Amazing ancient technology carved rock architecture in tombs at Mada'in Saleh

[Carmen Elsa Irarragorri Wyland]

What ancient technology have we missed out on gees when you see images like this,these massive boulders carved out into elaborate buildings and tombs,made in times when primitive tools were drills and high technology was not around,must have taken years to carve with hammer & chisel,what a pain staking job..they are perfectly symmetrical and architecturally exquisite.. 

Mada'in Saleh, Qasr al-Farid tomb

The Qasr al-Farid tomb, or "lonely castle," so named as it is completely isolated from the other tombs, was pretty spectacular. It rises four stories in height and was cut into a sandstone outcrop. This tomb was left unfinished but is the most iconic sight of Mada'in Saleh. 

Mada’in Saleh is one of Saudi Arabia’s two UNESCO World Heritage Sites. The city was settled by the Nabataeans, whose capital was Petra in Jordan, in the first century B.C., and most of the 131 rock-cut tombs date to the first century A.D. 

Two more view of this magnificent tomb: 

 

I can't even begin to imagine how much work went into crafting these tombs, both inside and out. 

It appeared that all of these rock tombs at one time had tablets like this one, which give the names of the people who are buried there, who built the tomb and other information. The tablets are written in the Nabataean alphabet, a consonantal alphabet that descended from the Aramaic alphabet via the Syriac alphabet. A cursive form of it in turn developed into the Arabic alphabet from the 4th century. (from Wiki) 

The interior of the diwan and the work on it were pretty amazing. 

“The diwan (meeting room), carved into a hillside to shield it from the wind, is one of the few extant examples of non-funerary architecture in Mada’in Saleh. … [The area was probably used by the Nabataeans] as a cult site. Opposite the hollowed-out room are niches cut into the rock where Nabataean deities were carved – now sadly weathered.” (from Lonely Planet, “Oman, UAE & Arabian Peninsula”) 

This is the very impressive exterior of the diwan: 

 

Al-Aswad 'lion tombs'

We traveled to a valley in Al-‘Ula famous for its ancient lion tombs, so called because of the lion figures cut into the rock above some of the tombs. This is a cropped image as we didn’t walk up to the tombs since we were told we only had 15 minutes here, and it was much farther than it looks in the image below. To the left of center are some rectangles cut into the rock; the figures are lions. 

“Located a short distance north-east of al-Ula, on the cliffs within the valley in an area known as al-Khurayba, these tombs are evidence of 2,600 years of settlement in al-Ula, originally called Dedan. They are known as al-Aswad Tombs and were carved around the 6th century BC by the Lihyanites, the people who inhabited the oasis and created the powerful Kingdom of Dedan. The numerous tombs are mostly plain burial chambers carved into the rock, but a small number of them have lion sculptures above them. ... These tombs have become a symbol of al-Ula's ancient past.”

Sort of a natural amphitheater surrounded by very high rock formations

PS

Aramaic, it is very similar to Hebrew, and it derived from it. It has the same alphabet or Aleph Bet of the Hebrew language and it was used before and during the time of Jesus, and it is said that was created so that the evil angels will not be able to read it or understand it, because they had already learned Hebrew.

Only the words were changed, but not all of them