Al Khazneh

The Khazne al - Firaun (Arabic خزنة الفرعون Chaznat al - Firaun, DMG Ḫaznat al - Fir ʿ awn, treasure house of Pharaoh ') is a beaten by the Nabateans from the rock tomb in the ancient city of Petra. The so-called treasure house is located opposite the entrance to the Siq, the canyon, which is also the entrance to the rock city.

Description

The facade of the Khazne al - Firaun is probably the most famous of the city of Petra. She is almost 40 meters high and 25 meters wide and was designed in the Hellenistic style. Was named the "treasure house of Pharaoh " by the Bedouins. This deemed rich treasures in the large urn on the top of the facade. The building, however, it is not a treasure, but a grave. It may have been created for the Nabatean king Aretas IV, who ruled in the 1st century BC. Other researchers date the Khazne contrast, only in the 2nd century AD, in the reign of the Emperor Hadrian. About a portico of six Corinthian columns, a small, two half pediments flanked Tholos, a circular temple rises. Between the pillars are weathered remains of figures in relief. The 3.5- m-high urn on top of the round temple bullet holes can be seen. They go back to gunshots by Bedouins, who had once tried to break up the supposed treasure container. The urn is, however, as the entire building and the other royal tombs of Petra, mostly out of solid rock.

The carved into the rock two side chambers and the main chamber itself are plain and empty. In the right atrium, there was probably a sarcophagus. The main room was rectangular and was provided with two side niches and a central niche.

In the culture

The 1989 Steven Spielberg Khazne served as the backdrop for his feature film Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, whose last scenes were filmed in the Siq and before Khazneh al - Firaun. The film made ​​Petra a larger audience in America and Europe known. In the Tim - and - Tintin comic coal on board the treasure house serves as a model for the hiding place of a fallen Emir.