Palace Tomb

Palace Tomb is unique by means of its great breadth in an open site and its complicated architectural rhythms. It took its name for its similarity with Roman palace design. Its façade consists of three floors unlike all other monuments in Petra.

The massive, clear and individual articulation of the ground floor does not correspond with the two storeys above. They (upper storeys) consist of unevenly spaced engaged half-columns, eighteen of them supporting recessed and advanced entablatures over alternate bays. This complicated counterpoint is repeated in the top storey, but the clear punctuation of the theme by the pillars is missing and the effect is, in consequence, confused.

Much of the top storey had to be built of stone, for the cliff into which the monument was carved proved to be too low. The two top storeys are divided from the ground floor by an unrelieved plinth which is important to the design, for it serves as a neutral zone between the two conflicting treatments.

The four pedimented portals of the massive and boldly sculptured ground floor are set between projecting pilasters which have suffered horribly at the hands of the elements. But the right-hand corner, close in the angle of the protecting cliff from which the monument has been carved, the detail remains wonderfully crisp and fresh. The interior, which consists of four huge, unadorned chambers of which the only the middle two interconnect, would undoubtedly have been plastered and possibly painted in the accepted Nabataean manner. The largest of these chambers is 33 feet by 23.