The Nabataeans were one among several nomadic Bedouin tribes that roamed the Arabian Desert and moved with their herds to wherever they could find pasture and water. Although the Nabataeans were initially embedded in Aramaic culture, theories about them having Aramean roots are rejected by many modern scholars. Instead, archaeological, religious and linguistic evidence confirm that they are a northern Arabian tribe. Current evidence suggests that the Nabataean name for Petra was Raqēmō, variously spelled in inscriptions as rqmw or rqm.
Petra as “Rekem”
According to historian Josephus, the region was inhabited by the Midianites during the time of Moses, and that they were ruled by five kings, one of whom was Rekem. Josephus mentions that the city, called Petra by the Greeks, “ranks highest in the land of the Arabs” and was still called Rekeme by all the Arabs of his time, after its royal founder.
The name ‘Rekem’ (rqm) was inscribed in the rock wall of the Wadi Musa opposite the entrance to the Siq. However, Jordan built a bridge over the wadi and this inscription was buried beneath tons of concrete.
Viewing the Siq in 3D model
The Rekem Inscription before it was buried by the bridge abutments
Petra as “Sela”
An old theory held that Petra might be identified with a place called sela in the Hebrew Bible. Encyclopædia Britannica (1911) states that the Semitic name of the city, if not Sela, would remain unknown. It nevertheless cautioned that sela simply means “rock” in Hebrew, and thence might not be identified with a city where it occurs in the biblical text.
The passage in Diodorus Siculus which describes the expeditions which Antigonus sent against the Nabataeans in 312 BCE, was understood by some researchers – and not so by others – to throw some light upon the history of Petra, but the “petra” (Greek for rock) referred to as a natural fortress and place of refuge cannot be a proper name, and the description implies that there was no town in existence there at the time.
Video: The Ancient Sela
Al-Khazneh: “The Treasury”, one of the most elaborate temples in Petra, which is believed to have been the mausoleum of the Nabatean King Aretas IV in the 1st century AD.
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The Great Temple of Petra: A grand monumental complex that lies south of the Colonnaded Street at Petra. It covers an area of about 7,560 m2. The complex was probably completed in the early first century CE, under the rule of Nabataean king Aretas IV, as suggested by architectural and sculptural details.
The “Great Temple” occupied a prime spot in ancient Petra: from its ruins one can now see the Siq to the Southeast, the Qasr al-Bint to the West, and the Lower Market/Petra Pool Complex to the East. It is unclear whether the complex was a religious or administrative building, and – if it was indeed religious – how exactly it functioned or to what deity it was dedicated.
In the 1890s, the ruins were superficially explored by German archaeologists R. E. Brünnow and A. von Domaszewski. Walter Bachmann then surveyed Petra as a member of the Preservation branch of the German-Turkish army, and was the first scholar to identify the monument by its current name in his 1921 revision of the Petra city plan.
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Architecture
The Great Temple is a rectangular complex aligned on a northeast–southwest axis.
From the colonnaded street, one ascends about ~8 m up a flight of stairs that is about 17 m wide into the Propylaeum. This monumental stairway was altered both immediately after the building of the Great Temple and during the construction of the Colonnaded Street in ca. 76 CE. The Propylaeum and street sit at ~8 m under the Lower Temenos, which itself is 6 m beneath the Upper Temenos and the bulk of the temple. The “temple” proper lies immediately south of the Upper Temenos.
Two exedra lie to the east and west of the monumental stairway that joins the Lower and Upper Temenos. The temple itself was built with four frontal columns stuccoed in red, yellow, and white for stark contrast against the sandstone environment, and would hypothetically have stood at 20m. Such a height is comparable to that of the Qasr al-Bint’s current 23 m, but not as grand as the Khazneh/Treasury, whose facade reaches 39 m. A theater-like structure (theatron) with about 600 seats dominates the interior of the temple beyond the Upper Temenos, where traces of extensive decoration remain in gold leaf and colored stucco.
Water management also plays a significant role in the architecture of the “Great Temple,” as two sizable cisterns of 59 m3 and 327 m3 (approximately 59,000 and 327,000 liters’ capacity respectively) have been found. The cisterns feed into a subterranean canalization system, which runs the length of the temple and then joins the citywide water distribution system. These channels may then have led to the Qasr al Bint and Wadi Siyagh.