excavating a nabataean mansion

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No residential areas had everbeen excavated at Petra and sothe Swiss excavations, whichwere conducted between 1988and 1997 in two areas on ez-Zantur, known as EZ I and EZ III(see illustration), have provideddramatic insights into thedomestic architecture and wayof life of the Nabataean urbanmiddle class between the latefirst century BCE and fifthcentury CE. The excavation ofthe mansion, an upper-classresidence on the terraced site ofEZ IV, began in 1996 with thegoal of expanding our knowledgeof Petraean buildings in the ez-Zantur residential district. Theseexcavations were completed inthe autumn of 2001.

The last two field campaignsrevealed the existence of denselypacked buildings on the east andwest slopes below the mansion.They bear witness to highlycompact urban residences of thefirst century CE. The narrowsouth tip of the EZ IV terracedrops steeply away. Below is rockyground gently rising towards the north, suitable for construction.Here we discovered an important architectural complexcomprised of a monumental altar and a small temple, which webelieve may be the local shrine of this residential district.

The mansion is comprised of three main functional areas:an east wing of servants’ rooms (rooms 16, 35–37 on the

plan opposite), the centraland southern reception areasand luxury rooms (28, 25, 15,1, 19, 6–7, 17, and 14), and awest wing of private rooms (30,27, and 22). Numerous black-and-white mosaic and opussectile (a stone floor techniquewith geometrically- shaped,colored stones laid in patterns)fragments found in the debrisabove the stone tiled groundfloor clearly indicate that themost remarkable private roomswere on the first floor, abovethe three southern rooms (6, 7,and 17) and the east wing andcentral rooms (15 and 1). Twostaircases led to these upper-story rooms, including monu-mental staircase 8, presumablyreserved for the owners, and amore modest staircase situatedbetween rooms 35 and 37 forthe servants.

The Building’s HistoryFragments of painted

Nabataean fine wares dating to20–70/80 CE appeared in the

mortar below the opus sectile flooring in rooms 1, 10, and 17, aswell as in the plaster bedding of the painted wall decorations inroom 1. This evidence dates the earliest phase of this mansionto the years following 20 CE.

The mansion revealed a second construction phase thatmust have occurred sometime in the early decades of the

Excavating a Nabataean Mansion

By Bernhard Kolb

The Wadi Musa bisects the basin-shaped site of Petra from east to west. Parallel to it is the most important traffic arteryof the town, the Colonnaded Street, lined with public buildings. To the south is a rocky spur with its highest point,known as ez-Zantur, located to the southeast above the Great Temple, halfway between el-Habis and the theater (see

centerfold). The surface finds conducted in the area of ez-Zantur suggested that there was no fortification wall on this slope,as had long been supposed. Instead we found a richly furnished residential mansion of about 1,100 square meters, whichcovered the central and southern part of the site. Erected in the first century CE, this two-story mansion towered abovethe surrounding buildings and offered its inhabitants spectacular views of the southern landscape of Petra.

The area to the north and south of ez-Zantur with Swissexcavation sites EZ I, EZ III, and EZ IV. This area seems to havebeen residential.

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second century CE. The main reason for thisreconstruction was that some structuralearthquake damage occurred that is,unfortunately, not documented by historicreference. After the earthquake, consolidationhad to be undertaken to support wall sectionsP1 and P2 between rooms 6 and 7. At thesame time wall K was reinforced by filling inthe doorway between room 6 and corridor 11,blocking off the doorway in wall G of room 1(Kolb, Gorgerat, and Grawehr 1999: 268–69)and probably walling-up the doorwaysbetween corridor 2 and room 4. In thisreconstruction, room 14, the connectionbetween rooms 4 and 12, was eliminated, androom 14 was re-oriented towards corridor 11and equipped as a floor-heated winter room.Also in this phase, the owners installed aprivate Roman-type bathroom in the westcorner of the building (rooms 10, 39, 40, and52) and undertook other minor changes aswell. The mansion’s last phase of use abruptlyended with the massive earthquake of 363 CE.

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Aerial view of the Nabataean mansion under excavation.

EZ IV. Schematic plan of the Nabataean mansionshowing the structure’s three main functionalareas: the servants quarters, the public area andthe private residence.

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The Wall Decorations in Room 1 Within the scope of our protective roofing project launched in

2002 to cover rooms 1–3 with their wall decorations still in situ,we undertook a final study of the stucco and paintings of room 1,belonging to the later phase of the building. This study producedsome extraordinary results, which we present as tentativereconstructions. We established that the paintings were dividedinto three zones covering the entire room. The lowest wallsection (160 centimeters in height) was covered partially bypainted architectural designs. Walls A and G each depicted atripartite architectural facade, while walls C and F had two each.Thus a total of six architectural painted panels were set withinpainted frames consisting of pilasters supporting a roundedentablature. This superimposed architecture divided thepaintings, which flowed into a continuous decoration. Themiddle 115-centimeter-high wall zone rested on a lower wallzone, above which were stuccoed coffers thirty-six centimetershigh of varying widths. Above them was a projecting cornicewith quadrant molding on which there were small stuccoedengaged columns twenty-four centimeters wide. The Attic stuccobases of the columns were reduced-scale copies of sculpted stonebases. The interpretation of the crown was less formal and was

comprised of an eight-centimeter-high profile strip that was, inequal parts, a crown of pilasters and an architrave. Recognizableby the impressions they left in the plaster bedding were narrowflat vertical supports, and although we lack any conclusiveindications of their colors, the interplay of corbelled pilasters, flatsupports and inset wall sections suggest that spatial depths werestaggered along the central wall zone.

The symmetry between the lower and middle wall zone isapparent and should be interpreted as a decorativearchitectural concept with an explicitly static verticalrelationship. The slender, painted pilasters of the lower wallzone continue in the middle wall zone as stuccoed dwarfpilasters. Between the two demi-pilasters framing the wallsurface, two fully-fashioned stucco supports can bereconstructed dividing the middle wall into three mainsections. Walls A and G each depict corner pilasters turnedtowards their respective doorway openings. They may alsorepresent a full pilaster. Further, the two lower wall zonesresemble the monumental, so-called palace tomb facades inPetra. The higher dwarf designs also can be compared with thecompressed entablature of the middle wall zone of room 1(McKenzie 1990: pls. 145–146).

Painted architectural panels decorated the walls of room 1.


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The painting of the pilasters represented in the opus sectile styleis the same as the interior design of the architectural painting.Small geometric patterns with light/dark contrasts determinetheir appearance. However, the colored design of the zonesbetween the pilasters is unknown. Remains of iron and bronzepins in the recessed south wall panel between the two supportsindicate that this area was decorated with a prefabricated,panel-type decoration.

A relatively small group of paintedfragments may be allocated to theuppermost zone that was decoratedwith comparably large-scale geometricmotifs with rhomboids, triangles, andsquares, painted in a green, blue,black, and red marble imitation on awhite ground. The impression of alarge-tiled cladding made of preciousstones was obviously intentional. Thefake inlays that had already played animportant role in the decoration ofthe lower and middle zones nowdominated the upper part of the wall.A stucco cornice provided the borderbetween the wall and the vaultedceiling arch voussoir.

A vaulted ceiling was placed on areinforced bedding comprised ofcorded reeds and rush mats and wasfixed to the main body of the building;a style known today as a suspendedceiling. The same cornice that closedoff the larger walls also closed off thetwo opposite semicircular short walls.Two double-sided profiles with gilding

divided the semicircular zones into three parts. The extantfragments in the upper semicircular zone had a painted inlaywhose hues and motifs were comparable to the uppermostwall zone. Their lowest frames were green and white doublebands. Between the arched double profiles and the semicircle,the area seems to have been painted a light rose. The lunettedecoration was separated from the wall surface by a corniceencircling the entire room.

Fragments of the stuccoed dwarf pilasters that make up the “middle zone” decoration of room 1.

A reconstruction of the decoration on West wall A, showing the lower, middle and upper zones of decoration.



In all three zones, the painted architecture of room 1 walls alsowas characterized by inlay imitation made of precious stones. Thethematic point of departure within the context of the room was theflooring. Although looted in antiquity, an opus sectile floor coveringseems certain based on some remaining alabaster and marblefragments, but primarily because of extant impressions in thebedding. These paintings represent architectural concepts that gobeyond anything we know of the wallpaper-type decoration foundat Pompeii in Roman Italy, nor are there many parallels withcontemporary Trajanic or Hadrianic wall paintings (Mielsch 2001:94–100). The decoration of room 1 cannot be explained simply asderiving from Ptolemaic, Roman or Parthian traditions because itcontains characteristics of all three cultures that were blended intoa new, unique Nabataean style. However, the sequencing of similararchitectural elements from room 1 may be found in Ptolemaic wallpaintings from the third to first centuries BCE (McKenzie 1990: pls.175a–c, 197), while the various illusionist architectural renderingsseem stylistically to mimic the traditional Roman paintings of earlyAugustan times (Carettoni 1983: 23–24, pl. E) dominated bypainted stone inlays that may have been inspired by Parthianstucco facades. But the raised architectural decoration of Room 1predates the wall paintings in the building. Although the origin ofthe painting style does not come from the West (Rome), we do notyet know enough about Egyptian and Levantine painting styles tosuggest them as potential sources of the style, either.

With its relatively modest size of five by four meters, room 1 surelydoes not belong, within the hierarchy of such rooms, among theprimary foci of the house. Although it is central to the overallground plan, it is well outside the primary circulation flow pattern.Its elaborate decoration indicates that it was a room intended by theowner to receive and serve a small and exclusive group of guests.

ReferencesBignasca A., et al.

1996 Petra. Ez Zantur I. Ergebnisse der Schweizerisch-Liechten-steinischen Ausgrabungen 1988–1992. Terra Archaeologica, 2.Mainz: von Zabern.

Carettoni G.1983 Das Haus des Augustus auf dem Palatin. Mainz: von Zabern.

Kolb, B.; Keller, D.; and Fellmann Brogli, R.1997 Swiss-Liechtenstein Excavations at ez-Zantur in Petra 1996.

The Seventh Season. Annual of the Department of Antiquitiesof Jordan 41: 231–54.

Kolb B.; Keller D.; and Gerber Y.1998 Swiss-Liechtenstein Excavations at az-Zantur in Petra 1997.

Annual of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan 42: 259–77.Kolb B.; Gorgerat L.; and Grawehr M.

1999 Swiss-Liechtenstein Excavations on az-Zantur, Petra, 1998.Annual of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan 43: 261–77.

Kolb B., and Keller D.2001 Swiss-Liechtenstein Excavation at az-Zantur/Petra: The

Eleventh Season. Annual of the Department of Antiquities ofJordan 45: 311–24.

McKenzie J.1990 The Architecture of Petra. Oxford: Oxford University.

Mielsch, H.2001 Römische Wandmalerei. Stuttgart: Theiss.

Bernhard Kolb received his M.A.in 1991 and his Ph.D. in ClassicalArchaeology in 1996 from BaselUniversity concentrating on lateantique dwellings in the Near East.Since 1988 he has been undertakingfieldwork at Petra/Jordan, and since1996 he has served as the Director ofthe Swiss-Liechtenstein Excavationsat Petra (ez Zantur). Since 1994 hehas been an Assistant Professor atBasle University with a research focuson private architecture in theNabataean realm.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Bernhard Kolb

Above: Thesefragments are all thatremain of the large-scale geometricmotifs painted ingreen, blue, blackand red imitationmarble thatdecorated the upperportions of theroom’s north andsouth walls.

Right: A reconstructionof South wall C, one ofthe semi-circular shortwalls, showing all threezones of decoration.


excavating a nabataean mansion

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