The Lion Fountain

The Lion Fountain features a stone lion carved directly into the cliffside, with water once flowing from its open mouth. This relief sits along the path leading to the city center, marking where Nabataean engineers diverted a mountain spring into a terracotta pipeline. When the archaeologist G.R.H. Wright examined the site, he discovered the sculpture served as a junction, channeling water into the city’s complex hydraulic network. A thirsty traveler two thousand years ago drank from the very stream this lion controlled.