Restored Painting from Petra in Jordan we will visit on Feb 3rd

This article is from the current issue of Biblical Archaeology Revew that arrived in the mail today.

A Recently restored paint­ing from the Nabatean city of Petra in southern Jordan shows that Nabateans were much more comfortable with graven images than their Jew­ish neighbors in Judea. The masterful first-century C.E. painting, known to schol­ars since the 1980s but only recently and painstakingly restored, was found in a cave outside the ancient city in the area of Beidha, more commonly referred to as "Little Petra." Amid the colorful painting's naturalistic and intricately detailed backdrop of twist­ing, climbing vines and grape leaves are several depictions of winged, cupid-like children who play flutes, pick fruit from the vines and fend off birds who've come to nibble at grapes. Until the three-year restoration project was com­pleted last summer, the paint­ing's brilliant colors, extraor­dinary details and luxurious craftsmanship—including the use of gilding and translucent glazes—had been almost com­pletely obscured beneath a blackened veneer of soot and grime that had built up in the cave over the centuries. While relatively little is known about Nabatean cul­ture and religious beliefs, the painting's lively, colorful depictions of winged chil­dren and birds suggest the Nabateans had no objection to adorning their houses and halls with Hellenistic-style figurative paintings. In fact, the Nabateans, who grew wealthy from their control of the lucrative Arabian spice trade, appear to have taken great pride in incorporating the lat­est Hellenistic figurative styles into their own artistic tradi­tions. This contrasted sharply with the religious sensitivities of Jews in neighboring Judea, where the production of figu­rative decoration, whether on paintings, coins or mosaics, was almost completely avoided, in deference to a strict interpreta­tion of the Second Command­ment's prohibition against graven images. The painting, one of the few in Nabatea to have sur­vived in situ, adorns the ceil­ing and walls of a spacious rock-hewn chamber lined with benches. Experts believe the room may have been used as a ritual banquet hall for the cult of Dionysus, the ancient Greek god of wine whom the Nabate­ans commonly identified with their native god Dushara. Both history and archaeol­ogy record the Nabatean love of wine and drinking. The Greek geographer Strabo reports that Nabatean kings held "drinking bouts in mag­nificent style" during which participants could fill their cups as many as 11 times. And archaeologists working at Beidha have now identified the remains of vineyards and grape presses used to produce the wine that was so lavishly consumed at these banquets.