On an eminence south of this is a single column (ol scenely called Zab Farun, i. e. hasta virilis Phara- onis) connected with the foundation walls of a temple, whose pillars lie scattered around in broken fragments, some of them five feet in diameter. Twelve of these, whose pedestals still remain in their places, adorned either side of this stately edifice. 'I here were also four columns in front and six in the rear of the tem- ple. They are prostrate on the ground, and Dr. Olin counted thirty-seven massive frusta of which one of them was composed.
Still farther south are other piles of ruins — columns and hewn stones — parts, no doubt, of impoitant public buildings. The same traveller counted not less than fourteen similar heaps of ruins, having columns and fragments of columns intermingled with blocks of stone, in this part of the site of ancient Petra. They indicate the great wealth and magnificence of this an- cient capital, as well as its unparalleled calamities.
43 PETRA
These sumptuous edifices occupied what may be called the central parts of Petra. A large surface on the north side of the river is covered with substructions, which prohably belonged to private habitations. An extensive region still farther north retains no vestiges of the buildings which once covered it. Public wealth was lavished on palaces and temples, while the houses of the common people were slightly and meanly built, of such materials as a few }rears, or at most a few cen- turies, were sufficient to dissolve.
The acropolis is thought to have occupied an iso- lated hill on the west. The whole ascent of the hills on the south, up which the toilsome passage-way out of this museum of wonders winds, is elaborately pierced with tombs, temples, or dwellings. At the north-west extremity of the cliff surrounding the plain is the Deir or cloister, the second most remarkable sculpture of the entire place, hewn likewise out of the face of the rock. A ravine somewhat like the Sik, with many windings, leads to the base, and the approach up to it is in places by a path five or six feet broad, cut with immense labor in the precipitous rock. Its facade is larger than that of the Khuzneh ; but, as in that build- ing (if such we may call it), the interior does not cor- respond, being merely a large square chamber, with a recess resembling the niche for the altar in Greek ec- clesiastical architecture, and bearing evident signs of having been converted from a heathen into a Christian temple. The cliffs on the north-east side of the basin, which here extends up a considerable valley, are in like manner cut into temples, tombs, or other archi- tectural forms of great variety.
Laborde and Linant also thought that they traced the outline of a naumachia or theatre for sea-fights, which would be flooded from cisterns in which the water of the torrents in the wet season had been re- served— a remarkable proof, if the hypothesis be cor- rect, of the copiousness of the water-supply, if properly husbanded, and a confirmation of what we are told of the exuberant fertility of the region, and its contrast to the barren Arabah on its immediate west (Robinson, ii, 109). Stanley {Syr. and Pal. p. 95) leaves little doubt that Petra was the seat of a primeval sanctuary, which he fixes at the spot now called the " Deir" or "Convent," and with which fact the choice of the site of Aaron's tomb may, he thinks, have been connected (p. 90). As regards the question of its identity with Kadesh, see Kadesh; and, for the general subject, see Eitter, xiv, 69, 997 sq.
Rock-hewn Temple at Petra.
The. mountain torrents which at times sweep over the lower parts of the ancient site have undermined many foundations, and carried away many a chiselled stono, and -worn many a finished specimen of sculpt- ure into unshapely masses. The soft texture of the rock seconds the destructive agencies of the elements.
PETRA
Even the accumulations of rubbish which mark the site of all other decked cities have mostly disap- peared; and the extent which was covered with hu- man habitations can only be determined by the broken pottery scattered over the surface or mingled with the sand — the universal, and, it would seem, an imperish- able memorial of populous cities that exist no longer. These vestiges, the extent of which Dr. Olio took great pains to trace, cover an area one third as large as thai of I lairo, exi Luding its large gardens from the
estimate, and verj sufficient, he thinks, to i tain the
who! ■ population of Athens in its prosperous days.
The attention of travellers has, however, been chief- ly engaged by the above-noted excavations, which, having more successfully resisted the ravages of time, constitute at present the great and peculiar attraction of the place. These excavations, whether formed for temples, tombs, or the dwellings of living men, sur- prise the visitor by their incredible number and ex- tent. They ii,, i only occupy the front of the entire mountain by which the valley is encompassed, but of the numerous ravines and recesses which radiate on all Bides from this enclosed area. The}' exist, too, in great numbers in the precipitous rocks which shoot out from the principal mountains into the southern, and still more into the northern part of the site, and