Like its neighbours, the elegant Urn Tomb is cut deeply into the cliff face at the base of the Khubtha Ridge. Its lofty vertical façade terminates in a pediment topped by an urn-shaped ornament that gave it its name. You may also hear it referred to as Al Mahkama, the Court, a name originating from the local Bedouin who believed it was used as a courthouse and that the vaults downstairs were prisons. It is actually a Nabatean tomb. Above the tombs entrance is a central burial cell (or loculus) which would have held the body of the person to whom the tomb was dedicated. He is immortalized by a portrait bust that adorns the stone panel used to seal the burial. The two other excavated grave loculi in the façade may have been used for the burial of spouses or close family members.
The Urn Tomb complex, with its deep courtyard flanked by colonnaded porticos, faces directly towards Petra’s main temple, Qasr al-Bint. The tombs pivotal location and grand scale suggest that its owner was a Nabatean king, its spacious interior boasts a vast internal chamber 17 meters deep with four birial loculi in its rear wall. The two central recesses were re-carved in the form of an apse when the tomb was converted to a Christian church. A painted inscription records the monuments consecration as a church by Bishop Jason in 447 AD. Text from notice on site.