Qasr al-Bint

Qasr al-Bint

View looking southwest at the area of Qasr al-Bint—located just below the center of the image.  The Wadi Musa is visible in the lower right (north) quadrant and in the lower left is the Colonnaded Street.  The rock mesa of Umm al-Biyara ("the Mother of Cisterns") rises in the background.


Qasr al-Bint (the "Palace of Pharaoh's Daughter") is located in the Petra basin at the west end of Colonnaded Street on the south side of the Wadi Musa.  It faces north.  It was constructed during the reign of Aretas IV (r. 9 B.C.-A.D. 40; 2 Corinthians 11:32) and refurbished after Trajan annexed Nabataea into a Roman Province in A.D. 106.

It is debated what deity was worshiped there.  The majority say that it was Dushara — the chief deity of the Nabataean pantheon because the large altar to the north of Qasr al-Bint was dedicated to him. Al-'Uzza (Aphrodite) may have been worshipped there as well.