#palatial complex

(MENAFN - Jordan Times) AMMAN — A team of scholars involved in the North-Eastern Petra Project (NEPP) investigated for the first time a whole quarter of the ancient city and not merely a single building. The idea was to identify remaining structures and their interrelations, said Marco Dehner, a German scholar who completed his studies in archaeology and ancient history at Berlin's Humboldt University.

'A first hypothesis deals with the idea that this area, indeed, could have been served as a sort of palatial complex or Basileia,' said Dehner, adding that the results show that this area, between the Wadi Musa in the south, Wadi Mataha to the west and north and the Al Khubta massive to the east, is a unique accumulation of buildings and structures of very high standard in Petra, which are somehow separated from the rest of the city centre.

According to Dehner, the most important artefacts documented during the investigations were architectural elements of high quality from the identified structures.

'Those findings seem to confirm a first building phase in the end of the 1st century BC and the beginning of the 1st century AD. The project was mainly undertaken as a survey, no more special finds could be recorded so far,' he added.