders who took control of the lucrative incense route all the way from modern—day yemen, through arabia and up to the ports of gaza and alexandria. and it was on this 2,000km trade route that they chose the site for their capital, petra, and carved theatres, caves and tombs out of the sandstone rocks. in many ways, this is a strange place to build a city. we're not elevated and we're not near a river or the sea, but the steep, rocky gorges provided a different kind of security for the desert people who made this their home. this is the siq. it's a rock canaljust three metres across at its narrowest point. that's barely wide enough for two camels to pass. for the nabataeans, it was a natural defence, a place to channel water, and, of course, a very dramatic threshold to their majestic city. talk about a secret entrance! this