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Like other Semitic cultures of the day, the Nabateans used an indirect, “aniconic” style to indirectly represent their divinities: carved blocks, stelae and niches.

Known as hilyas, these aniconic icons most recently have been printed in Turkey in the format of a state ID card.

Palanga; lower aniconic half of draped statue with incised inscription, now in Constantinople.

The aniconic lower part of an inscribed statue wholly in the round was found at Palanga, and parts of others at Kirchoglu and Marash.

The importance of the sacred stone and pillar in the “Mycenaean” or “Minoan” period which preceded Homer has been impressively shown by Dr Arthur Evans, and the same fetishistic worship continued throughout the historic ages of classic paganism, the rude aniconic emblem of pillar or tree-trunk surviving often by the side of the iconic masterpiece.