How do the Nabateans build stone tombs?

The Nabataeans of Petra traditionally buried their dead relatives in the sandstone cliffs that surround the city, where there are thousands of tombs. Some of them are simple stone tombs, while others are very lavish. Because the rock is so soft and easy to carve, it doesn't take much to create a simple architectural framework for a simple grave. The royal tombs of Petra do not have specific names, but rely on tradition to decide that they are not just in honor of the buried dead. In building the royal mausoleum, the Nabateans utilized their ancestral masonry skills to imitate, enhance, and adapt the most innovative and majestic architectural ideas from metropolises such as Alexandria. First, they leveled a suitable cliff face and then cut from top to bottom on the fa?ade. Because of the need to ensure that the chisel was chiseled in a regular and neat shape, the ancients probably used free-slung lead lines and narrow water lines, both of which were then removed and removed after completion. There are a number of pits beside some of the tombs, which may have been used in those days to support scaffolding for the stonemasons to climb up and down. The rooms behind the stone tombs are relatively small, some having only an outer room with occasional carved out stone benches. Although the fa?ade of the Petra tomb has not been maintained, and has been subjected to many centuries of earthquakes, erosion and the occasional grave robber, it is virtually intact, and the view is still as spectacular as it ever was, giving future generations a real insight into the ancient architecture that reached its peak in the 1st century AD. The fine stone carvings on the facade are probably the work of local stonemasons. At one Nabataean mausoleum, Madan Shah, inscriptions tell of a time when stonemasons typically worked for 25 years. Rough work like stone quarrying was probably done by slaves. In those days the tombs were coated with plaster made of limestone and sand, then painted in bright, garish colors. Now that the wind and sand have stripped away the plaster, the bare rock changes color in the sunlight, bringing the tombs to life in a way that the builders did not expect. Taylor, a scholar who visited the tomb, wrote: "Among the variegated colors are the black of black currants, the brown of cassis ice cream, the red of raw fish, the deep purple of mulberries, the white of buttermilk, and the colors of peach, apricot, orange, and sauce." One of the last great tombs built by Petra was for the Roman governor, called the "Tomb of Une", but in 446 AD it was converted into a church. Life in the desert city fell apart as the desert spice routes were slowly deserted in favor of the Red Sea route. Eventually the tombs fell into disrepair, the statues flaked and peeled, and the stone chambers where the great and the good were once buried were reduced to sheltering shepherds from the wind and the rain.