Unfinished Tomb

Unfinished Tomb

This tomb, carved into the eastern face of AL Habis Mountain, represents the remains of a tomb that was begun but only one-quarter of its facade was completed. If completed the tomb would have featured a flared cavetto cornice and a rectangular rock-cut entrance at its base leading to an excavated funerary chamber. The reasons why tombs such as this one remained unfinished could be that the carvers reached a point in the rock where they were unable to continue, as geological factors played a role in Nabataean architecture, or the family or person who commissioned the tomb ran out of money or died before the monument was completed. This unfinished facade reveals a lot of information about both the effort expended and the processes used by Nabataean masons in carving deeply into the irregular cliff face. The initial excavation into the cliff face created a scaffold-like platform from which the mason could finish the tomb's architectural details, as he worked his way slowly downward, chipping away at the unfinished rock face with his hammer, pick, and chisel.

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