Database: Rites of Passage

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Ithlib Mountain contained sacred and functional spaces for the Nabataeans. There are a number of niches carved into the rock faces, to house betyls (from the Semitic "Beit-il", divine dwelling), rectangular stones symbolizing Nabataean deities. Most of the betyls are aniconic, without faces or defined features. Meetings, of which little is known, were held in a large room dug out from the rock called a triclinium ("three benches" in Latin), intended for banquets and ritual feasting. In Arabic, this is now referred to as the diwan. Water in Ithlib was supplied by an ingenious system of channels, cisterns and reservoirs fed by rainwater.