The issue contains the bittersweet story of early 19th-century German-born explorer Johann Ludwig Burkhardt, who loved to roam a very dangerous Middle East. In 1812, dressed as a local, he traveled overland from Damascus to Egypt. The high point of his life was the one day in August, 1812 that he spent in the fabulous lost city of Petra, carved out of rocky cliffs near the Dead Sea in present-day Jordan. He was the first modern European to see the city. His guide, fearing that Burkhardt would be identified as an infidel and killed, urged him to leave. He did, but continued his eccentric explorations and journal-keeping, treasured today by historians. He died in Cairo in 1817 at age 33 of dysentery. The article is illustrated with several breathtaking photos from Petra.

Archaeological Diggings editor David Down contributes an entertaining review of the book Ancient and Medieval Siege Weapons by Konstantin Nossov. Battering rams, catapults and siege towers were part of a fascinating arms race in the ancient world. For instance, when one side used elephants to attack a walled city, the ingenious defenders tied a piglet to a rope and lowered it down over the wall. The squeals from the piglet spooked the elephants, who turned on their masters and stampeded.

My favorite story is how King Cyrus of Persia solved the problem of javelins and arrows frightening his bullocks while they were pulling a siege tower on a rope toward a city's wall. He had pulleys staked into the ground along the wall, so the bullocks could happily pull away from the wall while the siege tower went in the opposite direction!

Archaeological Diggings is distributed in the United States by the Review and Herald Publishing Co. in Hagerstown, Maryland.