181. Petra, Jordan: Treasury and Great Temple

 

Petra, Jordan: Treasury and Great Temple
Nabateen Ptolemaic and Roman. c. 400 B.C.E - 100 C.E. Cut rock

These elaborate carvings are merely a prelude to one's arrival into the heart of Petra, where the Treasury, or Khazneh, a monumental tomb, awaits to impress even the most jaded visitors. The natural, rich hues of Arabian light hit the remarkable façade, giving the Treasury its famed rose-red color.

Basic Info

•  The rock-cut façades are the iconic monuments of Petra. Of these, the most famous is the Treasury  (Khazneh), which appeared in the film Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, as the final resting place of the Holy Grail.
• Petra is an ancient ruin in Jordan first built upon by the Ptolemaic rulers and later expanded by the Romans
• The site was constructed between 400 BCE and 100 CE
• Nabateans were the people who inhabited this ancient city

Form

• The entire city has been carved into the rock face
• The ability of ancient people to carve such a large building still confounds modern engineers 
• The Treasury’s façade is 24.9 meters wide and 38.77 meters high
• The style most clearly embodies the Hellenistic style and reflects the influence of Alexandria, the greatest city in the Eastern Mediterranean at this time. 
• Its architecture features a broken pediment and central circular building on the upper level 
• This architectural element originated in Alexandria. 
• Ornate Corinthian columns are used throughout
• Above the broken pediments, the bases of two obelisks appear and stretch upwards into the rock

Function

• This was a functioning city, and had all the necessary facilities to be one
• The main buildings are the Temple, Treasury, and the tombs
• The city was a major trading hub because of its central position in the cradle of early civilization
• The city had several open spaces to facilitate trade from traveling merchants
• The prominence of the tombs in the landscape led early explorers and scholars to see Petra as a large necropolis (cemetery)
• However, archaeology has shown that Petra was a well-developed metropolis with all of the trappings of a Hellenistic city

Content

• The tomb facades draw upon a rich array of Hellenistic and Near Eastern architecture 
• Their architecture reflects the diverse and different cultures with which the Nabateans traded, interacted
• Many of the tombs contain niches or small chambers for burials, cut into the stone walls
• No human remains have ever been found in any of the tombs, and the exact funerary practices of the Nabataeans remain unknown
• The treasury was exceptional for its figurative detail and ornate Hellenistic architectural orders

Context

• The dating of the tombs has proved difficult 
• There are almost no finds, such as coins and pottery, that enable archaeologists to date these tombs 
• A few inscriptions allow us to date some of the tombs at Petra, although at Egra, another Nabataean site (in modern Saudi Arabia), there are thirty-one dated tombs. 
• Today scholars believe that the tombs were probably constructed when the Nabateans were wealthiest between the second century B.C.E. and the early  second century C.E. 
• Archaeologists and art historians have identified a number styles for the tomb facades, but they all co-existed and cannot be used date the tombs. The few surviving inscriptions in Nabataean, Greek, and Latin tell us about the people who were buried in the tombs.