Qasr al-Bint

One of the best preserved ancient structures surviving in Petra today, it stands near the monumental gate and was a key focal point on the colonnaded street, as well as a focus of religious worship.

[1] Others have suggested that the presence in the cella of a baetyl stone fragment, which originally would have been placed on a base faced with gold, indicates that it was actually Al-Uzza, equated with the Greek goddess Aphrodite, that was worshiped here.

[1] Healey, who is considered one of the main authorities on Nabataean religion, believes that the Qasr may be the Temple to Aphrodite that is referred to in the Babatha correspondence, a cache of documents that were hidden in a cave at the time of the Bar Kokhba Revolt.

[5] The Qasr al-Bint sits upon a podium made of a rubble core retained by courses of ashlar masonry.

The plan is square and consists of a pronaos (or vestibule), a naos (or chamber), and a tripartite adyton which contains the cella, the most sacred part of the temple.

It is believed that the ramp was placed there in order to allow for the removal of some of the stones, which were then reused in other structures[1] The Qasr al-Bint is one of the few ancient built-structures that remain standing in Petra.

The symmetrical plan of Qasr el-Bint may have helped to reduce the moments of torsion that occurred during seismic activity at the site, however.