Street of the façades. The area in front of us has been dubbed the ”Street of the Façades” after its rock-cut tombs, which are neatly arranged in ascending street-like rows along the cliff face. The tombs are fairly homogenous in type and appearance, with vertical façades featuring crow-stepped attics and simple rectangular entrances. The design style is said to be Assyrian, based on the similarity of the tombs’ stepped designs to Mesomotamian architecture dating to the seventh and sixth centuries BC. Shown here are Assyrian structures constructed in 713 BC for Sargon II of Assyria.
What is interesting in Petra is that the different styles overlap and merge gradually from tomb to tomb, indicating how Nabateans drew from different influences in their architecture designs, including Assyrian, Hellenistic and Roman. Text from notice on site.