PETRA

 

Arriving at Petra

 

Walk In

 

The Siq

 

The Small Siq

 

Treasury

 

Street of Facades

 

 Water Works

 

The Theater

 

The Royal Tombs

 

 High Place

 

Colonnade Street

 

Great Temple

 

Temple of Al Uzza

 

Temple of Dushares

 

Museum 

 

Dier 

 

Habis

 

 Biera

 

City of Board Games

 

Snake Monumnet

 

Sabara Suburb

 

City Walls/Map

 

Al Beidha

 

Churches

 

Kubtha High Place

 

Wadi Nmeir 

 

Small Delights

 

The Bedul

 

Petra Today 

 

Petra Park

PETRA: The Temple of Dushares

(Qasr al Bint)

Note the caves and carvings in the mountain behind the temple.

In front of the temple was a large alter, indicating that offernings were made infront of the structure, rather than inside it.

Qasr el-Bint, the temple of Dushares, has the largest facade in Petra — 4 m wider than the Khazneh and the Great Temple. It belongs to the Parthian 'flight' type of temples with two staircases giving access to a flat roof. The central interaxial column spacing of this temple is around 8.00 m, a very impressive span, if one takes into consideration that the same span in the Artemis temple at Jerash is 'only' 4.90 m, and in the Hercules temple in Amman it is 5.18 m. Each of the column drums of the temple must have weighed around 7 tons. The masonry, the craftsmanship and the ergonomics of its construction indicate that Qasr el-Bint was a very costly project. Wooden courses inside the masonry secured the elasticity of its walls.

Chrysanthos Kanellopoulos, an archaeologist, historical architect and computer imager has a web site with computer generated reconstructions of the Temple of Dushares. It can be found at: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~lbedal/chrys.html Left is a sample of Chrysanthos' work.