The neighbors of the Hasmoneans to the east and south were the Nabataeans. The Nabataeans were Arabs who spoke an early form of the Arabic language. Originally the Nabataeans were nomads who plied the caravan routes between the Arabian Peninsula and the Mediterranean coast. They grew wealthy trading in luxury goods such as frankincense and myrrh, which were bundled and transported across the desert on pack animals. These luxury goods were exported by ship from the port at Gaza and fetched high prices at markets around the Mediterranean. Eventually, some of the trading posts became permanent settlements (towns). By the second and first centuries B. C.E., the Nabataeans established a kingdom with a capital at Petra (southeast of the Dead Sea), which encompassed much of the area of modern Jordan, the Negev, and the Sinai. The Nabataean kingdom flourished until 106 C. E., when the emperor Trajan annexed it to Rome and moved the caravan routes to the north, away from Nabataean control. The Nabataeans also developed a sophisticated system of water storage, irrigation, and terracing, which enabled them to cultivate the desert. The Nabataean desert towns and cities flourished through the Byzantine period and into the early Islamic period (eighth to ninth centuries C. E.), when the Nabataeans converted to Christianity and, eventually, Islam (see Chapter 16).
Petra, the most famous Nabataean town, today is designated a World Heritage site. It is situated in a dramatic moonlike landscape of barren and rugged red sandstone mountains (hence the name Petra, which means "rock" in Greek). A broad, paved, colonnaded street (a street lined with columns) ran through the town, alongside a wadi (dry riverbed). On either side of the street and wadi were monumental buildings, including temples and, by the Byzantine period, churches. A residential quarter with spacious villas decorated with wall-paintings overlooked the colonnaded street. Farther up the wadi, a large Greek-style theater is cut into the slopes of a rocky hill. In addition to temple buildings, Petra is dotted with small shrines cut into the cliff faces. The
Nabataeans typically represented their deities with simple stelae (stones), on which facial features such as eyes were sometimes represented. The deities worshiped at Petra included the goddess Allat.
Petra is best known for its extensive necropolis, with thousands of rock-cut tombs honeycombing its cliffs. Many of the tombs consist of simple, unadorned openings leading into a single, rock-cut chamber. The facades of some tombs are decorated with carved designs that imitate architectural elements; in the case of the most elaborate tombs, the facade has a porch with rock-cut columns and a Greek-style entablature. The most famous tomb at Petra, called the Khazneh (Arabic for “treasury"), is located at the end of a long, narrow, winding canyon called the Siq, which provides the main access to the site. Every visitor to Petra sees the Khazneh upon emerging from the Siq. The Khazneh was featured in the film Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade as the spot where the Holy Grail was found (in reality, though, the interior consists of a single rock-cut burial chamber with no connection to the Holy Grail). In addition to its prominent location, the Khazneh is distinguished from other tombs at Petra by the exceptionally high quality of the carving and the deep rose color of the sandstone. The face of the cliff was cut in imitation of a two-story-high building, with a Greek-style porch on the bottom, and a pediment with a circular structure (tholos) on top. Figures carved in relief decorated the spaces between the columns. The prominent location and high quality of the Khazneh leave little doubt that it originally contained the remains of one of the Nabataean kings — perhaps Aretas IV, who ruled around the time of Jesus (ca. 9 B. C.E.—40 C. E.).
5.5 The Khazneh at Petra. Photo by Jim Haberman.
Although Petra is the most famous Nabataean site, we have remains of many other Nabataean towns and settlements. One such site is Oboda (the ancient Nabataean name; the modern Hebrew name is Avdat), which is located in the heart of the Negev desert. Oboda is dominated by an acropolis — a fortified citadel that originally contained a Nabataean temple, which was later replaced by a Byzantine church. The remains of the settlement are spread along the slopes of the acropolis. Farmsteads dotted the terraced hills nearby, and ancient dams trapped flash-flood waters in the wadis below or channeled it into rock-cut cisterns. Piles of stones (called in Arabic tuleilat el-enab) on the hillsides served to clear the slopes and increased the surface runoff after rainfalls. A large wine press found at Oboda indicates that grapes grown in the area were used to make wine. In the 1950s, David Ben-Gurion, Israel's first prime minister, dreamed of making the desert bloom through cultivation. Israeli scientists attempted to
5.6 Aerial view of the acropolis of Oboda (Avdat). Courtesy of Zev Radovan/BibleLand Pictures. com.
Achieve this goal by learning from the Nabataeans and reconstructing an ancient farm at the foot of Avdat, which operated for a number of years. The crops raised at the farm (replicating ancient crops) included grain, grapes, peaches, apricots, almonds, and pistachios. However, because the yields were lower than those using modern irrigation techniques, this experiment was not replicated elsewhere.
Like other native peoples of the Near East, the Nabataeans were influenced by Hellenistic and Roman culture. This is evident in the Greek style of some of the tomb facades at Petra, the incorporation of a colonnaded street and theater, the wall paintings decorating the villas, and the classicizing style of some Nabataean sculpture. In addition, the Nabataeans produced the finest pottery in the region. Nabataean bowls are distinguished by having eggshell-thin, hard-fired walls, decorated on the interior with delicate, red-painted, geometric and floral designs.
World History
