24 March 1929

[probably by Agnes Conway]
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Dr. Nielsen and A.E.C. spent the morning on El Habis.  He investigated Dalman’s 2nd sanctuary, and its precincts, finding what seems to be a larger cult centre than Dalman supposed, and possibly the earliest in Petra.  To the N. and higher up is another altar court, which seems not to have been seen by Dalman 1  The chambers along the southern slope of the hill are partly houses and partly tombs, in some cases a tomb and a house being side by side.  The tombs, in some cases a tomb and a house being side by side.  The tombs have ornamented facades and the houses are plain. Close to the second sanctuary there are many tombs.  In the afternoon he found a long artificially made terrace, also probably connected with the sanctuary and above it to the E. (this was later identified as a water catchment area).  A.E.C., after some searching, found the way to the top of El Habis, the acropolis of Petra, on which are the walls of a castle, generally supposed to be a Crusading, and outlining the summit.  In one portion are two complete arrow-shoots.  She looked down from it onto the southern peak of El Habis, on which is Dalman’s 1st sanctuary, a huge rock-hewn altar.2  She spent the afternoon trying to find the way up to this peak, but without success.  A piece of mediaeval Arab pottery (about the time of Saladin) was found on the southern side of El Habis.  

A photograph taken in 1929 of the arrow shoots in El Habis castle. Copyright UCL Institute of Archaeology.

Mr Horsfield and all the men worked all day long preparing the Camp. Mr Horsfield explored the rock chambers above the Camp, some of which have crosses on the walls.  The tooling on the walls of all the caves seemed to A.E.C. to be similar to the remains of tooling in the limestone caves of Beit Jabrin in Palestine.

The whole of El Habis is unplanned and should be done – only the 2 actual sanctuaries have been sketched by Dalman.
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[Footnote] 1. Later rejected as a sanctuary.
[Footnote] 2. Later identified as a quarry

Reference: [unsigned, but probably Conway, A.] 1929 (transcribed by A. Thornton). Petra Exploration Fund Diary. "Business Papers to be Kept", Horsfield Collection Box 8, UCL Institute of Archaeology, 24 March: 3-5. ​