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Map of the Roman empire under Hadrian (ruled 117–138 AD), showing the location of the Arabes Nabataei in the desert regions around the Roman province of Arabia Petraea.
Avdat, Israel

The Nabataeans, also Nabateans (Arabic: الأنباطal-ʾAnbāṭ), were an ancient people who inhabited northern Arabia and Southern Levant, their settlements in CE 37 – c. 100, gave the name of Nabatene to the borderland between Arabia and Syria, from the Euphrates to the Red Sea. Their loosely-controlled trading network, which centered on strings of oases that they controlled, where agriculture was intensively practiced in limited areas, and on the routes that linked them, had no securely defined boundaries in the surrounding desert. Trajan conquered the Nabataean kingdom, annexing it to the Roman Empire, where their individual culture, easily identified by their characteristic finely-potted painted ceramics, became dispersed in the general Greco-Roman culture and was eventually lost.


Many examples of graffiti and inscriptions—largely of names and greetings—document the area of Nabataean culture, which extended as far north as the north end of the Dead Sea, and testify to widespread literacy; but no Nabataean literature has survived, nor was any noted in antiquity,[1] and the temples bear no inscriptions. Onomastic analysis has suggested[2] that Nabataean culture may have had multiple influences. Classical references to the Nabataeans begin with Diodorus Siculus; they suggest that the Nabataeans' trade routes and the origins of their goods were regarded as trade secrets, and disguised in tales that should have strained outsiders' credulity. Diodorus Siculus (book ii) described them as a strong tribe of some 10,000 warriors, pre-eminent among the nomads of Arabia, eschewing agriculture, fixed houses, and the use of wine, but adding to pastoral pursuits a profitable trade with the seaports in frankincense, myrrh and spices from Arabia Felix (today's Yemen), as well as a trade with Egypt in bitumen from the Dead Sea. Their arid country was their best safeguard, for the bottle-shaped cisterns for rain-water which they excavated in the rocky or clay-rich soil were carefully concealed from invaders.[3]




The brief Babylonian captivity of the Hebrews that began in 586 BCE opened a minor power vacuum in Judah (prior to the Israelites' return under the Persian King, Cyrus the Great), and as Edomites moved into open Judaean grazing lands, Nabataean inscriptions began to be left in Edomite territory. The first definite appearance was in 312/311 BCE, when they were attacked at Sela or perhaps Petra without success by Antigonus I's officer Athenaeus as part of the Third War of the Diadochi; at that time Hieronymus of Cardia, a Seleucid officer, mentioned the Nabataeans in a battle report. About 50 BCE, the Greek historian Diodorus Siculus cited Hieronymus in his report,[clarification needed] and added the following: "Just as the Seleucids had tried to subdue them, so the Romans made several attempts to get their hands on that lucrative trade."[citation needed]

The Nabataeans had already some tincture of foreign culture when they first appear in history. That culture was Aramaic; they wrote a letter to Antigonus in Syriac letters, and Aramaic continued to be the language of their coins and inscriptions when the tribe grew into a kingdom, and profited by the decay of the Seleucids to extend its borders northward over the more fertile country east of the Jordan. They occupied Hauran, and in about 85 BC their king Aretas III became lord of Damascus and Coele-Syria. Nabataeans became the Arabic name for Aramaeans, whether in Syria or Iraq, a fact which was thought to show that the Nabataeans were originally Aramaean immigrants from Babylonia. Proper names on their inscriptions suggest that they were ethnically Arabs who had come under Aramaic influence. Starcky identifies the Nabatu of southern Arabia (Pre-Khalan migration) as their ancestors. However different groups amongst the Nabataeans wrote their names in slightly different ways, consequently archeologists are reluctant to say that they were all the same tribe, or that any one group is the original Nabataeans.[4]

Various native homelands were suggested for the Nabataeans, such as Northern Arabia and the North-East of the Arabian peninsula, based on a probable similarity between the names of deities which were worshiped in those areas,[5] and some similarities between the inscriptions of some other Arab groups who inhabited the southern half of ancient Mesopotamia.[6]

Professor Fergus Millar in Oxford University described these theories above as "Conjecture".[7]

In 1997, a group of scholars of the University of Exeter in England made a critical review of all these theories in a multi-volume study, arguing that the original homeland of Nabataens was to the south of Al Jawf Province.[8]


The language of the Nabataean inscriptions, attested from the 2nd century BCE, shows a local development of the Aramaic language, which had ceased to have super-regional importance after the collapse of the Achaemenid Empire (330 BC). The Nabataean alphabet itself also developed out of the Aramaic alphabet.

This Aramaic dialect was increasingly affected by the Arabic dialect of the local population. From the 4th century, the Arabic influence becomes overwhelming, in a way that it may be said the Nabataean language shifted seamlessly from Aramaic to Arabic. The Arabic alphabet itself developed out of cursive variants of the Nabataean script in the 5th century.

Ibn Wahshiyya claimed to have translated from this language in his Nabataean corpus.[9]



Although not as dry as at present, the area occupied by the Nabataeans was still a desert and required special techniques for agriculture. One was to contour an area of land into a shallow funnel and to plant a single fruit tree in the middle. Before the 'rainy season' which could easily consist of only one or two rain events, the area around the tree was broken up. When the rain came, all the water which collected in the funnel would flow down toward the fruit tree and sink into the ground. The ground, which was largely loess, would seal up when it got wet and retain the water.


Another study was conducted by Y. Kedar in 1957, which also focused on the mechanism of the agriculture systems, but he studied soil management, and claimed that the ancient agriculture systems were intended to increase the accumulation of loess in wadis and create an infrastructure for agricultural activity. This theory has also been explored by Prof. E. Mazor, of the Weizmann Institute of Science.

The Hellenistic and Roman periods[edit]

Nabataean trade routes.

Petra was rapidly built in the 1st century B.C.E. in Hellenistic splendor, and developed a population estimated at 20,000.[10]

The Nabataeans were allies of the first Hasmoneans in their struggles against the Seleucid monarchs. They then became rivals of the Judaean dynasty, and a chief element in the disorders which invited Pompey's intervention in Judea. Many Nabataeans were forcefully converted to Judaism by the Hasmonean king Alexander Jannaeus.[11] It was this King who, after putting down a local rebellion, invaded and occupied the Nabataean towns of Moab and Gilead and imposed a tribute of an unspecified amount. Obodas I knew that Alexander would attack, so was able to ambush Alexander's forces near Gaulane destroying the Judean army (90 B.C.E.).[12]

The Roman military were not very successful in their campaigns against the Nabataeans. In 62 BC, Marcus Aemilius Scaurus accepted a bribe of 300 talents to lift the siege of Petra, partly because of the difficult terrain and the fact that he had run out of supplies. Hyrcanus who was a friend of Aretas was despatched by Scaurus to the King to buy peace. In so obtaining peace King Aretas retained all his possessions, including Damascus, and became a Roman vassal.[13]

In 32 BC during King Malichus II's reign Herod the Great started a war against Nabataea, with the support of Cleopatra. The war started with Herod's army plundering Nabataea and with a large cavalry force, and the occupation of Dium. After this defeat the Nabataean forces amassed near Canatha in Syria, but were attacked and routed. Athenio (Cleopatra's General) sent Canathans to the aid of the Nabataeans, and this force crushed Herod's army which then fled to Ormiza. One year later, Herod's army overran Nabataea.[14]

Colossal Nabataean columns stand in Bosra, Syria.



The kingdom was a bulwark between Rome and the wild hordes of the desert except in the time of Trajan, who reduced Petra and converted the Nabataean client state into the short-lived Roman province of Arabia Petraea.

By the 3rd century, the Nabataeans had stopped writing in Aramaic and begun writing in Greek instead, and by the 5th century they had converted to Christianity.[16] The new Arab invaders who soon pressed forward into their seats found the remnants of the Nabataeans transformed into peasants. Their lands were divided between the new Qahtanite Arab tribal kingdoms of the Byzantine vassals the Ghassanid Arabs and the Himyarite vassals the Kindah Arab Kingdom in North Arabia.


Archeological sites[edit]

In Popular Culture[edit]

A heavy metal band in Saudi Arabia, Al-Namrood, uses this pantheon as inspiration for its music.[18] The acknowledged Power Metal-band Helloween has also made a song about the Nabataeans.

See also[edit]


  1. ^ The carbonized Petra papyri, mostly economic documents in Greek, date to the 6th century: Glen L. Peterman, "Discovery of Papyri in Petra", The Biblical Archaeologist 57 1 (March 1994), pp. 55–57; P. M. Bikai, "The Petra Papyri" Studies in the History and Archaeology of Jordan, 1997; Marjo Lehtinen, "Petra Papyri" Near Eastern Archaeology 65,4 (December 2002), pp. 277–278.
  2. ^ Macdonald, M. C. A. (1999). "Personal names in the Nabataean realm: a review article". Journal of Semitic Studies XLIV (2): 251–289. Retrieved 7 February 2011. 
  3. ^ J. W. Eadie, J. P. Oleson, "The Water-Supply Systems of Nabatean and Roman Ḥumayma", Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, 1986.
  4. ^, Dan Gibson's comprehensive Nabataean site
  5. ^ The Nabateaenas and Mada'in Saleh (1986), Page 109
  6. ^ Origins of the Nabateaeans (1990), Page 46
  7. ^ The Roman Near East 31 B.C.E. - 337 C.E (1993), Page 401
  8. ^ New Arabian Studies (1997), Volume 4, Page 273
  13. ^ Josephus 1:61, p. 48.
  14. ^ Josephus 1:363–377, pp. 75–77.
  15. ^ Josephus 1:377–391, pp. 78–79.
  17. ^ Nabataea: Medain Saleh
  18. ^ Phillips, Alex (October 11, 2012). "AL-NAMROOD Heavy Metal Underground". Retrieved 31 January 2013. 


External links[edit]