A Visit to Ad Deir in Petra

Recently I've looked at the stamp collection of my late father and found some old stamps from … you might remember this line [1], but it continues … from Jordan. On two stamps of one series there was the motif of Ad Deir [2]. Petra is best known for the iconic monument Khazne al-Firaun, which also appeared in Steven Spielberg's movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade [3]. But Ad Deir has the distiction of being the second most commonly visited monument in Petra.

Together with a group I climbed up the 800 odd steps to Ad Deir. We were often overtaken by donkeys with other tourists – some wearing high heels (not the donkeys). Al Deir was waiting for us at the top. A tomb like others, but which the Bedouins called the monastery, which is, what Ad Deir means. We went further up to an excellent vantage point.

Ad Deir has been carved out of the rock by the Nabataeans during the 1st century (CE). And though the façade bears column like structures, they are not necessary to support but serve aesthetic purposes. The conical roof is topped by an urn. Ad Deir has a heigth of 48 m and the urn itself measures 9 m. I'm surprised that I could not find anything about the function of the urn on the top of  Nabataean monuments like Ad Deir, Khazne al-Firaun, and especially the Urn Grave [4].

There have been controversies about the Nabataean funerary rites since ancient times as Strabo [5] quoted in his Geography (Book 16): „Dead bodies more fit to be cast out than dung“. The Nabataean word however means tomb or village, but the sound was close to the Greek word for dung-heap. If Strabo had seen the monuments, he might have doubted the validity of his source.

Links and Annotations:
[1] https://rheumatologe.blogspot.com/2022/06/ali-qapu-palace-in-isfahan.html
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_Deir
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_Jones_and_the_Last_Crusade
[4] Even this interesting article is mute concerning an answer to my question: https://www.world-archaeology.com/features/petra-behind-the-monumental-facades/
[5] Strabo is better known in Latin than the Greek Στράβων Strabon – we still use strabismus – who was named after his squint.
[6] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1179/peq.1969.101.2.113?journalCode=ypeq20
 

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