PETRA

 

Arriving at Petra

 

The Walk Into Petra

 

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

 

The Museum 

 

The Dier 

 

Al Habis

 

Um Al-Biera

 

Jebal Haroun

 

City of Board Games

 

Snake Monument

 

Sabara Suburb

 

City Walls/Map

 

Al Beidha

 

Al Beidha Village

 

Churches

 

Kubtha High Place

 

Wadi Nmeir 

 

Small Delights

 

The Bedul

 

Petra Today 

 

Petra Park

 

Is Petra the

Holy City of Islam?

 

 

The elephant decorations.(See paper on Elephants)

 

 

 

PETRA: The Great Temple

(The Royal Courts?) 

In 1921 an archeologist named Bachman published a survey of the city of Petra, which soon became a standard that was used by archeologists for several decades. On the south side hill of the Colonnade Street Bachman mapped out the ruins of a large building, complete with columns. He named it the Great Temple. And so, the building has always been known as the Great Temple, although more and more historians are wondering if this was actually a temple, or if it was the Nabataean seat of government. (Bachman also described a small theater on the Colonnade Street that no one can find).

	Left: Standing on the forum tiles looking at the front of the Great Temple.
You can visit an interesting web site to view these and other reconstructions of the Great Temple by Chrysanthos Kanellopoulos. http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~lbedal/chrys.html	Possible reconstruction of the Great Temple. There are questions about the roof structure. Perhaps it was open in the middle over the theatron, and only roofed and tiled around the outside.
You can read more about the Great Temple's excavations by visiting Dr. Martha Sharp Joukowsky's site at http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Anthropology/Petra/	After hiking through the ruins of Petra, it is always nice to stop at the Theater in the Great Temple to have a rest. This puzzling piece of architecture makes archeologists wonder if this was a temple, or if it was perhaps the senate hall for the Nabataean government.
	Left: Catching a bit of shade under a column. The capital of this column is decorated with elephant heads.
	One of the most interesting features of the Great Temple is the well preserved Nabataean plaster on some of the walls. As the picture on the left illustrates, it is possible to see the ancient colors, still bright and visible almost 2000 years later.

A large-scale reconstruction of the entire Great Temple precinct was built by Eileen Vote, a graduate student completing her PhD at Brown University in Interdisciplinary research with Archaeology and Computer Science. This was done in collaboration with archaeologist Martha Sharp Joukowsky and the architectural historian Judith McKenzie. You can view their amazing work at: http://www.lems.brown.edu/~vote/architectural_reconstruction/

Recent excavations in Petra beside the Great Temple have revealed what used to be a public pool and surrounding gardens. Previously this area was thought to have been a market place, because it was wide and open.

However, when using ground penatrating radar, archeologists discovered the pool. Visit Dr. Leigh-Anne Bedal's site to learn more. (Petra's Lower Market)
http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~lbedal/lowermarket.html

Chrysanthos Kanellopoulos, an archaeologist, historical architect and computer imager has a web site with computer generated reconstructions of the garden and pools. You can visit Chrysanthos' site at: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~lbedal/chrys.html To the left is a samples of Chrysanthos' work. The picture to the right is a computer generated reconstructions of the pool and gardens that were located beside the Great Temple.