The Nabataeans, also spelled Nabateans (; Nabataean Aramaic / Nabataean Arabic: 𐢕𐢃𐢋𐢈, romanized: nbṭw, vocalized: Nabāṭū; Arabic: الأنباط, romanized: al-ʾanbāṭ), were an ancient Arab people who inhabited the southern Levant and northern Arabia. Their settlements—most prominently the assumed capital city of Raqmu (present-day Petra, Jordan)—gave the name Nabatene (Ancient Greek: Ναβατηνή, romanized: Nabatēnḗ) to the Arabian borderland that stretched from the Euphrates to the Red Sea. The Nabateans emerged as a distinct civilization and political entity between the 4th and 2nd centuries BC, with the Nabataean Kingdom centered around a loosely controlled trading network that brought considerable wealth and influence across the ancient world.
Described as fiercely independent by contemporary Greco-Roman accounts, the Nabataeans were annexed into the Roman Empire by Emperor Trajan in 106 AD. Nabataeans' individual culture, easily identified by their characteristic finely potted painted ceramics, was adopted into the larger Greco-Roman culture. They converted to Christianity during the Byzantine period. They have been described as one of the most gifted peoples of the ancient world and one of the "most unjustly forgotten".
Name
The name of the Nabataeans may be derived from the same root as Akkadian nabatu, "to shine brightly".
The self-designation "Nabataean" is recorded in five contemporary inscriptions – one Palmyrene, one Greek and three Safaitic.
History
Hellenistic period
The Nabataeans were an Arab tribe who had come under significant Babylonian-Aramaean influence. The first mention of the Nabataeans dates from 312/311 BC, when they were attacked at Sela or perhaps at Petra without success by the Hellene-Greek Antigonus I's officer Athenaeus in the course of the Third War of the Diadochi; at that time Hieronymus of Cardia, a Seleucid officer, mentions the Nabataeans in a battle report. About 50 BC Greek historian Diodorus Siculus cites Hieronymus in his report and adds 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.". The architecture has Hellenic influence.
They wrote a letter to Antigonus in Syriac letters, and Aramaic continued as 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 River. They occupied Hauran, and in about 85 BC their king Aretas III became lord of Damascus and Coele-Syria.
The Abgarids and Osroene in Mesopotamia
The kingdom of Osroene in Upper Mesopotamia, with its capital at Edessa, was founded in 134 BC in the aftermath of the collapse of the Seleucid Empire by a Nabataean tribe, with the ruling dynasty, the Abgarids, coming from their numbers. It shifted between semi-autonomy and independence, then being a client state of the Parthian Empire and the Roman Empire, to being fully incorporated into the latter as a province in 214 AD.
Nabataean Kingdom
Petra was rapidly built in the 1st century BC and developed a population estimated at 20,000. 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 that invited Pompey's intervention in Judaea. According to popular historian Paul Johnson, many Nabataeans were forcefully converted to Judaism by Hasmonean king Alexander Jannaeus. 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. Obodas I knew that Alexander would attack, so was able to ambush Alexander's forces near Gaulane destroying the Judaean army in 90 BC.
The Roman military was 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 II, who was a friend of King Aretas, was despatched by Scaurus to the king to buy peace. In so obtaining peace, Aretas retained all his possessions, including Damascus, and became a Roman vassal.
In 32 BC, during King Malichus I's reign, Herod the Great, with the support of Cleopatra, started a war against Nabataea. The war began with Herod plundering Nabataea with a large cavalry force and occupying Dium. After this defeat, the Nabataean forces regrouped near Canatha in Syria but were attacked and routed. Cleopatra's general Athenion 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.
After an earthquake in Judaea, the Nabateans rebelled and invaded, but Herod at once crossed the Jordan River to Philadelphia (modern Amman), and both sides set up camp. The Nabataeans under Elthemus refused to give battle, so Herod forced the issue when he attacked their camp. A confused mass of Nabataeans gave battle but were defeated. Once they had retreated to their defences, Herod laid siege to the camp, and over time some of the defenders surrendered. The remaining Nabataean forces offered 500 talents for peace, but this was rejected. Lacking water, the Nabataeans were forced out of their camp and battled but were defeated. King Aretas IV defeated Herod Antipas, son of Herod the Great, in a battle after he intended to divorce his daughter Phasaelis.
Roman period
An ally of the Roman Empire, the Nabataean kingdom flourished throughout the 1st century. Its power extended far into Arabia along the Red Sea to Yemen, and Petra was a cosmopolitan marketplace, though its commerce was diminished by the rise of the Eastern trade route from Myos Hormos to Coptos on the Nile. Under the Pax Romana, the Nabataeans lost their warlike and nomadic habits and became a sober, acquisitive, orderly people, wholly intent on trade and agriculture. 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 Roman province of Arabia Petraea in 105. There was a Nabataean community in Puteoli, in southern Italy, that reached its end around the establishment of the province.
Five Greek-Nabataean bilingual inscriptions, known as the Ruwafa inscriptions, date to AD 165–169. Ascribed to an auxiliary military unit drawn from the Roman-allied Thamud tribe, they describe the temple in which they were placed and recognize the authority of the emperors Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus.
By the 3rd century the Nabataeans had stopped writing in Aramaic and begun writing in Greek. By the 5th century they had converted to Christianity. Their lands were divided between the new Qahtanite Arab tribal kingdoms of the Byzantine vassals, the Ghassanid Arabs, and the Himyarite vassals, the Kingdom of Kinda in North Arabia.
Culture
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 except for a few letters no Nabataean literature has survived, nor was any noted in antiquity. Onomastic analysis has suggested 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 describes them as a strong tribe of some 10,000 warriors, preeminent 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, 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.
Women
Based on coins, inscriptions and non-Nabatean contemporary sources, Nabataean women seem to have had many legal rights. Inscriptions on tombs demonstrate the equality of property rights between man and woman and women's rights in matters of inheritance and also their ability to make decisions about their own property. That set the Nabateans apart from the attitudes on a woman's role in society by their neighbours in the region. Women also participated in religious activities, and had a right to visit the temples and make sacrifices.
Archeological evidence strongly suggest that the Nabataean women had a role in the social and political life by the 1st century AD, which is shown by the fact that Nabatean queens were depicted on coins, both independently and together with their spouse the king. The assumption to be made from this were that they ruled together and that the Nabatean queens and other female members were given or already had political importance and status. It is likely other Nabatean women benefited from this by extension.
Though Nabatean culture seems to have favored male succession rather than female or equal succession, it seems plausible that like their neighbouring Ptolemaic dynasty and the Seleucids, marrying a female member of the Nabatean royal family reinforced a ruler's position or one whose claim to the throne was not as strong as his wife's. The Nabatean royal house, like the Ptolemaic and Seleucids, later adopted sibling marriage.
Fashion
Not much is known for certain about the fashions of ancient Nabateans and before the Hellenization and Romanization of the region, but based on extant clothes and textiles found in graves and tombs on Nabatean territory, the clothing worn by the Nabateans during the 1st and 2nd century were not unlike their neighbouring Judaeans'. It is unknown what the Nabateans wore in more ancient times since their art before this period was non-figurative. Among the most common colours were yellow made from saffron and a bright red produced from madder. Blue textiles were also found.
Nabatean men wore a tunic and a mantle both made of wool. The tunic was a Roman style (sleeveless) and with the mantle cut in a Greek style. This reflects a popular style rather than an ethnic style exclusive to the Nabateans. Nabataean women wore long tunics along with scarves and mantles. These scarves were loosely woven and sported fringes at the bottom.
The upper class of Nabataean society, from what can be seen on coins, show an even stronger Greek and Roman influence. The kings are depicted clean-shaven with long curled hair while queens are depicted wearing headcoverings with curled hair and long tunics and high-necked garments. Purple cloth seems to have been associated with the king based on Strabo's account of Nabatean men going outside "without tunics girdles about their loins, and with slippers on their feet—even the kings, though in their case the colour is purple."
Religion
The major gods worshiped at Petra were notably Dushara and Al-‘Uzzá. Other gods worshipped in Nabatea during this period were Isis, Balshamin and Obodat
The extent of Nabataean trade resulted in cross-cultural influences that reached as far as the Red Sea coast of southern Arabia.
Main god: Dushara
Dushara was the supreme deity of the Nabataean Arabs and was the official god of the Nabataean Kingdom who enjoyed special royal patronage. His official position is reflected in multiple inscriptions that render him as "The god of our lord" (the king).
The name Dushara is from the Arabic "Dhu ash-Shara": which simply means "the one of Shara", a mountain range southeast of Petra also known as Mount Seir. Therefore, from a Nabataean perspective, Dhushara was probably associated with the heavens. However, one theory which connects Dushara with the forest gives a different idea of the god. The eagle was one of the symbols of Dushara. It was widely used in Hegra as a source of protection for the tombs against thievery.
Nabataean inscriptions from Hegra suggest that Dushara was linked either with the sun or with Mercury with which Ruda, another Arabian god, was identified.
When the Romans annexed the Nabataean Kingdom, Dushara still had an important role despite losing his former royal privilege. The greatest testimony to the status of the god after the fall of the Nabataean Kingdom was during the 1,000th anniversary of the founding of Rome where Dushara was celebrated in Bostra by striking coins in his name, Actia Dusaria (linking the god with Augustus victory at Actium). He was venerated in his Arabian name with a Greek fashion in the reign of an Arabian emperor of Rome, Philip.
Female deities (al-Uzza etc.)
"His [Dushara's] throne" was frequently mentioned in inscriptions; certain interpretations of the text consider it as a reference for Dushara's wife, goddess Harisha. She was probably a solar deity.