The Nabataean temple ruins atop of Jabal et-Tannur overlook the confluence of Wadi al-Hasa and Wadi La‘aban north of the modern town of Tafila. From the 2nd century BC through to the middle of the 4th century CE the sanctuary was an important pilgrimage place for the Nabataeans to worship, and celebrate seasonal rituals and banquets. With no spring for water supply, it was not a permanent settlement. It functioned in connection with the neighboring village and temple of Khirbet edh-Dharih, some 7 km south on the old caravan route coming from the capital city of Petra.
The sanctuary consisted of a temenos (temple enclosure), with a forecourt and roofed colonnaded walkways on the north and south sides connecting to rooms equipped with benches on three sides, called triclinium for resting and ritual banqueting.
The eastern façade of the inner temenos was also richly decorated. The famous relief known as the Vegetation Goddess, veiled by leaves and framed by flowers with an eagle above her comes from a semi-circular pediment over the main portal. Both sculptures are today on display at the Jordan Museum in Amman. Scholars suggest to see in her the goddess of the nearby spring of La‘aban. An inscription found on site dated 8 or 7 BC mentions building works dedicated by the guardian of this spring. After 2000 years, this name lives on in the name Wadi La‘aban, the river bed connecting Khirbet et-Tannur and Khirbet edh-Dharih.
The inner temenos (sacred area) was an unroofed square enclosure (ca. 10 x 10 m) with an altar platform in the center that had a frontal niche to host the cult statues of the main god and goddess. A male cult figure holding a lightning bolt and flanked by bull calves was found during excavations, probably the supreme god Dushara with attributes and iconography adopted by the Nabataeans from neighbor cultures. From the goddess Allat only one foot and a part of her lion throne were found. Placed between them might have been the zodiac ring encircling a bust of a Tyche, carried by a winged Victory (Nike), another one of the famous discoveries at Khirbet et-Tannur. The upper zodiac piece is in the collection of the Cincinnati Art Museum, USA, together with the main cult statues. The sculptures date from the main construction phase of the first half of the 2nd century CE. The altar niche was surrounded by an elaborate decoration including busts also representing zodiac signs, from which two have survived: the personification of Pisces (in Amman) and Virgo (in Cincinnati).
A staircase led to the altar's roof, where a sacred flame was lit and animal sacrifices were burnt. Incense, grains and offering cakes were burnt as offerings on either side of the altar niche, and on smaller free-standing altars scattered around the site as well.
The east-west axis alignment of the sanctuary ensured that the rising sun would illuminate the altar niche during the spring and autumn equinoxes, when special rituals and celebrations took place to ensure agricultural abundance. The remains of ceramic lamps with nozzles on several levels suggest night-time processions and rituals to worship zodiacal deities appearing in the starry sky.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality✓ Free Actions
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
Temple of the Standards (Principia of Diocletians Camp)
Palmyra (Tadmor), Syria
4th century CE
The so-called Temple of the Standards in Palmyra, Syria is what remains of a Roman principia, military headquarters, in the Camp of Diocletian. The camp is located within the wall and on the western edge of the city. The camp with its civic and private buildings was part of a larger series of civic renovations that took place during the reign of Diocletian. These improvements included the camp, the wall that surrounds much of the city, and the Baths of Diocletian in the eastern side of the city. The placement of the principia within the camp and within the city allow it to exert control over the city.
The principia is the symbolic and physical center of a Roman military encampment. In Palmyra, the principia is only approachable via a monumental staircase that directs the viewer towards the center. They enter a deep portico to see a rectangular room that ends in an apse that houses the military standards. The standards, signa, were the embodiment of Roman power. A legion would be disbanded if they lost their standards; it was the worst dishonor that they could suffer. Standards fulfilled various roles and came in many shapes and sizes. All of these would have been housed in the shrine.
Rome relied heavily on built environments to establish their power, and the principia in Palmyra is no different. It is elevated due to its position on a hill and its elevated base. A taller building or a building located on higher ground indicates its importance in the social hierarchy. The correlation between height of a building and status is a cross-cultural one. Visitors to Palmyra would not have been left wondering as to who was in control of the city. Scale plays a role in the establishment of political power. Structures that were grand in scale act as highly visible symbols of national prestige and power. As such, it was used to confirm or announce a hierarchy.
Si is now a deserted ruin. Ancient Seeia was not a town, or a village, like the majority of sites in the Hauran, but an ancient “high place”, or sacred precinct, adorned with temples, enclosed courts, splendid gateways, statues, and monumental inscriptions. On the plateau to the east of the precinct, and upon its slopes, there grew up a small village which exhibits no signs of Christian work, and is probably of the Roman period, or even of the same period as the temples. The architecture here is very simple, and is in a very much ruined condition, but it seems to illustrate all of the more important principles of construction that are characteristic of the Roman and Christian periods in the Hauran. From all that I observed, it is impossible to assign dates to any of these houses. In the valley to the north there are a few ruins of towers which I took to be coeval with the temples, and a great number of tombs, tower-like structures of the early period, and more elaborate constructions of both the Nabataean and the Roman periods.
From the valley, at a point about 300 m. east of the precinct, a paved road, of excellent construction in huge squared blocks, and about 7 m. wide, leads at an easy grade to the easternmost gate of the precinct. The general course of this road and the plan of the precinct and of the terraces about it may be seen on the map at the beginning of this Part. The road passes by the ruins of a bath and of a number of buildings of unknown purpose. At about half its length, it passes between the ruined piers of a fallen arched gateway. It terminates at an enormous pile of debris which represents the ruins of a triple-arched gateway of the Roman period. At this point the ascent is so steep that I cannot but believe that the outer gate, like those within, was approached by steps. Inside the entrance a paved courtyard, about 50 m. long and 19 m. wide, stretches to the westward. On the south of this court rises a retaining wall, 5 m. high, which masks the side of the knoll upon which a small temple stood. This temple was approached by a flight of steps set into the retaining wall and flanked by two niches. On the north is a terrace, 7 m. below the court, which is heaped high with debris in which are many interesting fragments denoting the presence of a buried building· of some kind. The eastern and western limits of this terrace are marked by walls of unusual thickness. This terrace, like all the others to be described, was artificially cut in the slope of the hillside. The western end of this first court is marked by the ruins of a gateway which I have called the Nabataean gate, because all of its details are in the characteristic Oriental style of Si. This structure is almost completely hidden in its own ruins, and the northern, or right hand, half of it is buried in the debris of a building of the Roman period with beautiful and characteristic details of the second century in Syria. The middle court, 50 cm. above the other, completely paved, and about 60 m. long by 23 m. wide, is not on axis with the outer court, but bends toward the north. It is flanked by terraces; one on the south about a metre higher than the pavement and one on the north some 7 m. below. The higher terrace was partly built up on a retaining wall, and is strewn with ruins. At its western end the temple of Dushara was discovered. The lower terrace is filled with masses of fallen building stones, broken statues, and fragmentary inscriptions, and is a promising place for future clearing out.
The end of the middle court is marked by a flight of steps 87 cm. high, and by a fine specimen of highly finished wall with an elaborate gateway in the middle. This is the east wall of the peristyle court in front of the great temple. It had preserved about 1.50 m. of its original height, gateway and all, when we uncovered it. Within the gateway, that is, between the jambs of the portal, are two more steps which raise the pavement of the inner court 1.25 m. above that of the middle court. This inner court with its peristyle I have termed the Theatron, in the light of an inscription in Nabataean which uses this Greek word, given in Nabataean letters, in such a way that it can be applied to nothing else. This court is also slightly off axis with the one which precedes it, it measures about 25 m. north and south and about 21m. east and west, inside the wall. The colonnade occupies three sides of a rectangle of 18 m. by 20 m. in front of the temple. Between the colonnade and the wall are a narrow passage and two steps, like the seats of a theatre, which may have suggested the name Theatron to the builders. The side walls of this enclosure are carried along the sides of the temple, at a distance of about 2.50 m. to enclose a space 12 m. deep in the rear of the temple; this space was also paved.
The magnificent temple wall of highly finished masonry which was disclosed by M. de Vogue and found to be intact to a height of 2 m., the two broad steps below it, the jambs of the portal, the bases of the columns and the bases of statues which he found all in situ, have been broken up to the very foundations and carried away by the stone- breakers since 1900. But these same plunderers, by carrying away much of the debris which filled the temple in 1861, and which M. de Vogue did not attempt to remove, have disclosed a part at least of the plan of the interior from which the rest may be restored, and have brought to light many new and important architectural fragments.
The style and character of the buildings, their present state of preservation, and the probable dates of their erection are to be discussed under the separate descriptions of the various buildings; but a few general remarks on these topics may not be out of place in these introductory paragraphs. The importance of the architectural remains at Si' lies in the fact that the buildings of the precinct here constitute the most important group of religious structures known to have been erected by that important branch of the Aramaean peoples known as the Nabataeans. M. de Vogue published a better preserved temple, of an entirely different plan, but having similar details, which he found at Suweda. A plan and a few fragments of one temple and scanty details of another found at Umm idj-DjimM have already appeared in these publications;1 two temples discovered in the Ledja by these expeditions are to be published in the Part which follows this one. These are the only monuments of Nabataean religious architecture known thus far, and the monuments at Si are the finest of their class. Here we have three temples, two of them of a plan hitherto unknown, the third prostyle tetrastyle. Beside the temples there are two fine gateways in the Nabataean style and one of the Roman period, and a bath that probably belongs to the later date. In the plain below there is a great variety of tomb structures, most of which are Nabataean.
Most of these buildings were designed in a style that borrows little or nothing from the contemporary or earlier Hellenistic architecture of Syria. As stone cutters and masons these builders were unmatched for skill; they placed the arch directly upon the column, being perhaps the first architects to do so. They employed a great variety of profiles in their mouldings, and often embellished them with naturalistic, or conventional, or geometrical, designs of carving; but few of the profiles or of the carved designs are to be found in the Classical architecture of Greece or of Rome. They used the bell, or inverted capital, as a base for columns, and adorned it as the Persians had done. They designed capitals of many varieties, one drawn roughly from the outlines of the Corinthian capital, but very differently treated in detail; another with a gigantic abacus like those found in Petra and in Hegra in Arabia and those recently discovered in Bosra;3 others still, of moulded types with little leaves below the angles of the abacus, resembling only in the faintest degree the capitals of the Classical orders. But stranger still it is to find that these Oriental artists introduced grotesques and naturalistic animal forms into their carving. Human forms with distorted bodies and grinning faces appear among the leafage of some of the capitals, while birds and locusts are found in the foliage of the grape-vines. The grape-vine was the favorite subject for the broader bands of architectural ornament, and so great is the variety of treatment in leaves and fruit that it may be possible to trace a chronological sequence by means of it. But other vines were also popular; for we find the ivy and the convolvulus, and even the thistle, treated as a running ornament. The well-known acanthus, so common in Classical designs, if used at all, does not appear as a familiar plant naturalistically treated, like so many other vegetable forms, but as a conventional ornament with little resemblance either to the plant itself, or to the conventionalized form in which the Greeks and Romans used it. The Corinthian form of capital undoubtedly had long been known in Syria, in the Hellenistic architecture of the three centuries before Christ. We have specimens of it, dating from the second century b. c., in the building erected by John Hyrkanos at Arak il-Emir.1 In this building there are two varieties, one large and having a double row of plain water-leaves, the other small, with a single row of true acanthus. The Nabataean capitals at Si', which follow the Corinthian model to a certain extent, have but one row of leaves, and that a tall one, and the leaves resemble the acanthus more perhaps than those of any other plant.
There are three perfectly distinct periods of building represented in the ruins at Sf, two of which are definitely dated by inscriptions, the third, by unmistakable peculiarities of style. The first is a Nabataean period dated by an inscription which tells us that the temple was begun in the third quarter of the first century before Christ. I believe that some of the fragments here are somewhat older than the earliest date named in the inscription — 33 b. c. - or, in other words, that the inscription does not record the actual foundation of the building. The second period is also devoid of Hellenistic influence, and is dateable within fifty years by means of inscriptions of Agrippa II, i. e. from 50 to circ. 100 a. d. The third period is represented by fragments of architectural details which were certainly executed in the second century after Christ. The three periods would then be roughly speaking,
1st. from 50 b. c. to 50 A. d. ;
2nd. from 50 a. d. to 106 a. d., when Arabia became a Roman province under Trajan;
3rd. from 106 a. d. to the close of the reign of Caracalla in 217 a. d., which marks the end of this particular style in Syria.
There are no evidences of building activity in Si in the later style of the Roman period, or in Christian times; in fact, as we shall see later, the temples appear to have been the particular mark of early Christian violence, perhaps, as M. de Vogue suggests, owing to the activities of Herod and of the presence of inscriptions of that prince in the precinct. It is probable that the place has been deserted since the beginning of the fourth century.
Gold glass or gold sandwich glass is a luxury form of glass where a decorative design in gold leaf is fused between two layers of glass. First found in Hellenistic Greece, it is especially characteristic of the Roman glass of the Late Empire in the 3rd and 4th century CE, where the gold decorated roundels of cups and other vessels were often cut out of the piece they had originally decorated and cemented to the walls of the catacombs of Rome as grave markers for the small recesses where bodies were buried
Only 13 of the more than 500 known Late Roman vessel bottoms are identifiably Jewish, but these have still been said to represent "the most appealing group of Jewish realia that have come down from antiquity". They are all presumed to have been used in the Roman catacombs as grave-markers, though as with the examples identifiable with other religions, the exact find spot and context of the great majority is unrecorded.
Identifiably Jewish roundels do not feature portraits but with one exception have a fairly standard array of religious symbols. The most common arrangement is on two levels, with two Lions of Judah flanking a Torah ark above, and below two Menoras, a Shofar (rams horn), Etrog, Lulav and perhaps others of the four Species, scrolls and vases. Not all the tiny symbols can be confidently identified. Alternatively, the objects are all in the top tier, above a banqueting scene. The single exception to such compositions has what is thought to be a representation of the Temple of Jerusalem, perhaps representing the feat of Purim.
