228 Captains Irby and Mangles's Account of the Necropolis 



the front are little niches and hollows, cut as if for the reception 

 of votive offerings. Farther on upon tfie left is a wide fa9ade 

 of rather a low proportion, loaded with ornaments in the Ro- 

 man manner, hut in a bad taste, with an infinity of broken 

 lines and unnecessary angles and projections, and multiplied 

 pediments and half pediments, and pedestals, set upon columns 

 that support nothing. It has more the air of a fantastical 

 scene in a theatre than an architectural work in stone. What 

 is observed of this front is applicable more or less to every spe- 

 cimen of Roman design at Petra. The door-way has triglyphs 

 over the entablature, and flowers in the metopes. The cham- 

 ber within is not so large as the exterior promises. It is a broad 

 raised platform round three sides, on which bodies were pro- 

 bably disposed. Immediately over this front is another of al- 

 most equal extent, but so wholly distinct from it, that even the 

 centres do not correspond. The door-way has the same orna- 

 ments. The rest of the body of the design is no more than a 

 plain front, without any other decoration than a single mould- 

 ing. Upon this -are set in a recess four tall and taper pyra- 

 mids. Their effect is singular and surprising, but combining too 

 little with the rest of the elevation to be good. Our attention 

 was the more attracted by this monument, as it presents per- 

 haps the only existing example of pyramids so applied, though 

 we read of them as placed in a similar manner on the summit of 

 the tomb of the Maccabees and of the Queen of Adiabaene, both 

 in the neighbouring province of Palestine. The interior of the 

 mausoleum is of moderate size, with two sepulchral recesses 

 upon each side, and one in form of an arched alcove at the up- 

 per end ; a flight of steps leads up to the narrow terrace upon 

 which it opens. Fig. 3, Plate III. given in last number, may 

 convey an idea of some of these singular excavations. 



The sides of the valley were now becoming precipitous and 

 rugged to a high degree, and approaching nearer and nearer to 

 each other, so that it might rather deserve the name of a ra- 

 vine, with high detached masses of rock standing up here and 

 there in the open space. Of these the architects had availed 

 themselves. In some instances the large and lofty towers are 

 represented in relievo on the lower part of the precipice, and 

 the live rock is cut down on all sides, so as to make thcresem- 



