历史将永远铭记重新发现佩特拉的功臣——贝克哈特,而重新发现佩特拉本身就是一个惊心动魄的故事。19世纪初,处于穆斯林世界的佩特拉与西方世界完全隔绝,由于战乱,除了阿拉伯沙漠中的游牧民族贝都因人外,几乎没有外人涉足此地,任何西方人对它的接近都将引来极大的危险。1806年,一名德国学者曾试图“好奇地溜进”佩特拉而惨遭杀害。1812年,一位年轻的瑞士探险家名叫约翰·贝克哈特,热衷于对阿拉伯文明的研究,他身为“非洲内陆地区研究促进协会”成员,奉命前往非洲研究尼日尔河的源头。由于要穿越西亚的阿拉伯世界,因此 History will always remember to re-discover Petra’s hero - Beckhart, and to re-discover Petra itself is a soul-stirring story. At the beginning of the 19th century, Petra in the Muslim world was completely cut off from the West. As a result of the war, almost no outsiders were involved in the war except the nomadic Bedouins in the Arabian desert. Any Westerner’s approaching of it would lead to Great danger. In 1806, a German scholar who had tried to “curl into Petra” curiously was killed. In 1812, a young Swiss explorer named John Beckhart, passionate about Arab civilization, was a member of the Association for the Promotion of Inland African Studies and was instructed to travel to Africa to study the source of the Niger. Because of crossing the Arab world in West Asia, therefore