6 April 1929

 [By George Horsfield and probably Agnes Conway)
G. H.​
Excavated Miss Conway’s stone circle to the N.  Ali in charge.  

Dig went on.  The stratifications are clearly defined; plenty of house rubbish, mixed with bones, but hardly any pottery – such as is coming out much coarser; mostly cooking pots but occasional pieces of finer sorts.  The wall on W side is now showing its foundations, which are only just below the surface and consist of a mass of loose material, carelessly thrown in, seemingly in mud, though the earth in the interstices shows an appearance of lime and poor stuff.  The wall I have not dated; it could be Byzantine – but the pottery overlying it is all of the 2nd century – so it must be earlier.  

A.E.C. spent the morning with the diggers in her stone circle.  At one point on the outside it was dug down to bed rock, 2 ½ metres below the top of the stones.  Nothing was found in the earth except charcoal.  The ground in front of the central red stone was dug down to the rock and had nothing at all in it, showing that the earth had been filled in to level it when the circle was first built.  The gaps in the circle were filled up with underground stones, but the E. end ran in to a black rock, beyond the end of which there was a 6 metre gap.  This entrance is in the right place to suit a flight of steps in the sandstone, found by Dr Nielsen – to the S.W. of the circle.  She completed the plan in the afternoon, putting in the black and white rocks, which are evidently part of the sanctuary.  All agree that this an early sanctuary, probably the earliest building yet found in Petra, and presumably Edomite. 
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Reference: Horsfield, G. [and 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, 6 April: 25-26.