Petra Tour: Street of Facades
From Al-Khazneh Plaza through the Outer Siq to the Street of Facades lined with once magnificent tombs. Up to the Uneishu Tomb and on to the Theatre Necropolis.
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At the end of the Street of Facades, in the upper row of the western Jabal al-Khubtha slope is the famous Tomb BD 813, called Uneishu, due to an inscription on a grave slab that stated: "Uneishu, brother of Shuqailat, son of …" (more about, see below)
The tomb (20 m height and 12 m width) with facade decoration of the Hegra type consists of a principal order (entablature, a plain attic with mouldings crowned by two large half merlons) which is supported by two pilasters with Nabataean capitals.
The door, reached by three steps and flanked by two very narrow pillars supporting an entablature, is optically enlarged by a second frame of pilasters with engaged quarter columns and triangular pediment, where three acroterion bases can still be seen.
The almost square funeral chamber (7,90 by 7,60 m) has three loculi in the back wall and four loculi in each of the side walls. Another loculus can be seen on the exterior right wall carved very high.
The forecourt was framed by two porticoes, on the right side carved into the rock with four columns, on the left side bricked up with three columns.
To the left is a rock-cut triclinium (approx. 10 x 9 m), with a water basin next to the entrance. Its rear wall is carved with three loculi for burial.
The tomb could be reached from the street through a large stairway, partly hewn out of the rock and partly built with dressed stones, starting near Tomb 824.
In the sloping southwest corner of the square there are remains of a pyramidal stele, perhaps a nefesh.
Sources:
Fawzi Zayadine: Excavations at Petra (1973-1974), 1974. From: Annual of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan 19 / (ADAJ)
Robert Wenning: Die Nabatäer – Denkmäler und Geschichte: Eine Bestandsaufnahme des archäologischen Befundes. Universitätsverlag Freiburg, Schweiz; Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, Göttingen, 1987.
Judith McKenzie: The Architecture of Petra. Oxford University Press, Oxford 1990 [1991]
© Photos, text: Haupt & Binder
From Al-Khazneh Plaza through the Outer Siq to the Street of Facades lined with once magnificent tombs. Up to the Uneishu Tomb and on to the Theatre Necropolis.
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Rudolf-Ernst Brünnow and Alfred von Domaszewski: Die Provincia Arabia, Volume 1.
Verlag Karl J. Trübner, Strasbourg 1904.
The catalogue of grave facades and other monuments in Petra, compiled by the researchers during their travels in 1897 and 1898, still serves as a reference today - abbreviated BD or Br. with the respective number.
Two sets of five steps over a cavetto (concave moulding) cornice, and fascia (horizontal mouldings). A non-decorative attic above the classical entablature, supported by the pilasters. "Hegra" refers to the second largest Nabataean settlement on the southern border of the kingdom, today's Mada'in Salih in Saudi Arabia.
A triclinium is a dining room widely used in Antiquity with three benches (or sofas) on which the guests reclined while feasting. In Petra, more than a hundred such triclinia of various sizes have been found, about a quarter of them in connection with tombs for ritual banquets in honour of the deceased.
A biclinium is such a room with two benches.
Freestanding stone pillars shaped like an obeliskoid pilaster or a pointed cone, or in bas-relief or graffito, roughly carved or engraved into rock-faces, often with a blossom/pinecone or a stylized crown at the top. Many nefeshes are set upon a base, where the name of the dead person is given. Often various nefeshes are grouped together. The Semitic word "npš" means “life,” “person,” or “soul.” It denotes a dead person and is used in this sense for a memorial marker.
Examples: Obelisk Tomb (Bab as-Siq); Obelisks (Jabal al-Madhbah); Tomb BD 825 (see details)