Great Temple (Petra)

[1] The "Great Temple" occupied a prime spot in ancient Petra: from its ruins one can now see the Siq to the Southeast, the Qasr al-Bint to the West, and the Lower Market/Petra Pool Complex to the East.

Such a height is comparable to that of the Qasr al-Bint's current 23 m, but not as grand as the Khazneh/Treasury, whose facade reaches 39 m.[5] A theater-like structure (theatron) with about 600 seats dominates the interior of the temple beyond the Upper Temenos, where traces of extensive decoration remain in gold leaf and colored stucco.

To the southeast of the Upper Temenos, a cultic or votive figure carved in bas relief was found, rendered as holding a sword or dagger and hidden by an ashlar perimeter wall.

[3] Joukowsky makes the argument that the temple proper is comparable to what Arthur Segal describes as "ritual theaters", whose defining characteristic is a view of a notable natural or man-made feature.

[1][9] As excavation has proven that the cavea (seating area) predates the stage and had existed for a time without it—allowing for spectators to look out at the Wadi Musa—Segal's definition may be applicable to the "Great Temple".

Votive figures like the sword-carrying one found in its southernmost passageway are common elsewhere in Petra, and may have been left by stonemasons asking deities to bless their work, or communicating their remorse at altering natural rock formations.

Some scholars foreground civic functions, examining the "Great Temple" with reference to standard Greco-Roman spaces such as the bouleuteria (council chambers) and comitium/curia (Roman political meeting place).

[1][10] The interpretation of the "Great Temple" as an administrative center is arguably supported by several references to a boule or council in the extant papyri from the late 1st to early 2nd century CE Babatha archive.