Eroded Facades

The Street of Facades, Petra

Here are two more facades, from the Outer Siq. The one on the left is unfinished, with a nefesh crown. On the right is a badly eroded facade, with four columns, an entrance between the central two columns, a triangular pediment above the entrance, and a crow-step crown. The right photo is actually a closeup of the facade seen sideways-on in the left photo. It is one of the "standard" Petra types (see Auge and Dentzer, pp. 84-85, for a more complete list).

It used to be thought that typologies of this kind would be useful in dating the monuments – fashions do change over time, and the types, at least these two and the Alexandrian type exemplified by the Khazneh and the Deir, seem fairly robust – but this idea, however attractive in theory, has run into difficulties in practice, and is currently (2005) viewed with skepticism.