The Bedouin never called it a tomb. They called it Khaznat al-Firaun — the Treasury of the Pharaoh — and swore no human hand had ever touched it. The legend said the Egyptian Pharaoh didn't drown chasing Moses through the Red Sea. He survived, tracked Moses south into the mountains, dragging cartloads of stolen gold. When the gorge got too narrow for his chariots, he did what any sorcerer-king would do. He summoned the djinn.
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Gods & Monsters·3/3·1′
The place
Petra
The Treasury Carved by Djinn
The Bedouin legend of the supernatural builders who carved Petra's impossible monument in a single night
c. 1st century BC – 1st century AD (construction); 1812 (Burckhardt's rediscovery)Petra
Moral of the Story
“The greatest works of human ingenuity become, in the telling, the work of gods and spirits — because we cannot bear to believe that mere mortals, long forgotten, once possessed a genius we can no longer match.”
Characters
T
The Pharaoh (legendary)T
The Djinn (supernatural builders)K
King Aretas IV PhilopatrisJ
Johann Ludwig Burckhardt (Sheikh Ibrahim)K
King Solomon (Suleiman, lord of the djinn)Source
Burckhardt, Johann Ludwig. Travels in Syria and the Holy Land, 1822; Farajat, Suleiman. Excavations at al-Khazneh (2003); Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca Historica XIX.94-95; McKenzie, Judith. The Architecture of Petra, 1990; Joukowsky, Martha Sharp. Petra Great Temple, Brown University Excavations; Madain Project, al-Khazneh Burial Crypt documentation