Nabateans: Masters of the Desert

The Nabateans were an Arab people who, between the 4th century BCE and the 2nd century CE, built one of the most remarkable civilizations the desert has ever seen. From their capital at Petra (in modern Jordan), they controlled the trade in frankincense, myrrh, and spices between southern Arabia and the Mediterranean, becoming fabulously wealthy in the process. Their Negev cities, Avdat, Mamshit, Shivta, and Haluza, are the western outposts of an empire that stretched from the Red Sea to Damascus.

Who Were They?

The Nabateans appear in history almost from nowhere. By the 4th century BCE, they were already wealthy enough to resist the armies of Alexander’s successors. They spoke Arabic but wrote in Aramaic, and their script evolved into the Arabic alphabet still used today. They worshipped gods with Arabian names, Dushara (Lord of the Mountain) and al-Uzza (the Mighty One), but adopted Hellenistic and Roman artistic styles. They were, in short, cultural chameleons who absorbed influences from every civilization they traded with.

Petra and the Trade Empire

Petra, the Nabatean capital carved into the rose-red sandstone cliffs of southern Jordan, was the hub of a trade network that spanned the ancient world. Camel caravans carried frankincense from Yemen, myrrh from Somalia, spices from India, and silk from China along routes that converged at Petra before branching toward Gaza on the Mediterranean coast and Damascus to the north. The Nabateans did not merely transport these goods; they taxed, warehoused, and resold them, acting as middlemen between the producers of the East and the consumers of Greece and Rome. At its height, the Nabatean trade empire generated enormous wealth, visible today in the monumental tombs and temples carved into the cliffs at Petra. The Negev cities were vital links in this chain: Avdat served as a major waystation, Mamshit guarded the approach to the Dead Sea, and Haluza connected the desert routes to the Mediterranean port at Gaza.

Masters of Water

The Nabateans’ most impressive achievement was their mastery of water in the desert. They developed systems for capturing, channeling, and storing rainwater that allowed them to farm in regions that receive less than 100 millimeters of rain per year. Their terraces, dams, cisterns, and channels are still studied by modern engineers, and some are still functional after 2,000 years. The secret was not the amount of water but the efficiency with which they used it. They carved water channels into hillsides to funnel runoff from a wide catchment area into a single cistern, multiplying the effective rainfall many times over. At Avdat and Mamshit, visitors can still walk along these channels and see the plastered cisterns that held tens of thousands of liters of water through the dry summer months.

From Kingdom to Roman Province

In 106 CE, the Roman Emperor Trajan annexed the Nabatean kingdom, turning it into the province of Arabia Petraea. The Nabateans did not disappear overnight. Their cities continued to flourish under Roman and Byzantine rule, and many Nabateans converted to Christianity. But the distinctive Nabatean culture gradually faded, absorbed into the Roman provincial world. Their cities in the Negev survived until the 7th-8th centuries CE, when the Arab conquest and changing trade routes finally ended their long afterlife.

Visit with Hoshen Tours

The Nabateans built an extraordinary desert civilization, and Hoshen Tours tells their story through the sites they left behind. Visit Avdat, trace the the Incense Route, explore Haluza and Nitzana, and see how the desert masters of antiquity controlled trade from Arabia to the Mediterranean. Add Timna Park for the deeper geological story.