Light and Shadows over Petra: astronomy and landscape in Nabataean lands
J. A. Belmonte, A. C. Gonzalez-Garcia, A. Polcaro

TL;DR
This paper explores how Nabataean monuments in Petra reflect astronomical motifs and orientations, revealing the sky's significant role in their religion and ceremonial practices through statistical and landscape analysis.
Contribution
It provides new evidence of astronomical orientations and light-shadow effects in Nabataean monuments, linking landscape features with religious and celestial symbolism.
Findings
Astronomical orientations were part of an elaborate religious plan.
Light and shadow effects on Ad Deir relate to Nabataean mythology.
Alignments on the Urn tomb suggest celestial worship influences.
Abstract
The Nabateans built several monuments in Petra and elsewhere displaying a decoration with a preference for astronomical motifs, possibly as a reflection of their religion. However, due to the lack of direct written accounts and the scarcity of inscriptions we do not have a clear knowledge on the precise nature of such believes and how these reflected on the calendar or the religious time-keeping system of this ancient society. A statistical analysis of the orientation of their sacred monuments demonstrates that astronomical orientations were often part of an elaborated plan and possibly a trace of the astral nature of Nabataean religion. Petra and other monuments in the ancient Nabataean kingdom have proven to be marvellous laboratories of the interaction between landscape features and astronomical events showing impressive hierophanies on particular monuments related to cultic times…
Peer Reviews
No public reviews on file for this paper yet. If you reviewed it on a platform where reviews are public (OpenReview, ICLR, NeurIPS, ICML), you can paste yours below so the community can read it here.
Videos
No videos yet. Explain this paper in a talk, walkthrough, or lecture? Add one.
Taxonomy
TopicsArchaeology and Historical Studies · Ancient Egypt and Archaeology · Ancient Near East History
