Two Visual Languages at Petra: Aniconic and Representational Sculpture of the Great Temple

At the Petra Great Temple a number of figural relief panels depicting Classical deities were recovered beside two aniconic betyls. These two sculptural types reflect an important dichotomy in Nabataean art-the adoption by the Nabataeans of Hellenistic-Roman forms of representation together with the persistence of an Arabian/Semitic tradition of depicting deities aniconically. How does the author account for these two, seemingly contradictory, forms of divine image? Read on!