Concerning the presence of architectural remains, the Northern Terrace was much more promising (fig. 15). Following Dalman 1908 the niches (D. 18) on the outer rock face of Tomb Br. 24 have merely been refered to as niches or have even been misinterpreted as votive niches (fig. 16). However, they have never been discussed in the context of the few traces of building activities visible on the bedrock or the remaining rock-cut walls and the cemented niche basin (D. 18a). The first who recognized these buildings and classified the eight (not 6 as Dalman and others) niches as abutments of arches was Wenning in the context of his „Petra Niches Project“ (PNP).
Fig. 15: Bab as-Siq. Panoramic view of the Northern Terrace from the east (photo: L. Gorgerat)Fig. 16: Northern Terrace. Entrance of tomb Br. 24 with abutments of arches (photo: L. Gorgerat)
To confirm the use of these niches as abutments, sounding S 1 (figs. 17 and 18) was opened in the northeast of the rocky plateau in some distance to the rock-cut face. In the north, we discovered a huge built wall (90 cm) of limestone blocs close to the surface (fig. 19). This wall 1 continued to the south in a visible rock-cut foundation (fig. 18). The pottery found in the foundation level of wall 1 belongs to Schmid’s phase 2c (fig. 19) and therefore indicates that this structure has to be dated in the 1st quarter of the 1st century AD Schmid 2000: 42. . Although wall 1 is running in parallel to the facades, the distance of 9 m between both seems to be to wide for being covered by arches. We therefore presume that there was a second built structure between the facade and wall 1 for which unfortunately no traces have been discovered yet. A further cleaning between the facade and S 1 is planned for a future campaign.
Fig. 17: Northern Terrace. Sounding S 1 with wall 1 and rock-cut foundation (photo: L. Gorgerat)Fig. 18: Northern Terrace. Sounding S 1 with wall 1 (drawing: K. Petrovszky and L. Gorgerat)Fig. 19: Northern Terrace. Sounding S 1. Wall 1 (photo: L. Gorgerat)Fig. 20: Nabataean painted fine ware from sounding S 1 (photo: L. Gorgerat)
