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Out of the Desert
Discoveries in Beidha
A millennium before the people of Rajl carved their
stones, another nomadic group appeared in the area of
Petra. At first, they were only partially settled, but
by the first century B.C., they had established themselves
as the masters of one of antiquity’s major trade
routes. This gave them great wealth and brought them
into contact with elements of Graeco-Roman, Assyrian,
and Egyptian cultures. As they shifted from being nomads
to sophisticated urbanites, they adopted the trappings
of those cultures.
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The
site of Beidha, about 10 km. north of Petra, formed
part of the agricultural network necessary for
a major city like Petra. Beidha was a place that
wine was produced and it also seems to have served
as a retreat for some of the citizens of Petra.
Toward the end of the first century B.C., a person
of great wealth built a residence on one of the
high places of Beidha. Approached by a long ramp
and steps, the complex contains a large hall with
columns. The capitals of those columns were exceptional—each
had four heads of gods carved on it. On the capitals
at the entrance there are heads of Medusa on the
corners and they would have warded off evil. On
the columns at the corners of the room, the capitals
featured grapes as might be expected in a vineyard.
On the upper level were smaller capitals again
with heads of deities at the center but with horned
lions (griffons) at the corners. |
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This
well decorated hall may have been used for receiving
visitors and for ritual dining. An ancient text about
the Nabataeans states:
The Nabataeans … prepare common meals together
in groups of thirteen persons; and they have two girl-singers
for each banquet. The king holds many drinking-bouts
in magnificent style, but no one drinks more than eleven
cupfuls, each time using a different golden cup. The
king is so democratic that, in addition to serving himself,
he sometimes even serves the rest himself in his turn
(Strabo 16.4.26).
While the materials recovered from this site show Hellenistic,
Egyptian, Assyrian, and Roman influences, there is no
way of knowing how the Nabataeans interpreted what they
had adopted from other cultures.
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