Petra, an ancient city of Edom, 50 m. S. of the Dead sea, on the mountain ridge E. of the wady el-Arabah, and a few miles E. of Mt. Hor. The entrance to the ruins through the sik or ravine of the wady Musa, a winding street a mile long, is lined on both sides with tombs hewn out of the rocky cliffs. At the opening of this avenue is the structure called the Khazneh (the treasure), from a tradition that one of the Pharaohs enclosed money and jewels in an urn surmounting the facade. It consists of a square basement, adorned with a portico of four very beautiful Corinthian pillars, surmounted by a pediment of low Grecian pitch, and with an ornament on the apex resembling somewhat a lyre. At the ends of the facade are two pilasters which support a second pediment, the central block of which has a cylindrical form and bears the urn. This pediment, being divided into three portions, presents nine faces of rocks. The edifice has generally been held to be a tomb or temple, but E. H. Palmer concludes from the female figures sculptured into the nine faces of the pediment, which he takes to represent the nine muses, that it was the musceum or philharmonic institution of Petra. There are several tombs which present very elegantly constructed fronts.

One of them contains a number of graves or loculi, cut in the floor, and placed so as to make the most of the room; and the wall to the left of the entrance bears some rude representations of sepulchral monuments, with two Nabathean inscriptions underneath.. Further on are some arched terraces of brick adjoining excavations below; and above them is a temple, also excavated, and with an elaborately carved front, which was at one time used as a Christian church. The tombs are so numerous that Fergusson has called it " the petrified city of the dead;" but it is probable that many of these excavations spoken of as tombs were temples, altars, and convents. Other interesting remains are the Deir, a huge temple hewn in the rock, and a theatre, likewise excavated, with 33 rows of seats, 120 ft. in diameter, and capable of accommodating from 3,000 to 4,000 spectators. The city is supposed to be the same as the Sela of the Old Testament, both names signifying rock. - For the ancient history of Petra, see Edom, and Horites. After its capture by the Mohammedans it disappears altogether from history, and it remained un-visited and forgotten, at least after the beginning of the 13th century, until its discovery by Burckhardt in 1812. It was visited by Irby, Mangles, Banks, and Leigh in 1818; subsequently by Laborde and Linant, Robinson, Stevens, and others; in 1864 by the duke de Luynes, with Lieut. Vignes and Lartet; and in 1870 by Prof. E. H. Palmer and Tyrwhitt Drake. - See.Laborde and Linant, Voyage de l'Arable Petree (Paris, 1830; English ed., London, 1838), and the works cited in the article Edom.

Corinthian Tomb at Petra.