TRICLINIUM WITH LIONS

To get there. After 10 minutes of climbing, at the beginning of the stairs to Ad-Deir (the Monastery), on the left.

Visit. This discreet but elegant triclinium dates back to the middle of the first century. It is easily recognizable by its keyhole door and the two lions sculpted on the bottom of the doorframe. The lions, now very eroded, face each other with their paws raised. The doorway is characteristic of the Ptolemaic style of Alexandria with its triglyph-metaphor frieze. Women's faces are sculpted in the medallions of the metope, which are rather well preserved. They could represent the nymphs of the vine, personalities that can be found on the Treasury or the Tomb of Sextius Florentinus (in the Royal Tombs). The pediment of the door was decorated with three unes, one at each corner. Only the one in the center is still visible. On the left of the door, you will notice a small platform resembling an altar, with a betylus in relief. It was a niche, the upper part of which has collapsed, housing the symbol of the divine presence. Inside the cave, three benches were cut out of the stone to accommodate the participants in the banquets honoring the dead, as well as a niche on the back wall. The triclinium was probably attached to the two tombs on its left. The scarcely decorated façades and the simplicity of the ornaments suggest that it was a small necropolis for a tribe or clan rather than a tomb for a personality.