The grand rock-cut tomb facades are the dominant features of Petra, carved into the sandstone cliffs, with their towering columns and capitals they create an atmosphere of wealth and power, that awe and intimidate the traveller entering the site.
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Nabataean Petra
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Many of the Nabataean architectural elements presents foreign influences. The "Assyrian" crow-step merlons, in a single or double line across the top of the façade are widely adopted. Egyptian style cornices are also common, usually associated with pilasters framing the façade.
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Some of the most impressive facades are dominated by pediments of the Hellenistic Greek and Roman classical architecture canons, often varied in a ‘Nabataean baroque’ flavour. Pediments can be triangular, arched, broken to frame a tholos. To this category belong the most acclaimed of Petra monuments: the Tomb of the Roman Soldier, the Broken Pediment Tomb, the Siq Triclinium, the Royal Tombs, and the largest and most famous of the facades: the Khazneh and the Deir.
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Petra
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The ‘cube’ motif recurs constantly as part of the tradition to worship abstract or highly stylised representations of deities. Cubes and carved squares in relief abound like the enigmatic ‘god-blocks’ known as the Djin blocks at the entrance of the Siq.
The many sacred funerary banquet rooms (triclinium and biclinium) indicate Nabataean private, family worship. Aniconic Gods representations, carved or standing stone, called baetyl, literally "house of god". Sacred Processional ways like the one that from the Sîq approaches the Khazneh with its votive niches dug in the walls or the rock-cut staircases leading to the sacred high place of Gebel el-Hubtha and to the Deir.
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Residential houses sat on naturally occurring terraces, often in clusters cut into the sandstone cliffs. Such enclaves may originally have been tribal tent encampments.
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Petra
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