Petra, founded in the late 8th century BC, is one of the oldest cities on record and is considered one of the New Seven Wonders of the World. Petra: The Glory of the Nabataeans shows it to us in all its splendor thanks to an exciting and very realistic virtual reality experience. It has already opened its doors at the Reial Cercle Artístic and here you can get your tickets.
Enjoying History in first person
If we talk about Petra you probably remember its famous building Al Khazneh (The Treasury). Tremendously well preserved and immortalized in movies like Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade or Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, this monument can be visited if we make a trip to Jordan. But what was it like at the height of the Nabataean civilization?
Petra: The Glory of the Nabataeans shows it in detail and as it was in its glory days. In addition, the experience includes a tour of other sites in the Rose City, built on the reddish stone (hence the name). All this will be possible thanks to the “magic” of the latest generation of virtual reality.
This virtual journey is enjoyed with VR glasses and seated in an exclusive chair (patented by DreamVortex, creators of the experience). This very comfortable seat includes motion effects that allow us to feel the tremors of the ground, as well as multisensory effects of breeze and smells that introduce us, if possible, in the history of Petra. These effects make it an even more immersive virtual reality experience, since in most of the ones we can try the sensations are reduced to sight and sound.
Petra: the glory of the Nabataeans will not only show the architectural beauties of the city, but also its day-to-day life. Thanks to the total immersion (with the aforementioned smells and a careful sound environment) we will enter into the daily life, with a pleasant walk through the market where incense, spices, textiles and all kinds of products were sold.
This will make us discover how Petra was a city well ahead of its time thanks to the work of its inhabitants, the Nabataeans: it had sophisticated water storage systems and its role was crucial in the ancient trade routes.
While the Nabataeans were not the only ones to innovate in water storage (at that time the Romans were manufacturing aqueducts), their advances had much merit: Petra had no potable water reserves nearby (there are no rivers in its location), so all the stored water came from rain, and every drop was a treasure.
All these milestones will be explained to us in this immersive journey, a perfect cocktail between entertainment and very didactic information. And it will be done by an exceptional guide: a mystical Djinn who will accompany us at all times. This supernatural figure, like a kind of genius of Eastern cultures, will be our friendly voice in this journey by land, water and air, and will speak in the language we prefer, to choose between Spanish, Catalan, English, French, Arabic and Russian.
Petra: the glory of the Nabataeans is a perfect experience for all ages: adults who love archaeology and want to enjoy new experiences will enjoy it as much as children, who on the one hand will have fun with virtual reality and on the other hand will learn a history lesson as if it were a game.
