Those styles may be accounted for, by the intercourse of a people of opulent traders 
with the chief sources of ancient commerce. Its connexion with the Egyptian traffic 
naturally determined it to the solid and grave dignity of the architecture of Memphis 
and Thebes. Its connexion with the Greek Isles, and with Italy, through its subjugation 
by the Caesars, would as naturally determine its adoption of the elegance of Greece, 
and the imperial exuberance of Rome. 
The geology of the Mountains of Edom offers a wide field. Argillaceous rock forms 
the base, lofty masses of porphyry constitute the body, and long limestone ridges extend 
above all. The porphyry cliffs average 2000 feet above the Arabah. Wady Mousa 
is about the same height above it, and the limestone ridges may rise 3000 feet. The 
whole breadth of the Mountain tract between the Arabah and the Desert is under 
twenty geographical miles. 1 
1 Biblical Researches, ii. 551. 
THE NECROPOLIS. 
In the valley which conducts to Petra, and which lies outside the “Chasm,” is the 
chief Cemetery. The ravine suddenly narrows to a space of about fifty yards, shut 
in by sandstone cliffs forty or fifty feet high. Here commences the Necropolis. The 
tombs begin immediately on the right: they are numerous, but the first which peculiarly 
strike the eye are three on the right, strongly resembling those in the Valley of 
Jehoshaphat. They are isolated masses of rock, fifteen or twenty feet square, cut away 
from the cliffs, and leaving a passage of several feet between. In one of them is a 
small sepulchral chamber, with a low door. Another has columns, but too much defaced 
to leave their order discoverable. These tombs differ from those of Absalom and 
Zechariah chiefly in their being flat-roofed, and in their sides being slightly inclined 
in the Egyptian style. They are mentioned by Burckhardt. A little farther on the left, 
in the face of the cliff, is a tomb with six Ionic columns. Immediately over this is 
another, bearing four slender pyramids, sculptured on the rock, the only instance 
of the kind here. 
The valley then contracts more and more, and the cliffs become higher, forming 
a street of tombs. The rocks are of red sandstone. 1 The large tomb on the left of 
the Engraving is curious, from its giving some idea of the Petrsean style of embellishment. 
The cornices and architrave, with the capitals and bases of the pilasters, were “let 
into” the sandstone, and were probably of some richer material, marble, if not bronze. 2 
The whole must once have been a scene of stately melancholy. 
Biblical Researches, iii. 415. 
' Roberts’s Journal. 
