Petra Tour: Wadi Farasa East
Coming from Jabal al-Madhbah, the tour continues through the idyllic valley. Highlights are the Garden Triclinium, the Soldier Tomb complex, with the large colourful triclinium, and the Renaissance Tomb.
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The tomb with its ca. 11.70 m wide and 12.50 m high façade, once covered with painted stucco, is completely hewn out of the rock.
Only the three larger-than-life reliefs of male figures in the framed niches are carved from 6 blocks of limestone each (see the detailed photos above). The one in the center wears a muscle cuirass (armor covering the torso) decorated with flowers as it was common among Roman officers and military leaders as a status symbol. For this reason the tomb was long thought to be that of a Roman soldier. However after excavations, the entire complex could be dated to the third quarter of the 1st century AD, the time before the Roman annexation (106 AD). Coins depicting King Aretas IV show that such armoured garments were also common among the Nabataeans.
The statue in the central niche represents the most revered deceased, for whom common rituals of a group or clan were arranged (as the banquets in the triclinium opposite). Successively, other people from his circle were buried in the tomb.
Of the two pilasters next to the doorway (1.60 m wide and 3.60 m high), only a part of the right one is still visible. Nearly identical variants of the metope triglyph frieze and the triangular pediment with acroteria above it can also be found at the entrance of the Urn Tomb and at tomb BD 258 in Wadi Farasa West.
The large burial chamber measures 13 x 15 m. High up in the middle of the back wall is a deep loculus (shaft tomb), in which probably the most important deceased was buried. In the same wall at the bottom right there is an arcosolium (arched niche with a recess for the corpse in the floor), and on the right side wall there are three more such burials, the middle one being smaller. Through window openings on both sides of the façade light falls into the large chamber. A door in the left side wall connects with an almost square adjoining room (9.20 x 8.80 m).
When in the morning the sun shines on the tomb at a steep angle, a small horn altar can be seen particularly well. It was probably inscribed into the rock wall to the right of the pediment by the stonemasons (see the detailed photo above.)
© Photos, text: Haupt & Binder
Coming from Jabal al-Madhbah, the tour continues through the idyllic valley. Highlights are the Garden Triclinium, the Soldier Tomb complex, with the large colourful triclinium, and the Renaissance Tomb.