Petra, built for the sun gods?

[Viggen]

Few ancient civilizations have left an architectural footprint quite as indelible as the Nabateans did in Petra, southern Jordan.

Majestic temples, burial chambers and homes still stand, carved around 2,300 years ago from the rose-hued landscape.

Logic would dictate that the relics strewn throughout the 2.8 million square feet of Petra Archaeological Park would provide historians with a bounty of information about the ancient culture. In fact, surprisingly little is known about ancient Nabatean life and traditions. An estimated 85% of the area has never been excavated, and there is precious little in the way of written records.

 

...more at CNN

[Onasander]

Ummmm..... no.

 

We know their gods already, they had the dumbest and least inventive religion in world history.... they worshiped large cubes.... just cubes.

 

Later, when outside influences crept in, they noticed people elsewhere had more humanoid gods, so stopped the cube worshiping nonsense.

 

They had a few known gods neighboring cultures had, like al uzza, the sister to the arabian goddess Allah.

 

I wouldnt be looking into the layouts as a clue to the 'religion', so much as the importance of astral geometry had on a desert trading culture who operated trade routes via far flung oasis. It would be a natural outgrowth to align your grand government buildings via the same celestial methods you use to navigate.

 

I mean.... they worshipped boring cubes.... how long you think Dr. Who would hang out with these people before pushing off to somewhere more interesting.... which would be just about anywhere else. They only seem fascinating because the carved into hillsides a illusion to Greco-Roman architecture.... rest of civilization fell, but it stayed up only because it COULDNT fall, given it was a all a illusion to architecture, being a hill, in a place people rarely go. Hence boring. Nice looking, but a very boring people, and I think the ancient world thought less of them than even I do, being perhaps the most uninventive people in the world..... cube worshipers. Like, a hextagon or a pentagon.... Id be slightly impressed, but a cube..... I cant help but get the feeling they were all a bunch of squares....