Ad-Deir (The Monastery)
About
Carved into a sandstone cliff above Petra, this monumental facade stretches nearly 50 meters wide, one of the largest rock-cut tombs in the Nabataean city. More than 800 steps climb to reach it from the valley floor below. A single stone urn crowns its pediment, giving the monument its Bedouin name, the Monastery, from a much later Christian-era reuse of the chamber inside.
What happened here
Roman burial is a family matter conducted in public. The dead are carried out of town, cremated or laid in the ground, and mourned with formal noise; the funeral of anyone important is a procession with masks of the ancestors carried by hired men. The tomb that follows is designed to be read by strangers on the road: name, age, offices, sometimes a trade shown in relief, often a line addressed directly to the passer-by. Ordinary people appear here as they nowhere else — a baker with his ovens carved on the front, a freedman naming the woman he could finally marry, a child's age given in days. Anniversaries bring the family back with food and wine.
Sources
Nearby
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