Roads of Arabia

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ROADS OF ARABIA
Hegra of Arabia Felix
several chambers, which may have been executed within the same architectural programme of
the tomb façade and chamber, most of the graves were executed according to need. Therefore
in principle for each burial the tomb had to be reopened and a grave cut to the dimensions of
the defunct.
Fig. 10. Nabataean inscription (Jaussen and Savignac no. 12)
engraved inside a cartouche with double dovetails on the
façade of tomb IGN 29
“This is the tomb which Wushuh, daughter of Bagrat, and
Qaynu and Nashkuyah, her daughters, Taymanites, made for
themselves, for each one of them, and for ‘Amirat and
‘Usra’nat and ‘Al-alat, their sisters, daughters of this Wushuh,
and for everyone under their protection, male or female, in
order for Wushuh and her daughters mentioned above, and all
of their protégés to be buried in this tomb. And it behoves
Wushuh and her daughters and all of their protégés, male or
female, not to sell and not to pawn and not to alter anything
in this tomb for anyone. And whoever alters the above shall
owe one hundred Aretas drachmae to Ta{dha}y and the same
amount to our lord Aretas. In the month of Iyyar, year 43 of
Aretas, king of the Nabataeans, who loves his people. Done by
Halp’allahi, the stonecutter.”
The systematic sketches of all the tombs have highlighted two stages of occupation of
the Hegra massifs. A first ancient stage features burial chambers vertically cut out in the
rock walls, their interior entirely filled with pit-graves. The second stage features the
Nabataean façade tombs described above. The excavations in 2008 in one of the tombs
probably belonging to the first stage, IGN 125 (Jaussen and Savignac no. C4) unfortunately
did not enable dating. The excavations begun in 2008 and continued in 2009 inside one
of the rare Nabataean tombs that had not been entirely cleaned produced more results. 15
This small tomb, IGN 117 (Jaussen and Savignac no. C14), with two rows of merlons (fig.
5) is dated to 61 AD by the inscription engraved on its façade. The excavation, not yet completed,
yielded a great amount of wood (probably elements of coffins), as well as leather and
fabrics that wrapped the deceased. Several periods of occupation were revealed, all Pre-
Islamic; the oldest being that of the tomb owner. Above all, the anthropological study of the
bones indicated the presence of a minimum of sixty-four individuals, including thirty-eight
adults (thirteen men, thirteen women, twelve of undetermined gender), their stature varying
between 1.45 metre to 1.71 metres and twenty-six juveniles aged between zero and nineteen
years. Young children, up to four years old, are less represented: this demographic category
may have been given a separate burial treatment. In addition, the study of discrete
characters – non-pathological anatomical variations directly observable on the skeleton –
revealed the existence of blood ties between the individuals buried in the tomb. Several
pathologies, in particular on the vertebrae but also fractures, were also observed.
Of course religion was present in Hegra. Contrary to Petra however, where the space
devoted to religious practices is organized in a markedly hierarchical manner and religious
monuments (temples, holy places, banquet halls, small rock sanctuaries) are found in all the
sectors of the antique site, the cultic space of Hegra, as far as we now know it, is mostly concentrated
in an area of the site named Jabal Ithlib. This crag rising in the north-east of the
site is the highest and the most uneven, presenting the sharpest summits. Vestiges of monumental
architecture, notably elements of columns, have actually been found intra-muros
and on the edge of the city on the slopes descending gradually towards it from the east. But
the monuments to which these elements belong have not been identified and the city temple
where the city archives were kept, as some inscriptions on the tombs indicate, has yet to
be found. Aside from Jabal Ithlib and its southern outskirts, Hegra yielded very few religious
monuments. At the most a few baetyls (sacred stones) associated with tombs, several
baetyl niches cut out in the outcrops rising inside the city, and also a few niches carved in
different places of the site and which do not seem related to any other vestige.
15. Directed by I. Sachet, archaeologist, and
N. Delhopital, anthropologist; see Delhopital
and Sachet, in Nehmé, Al-Talhi and Villeneuve
2009 [2010], pp. 205–58.
The interior of Jabal Ithlib, accessible by a narrow gorge which recalls in miniature the
famous Siq in Petra, is cut in two by a wadi hemmed in by two rocky banks, the slopes of
which are sometimes broken by projecting ledges (fig. 12). The most well-known monument
of this sector, hewn at the entrance of the gorge, is a large banquet hall with three
benches, a triclinium, called the Diwan (fig. 13), where the Nabataean religious confraternities
gathered in groups of thirteen persons, including two musicians. A large number of
Fig. 11. Burial chamber in tomb IGN 9
It contains the three types of burial structures found in the Hegra tombs:
numerous niches and caissons, as well as a trench
in the floor of the chamber (in the centre of the photo)
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