The Djinn Blocks

There are three of these enormous stone blocks on the road to the Siq; there are a total of 25 in Petra. They may have been meant to be tombs that were for some reason never completed, or the shape may be a reference to Dushara, the god of the Nabataeans, who was often portrayed as a block of stone.

In Arab folklore, a Djinn (the origin of our word genie) is a spirit, often malevolent, that can inhabit objects or people. The Bedouins believed that djinn lived in these stones.