25 April 1929

By George Horsfield [and possibly Agnes Conway]
G. H.
​​
Cleared out the “Tomb” House Triple Dushara and found seven graves which had been broken into but retained in part covering slabs, found bones and burnt ashes with them – but no objects or pottery.  They seemed undisturbed below surface.  

The "Triple Dushara Tomb" photographed in the mid-1930s. Copyright UCL Institute of Archaeology.

Cleared several shaft graves in vicinity to South – found nothing.  One is SW side of Terrace 200 ms. away had mass of bones – human and animal – at the bottom one pot with rim base – of 1st century?
 
Tombs Nos 1, 2, 3 went on being cleared.  Nothing was found in graves.  No. 2 had four and was filled with kitchen debris.  No. 3 is partly clear but a number of graves not known.  
 
So far the evidence obtained gives no indication of Ma’aisera’s age nor character of occupants. Triple Dushara tomb promised well but nothing but very crude burials so far found.  
 
All the other Tombs so far examined yielded nothing.  The pottery from No 1 all Byzantine?
 
A.E.C. spent the whole morning in grilling sun wearily taking 6 panorama photographs from the Edomite High Place.  She visited the dig in the afternoon and the second ridge of El Ma’aisera, puzzling over Dalman’s sanctuary No. 2, which seemed to her a water collecting place and quarry block accidentally left on the roof.  But the lower story is also puzzling, as the staircase goes to the roof and gives no access to the 1st floor room with niches.  The three huge white stone buildings on this dominating white terrace are unique in Petra, but so much destroyed as to be unfathomable at present.  She visited the valley from the Siyagh seen from el Biyara, which proved to be merely a wady with nothing in it and very short.

Reference: Horsfield, G. [and possibly Conway, A.] 1929 (transcribed by A. Thornton). Petra Exploration Fund Diary. "Business Papers to be Kept", Horsfield Collection Box 8, UCL Institute of Archaeology, 25 April: 55-56. ​