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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A "broken" (open) pediment has its centre cut out or offset to the rear, whereas the two lateral segments remain in place. This design structure was very popular in the Ptolemaic architecture in Alexandria and has been adopted by the Nabataeans from there. It is one of the most striking features of Al-Khazneh (Treasury), and Ad Deir (Monastery).
Tomb BD 228 is the simplest example for such a broken pediment. On its almost square façade, standing on a podium approached by a staircase, two pilasters on either side of the door carry one of the pediment halves which are joined by a cornice across the top. The entablature below is also broken back between the central supports. The weathered structure containing the doorway is slightly curved forward (convex). It seems to have had a window separated by a lintel.
The interior of the tomb is illuminated by two slit windows. With 8.5 m width, the chamber is wider than the façade, and has a length of 10 m. There is a two storey colonnade of engaged pilasters along the right wall, with three loculi cut into it towards the back. Perpendicular to the rear wall, there is a long grave dug into the ground surrounded by a groove for the embedding of cover slabs.
The door to the right of and slightly below the Broken Pediment Tomb leads to a burial chamber with two superimposed loculi in the right wall.
In front of it there is a 4 x 5.50 m cistern, whose cover was originally supported by ten arches, but which is now completely backfilled. Water was collected through gutters above the Broken Pediment Tomb and was led first into a regulation basin and then into the cistern.
© Photo, 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.
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.