ABSTRACT
Beidha lies 7 km north of the city center of Petra. Because of its location, on one of the routes between Petra and Wadi ‘Arabah, it has probably always been an important suburb of Petra. Beidha is best known as a type-site for the Neolithic period (Byrd 2005) and for Siq al-Barid, a narrow gorge with a number of rock-cut Nabataean structures of the type found in the city of Petra and elsewhere in the Nabataean realm. Other than a few clearance projects and some documentation work (Zayadine and Farajat 1991; Nehmé 1994: 229–36, and references there), no archaeological work had taken place at Beidha other than the work on prehistory noted above, but it was generally thought that Beidha served as a caravan site in the Nabataean era.
