ACOR’s Experience Petra program takes place at the site of the Temple of the Winged Lions, an opulent colonnaded temple built to honor al-Uzza, the supreme goddess of the Nabateans. Built on a promontory overlooking the city center, the temple was a majestic sacred complex that featured a massive ascending staircase, a monumental entrance flanked by gigantic columns and an inner cultic chamber with a raised podium set amid a forest of columns. While most of the columns had beautiful Corinthian-style capitals, the dozen columns surrounding the main podium were adorned with the unique “winged lion” capitals that give the monument its name.It's nice to see something at Petra other than the Al Khazneh Treasury getting some attention. Unfortunately, the photos don't give a good view of any of the winged lion capitals. There are a couple of photos at the Facebook link. If you're not on Facebook, the Universes in Universe site has a photo tour of the temple with a good image of one of the capitals.
Anyway, this is also a good opportunity to note (HT the Bible Places Blog) that the two-volume excavation report on the temple has just been released by ACOR Publications.
Petra’s Temple of the Winged Lions Volume 1: The Site, Project History, and Architecture
Petra’s Temple of the Winged Lions Volume 2: The Finds and Community Engagement
Both edited by Pearce Paul Creasman, Noreen Doyle, and China Shelton, with many contributors. Both are also available for free as downloadable open-access PDF files.
Cross-file under Nabatean (Nabataean) Watch.
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