Petra, Jordan
Coordinates: 30.338200, 35.431000
Ad Deir is a monumental building carved out of rock in the ancient Jordanian city of Petra.
The Deir was probably carved out of the rock in the mid-first century CE.
Arguably one of the most iconic monuments in the Petra Archaeological Park, the Monastery is located high in the hills northwest of the Petra city center.
It is the second most commonly visited monument in Petra, after the Khazneh or “Treasury”.
The huge facade, the inner chamber and the other structures next to it or in the wider area around the Deir probably originally served a complex religious purpose, and was possibly repurposed as a church in the Byzantine period.
One can easily get confused between the treasury and the monastery. Both iconic monuments are curved out of solid rock.
The Treasury was featured in the 1989 Indiana Jones epic and the Monastery was featured in the 2009 Transformers movie.
The Deir received this name from the cave that is known as the Hermit’s Cell. The structure was first constructed in 3 BC as a monumental Nabataean tomb.
An inscription that was found on one of the walls while the monument was being cleaned in 1991, read “the symposium of Obodas, the “god”. This inscription indicates that the building may originally have been dedicated to the Nabataean king, Obodas I.
The rock-cut facade of the Monastery is 45 meters high and 50 meters wide.
The door itself is 8 meters high.
The main inside chamber is huge. It is 11.5 meters by 10 meters, Infront of the monument, a huge area was leveled, and seems to have been used for great congregations of people.
Nowadays, it is the place where tourists take their photos to show proof that they have succeeded in reaching this monument.
