Turkmaniyya Tomb

Sepulcrum Turkmaniyyae

TombArabia Petraea · Petra, near the Back Exit Road, JordanBuilt 50 CE

About

The longest Nabataean inscription ever found at Petra runs across this tomb's facade, invoking the god Dushara to watch over the graves, chambers, gardens, dining hall, and cisterns of the estate it once described. A large outer hall likely served as a dining room, opening onto a narrower passage leading to the burial hall behind. Off the main tourist paths, it survived largely undisturbed. Roughly a century old when Trajan died in 117 CE, it remained a working part of Petra's elite necropolis.

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.