Nabataeans [in Northwest Arabia]

Overview of Nabataean presence in Northwest Arabia with a list of the number of sites with a Nabataean occupation.

At the end of the first century BCE, the Nabataean kingdom and its capital Petra, in southern Jordan, controlled large areas of Northwest Arabia, including important oases such as al-Badʿ, Dūmat al-Jandal, Taymāʾ, and Madāʾin Ṣāliḥ, ancient Hegra. However, debate is still ongoing as to whether Hegra — or a buffer zone c. 20 km broad, south of Hegra down to al-ʿUlā, ancient Dadan — was the “frontier” of the Nabataean kingdom, or whether the latter was further south, as far down as the north of Mecca and al-Ṭāʾif (Robin 2015: 97). This hypothesis is based on the interpretation of Strabo’s account of the Aelius Gallus expedition to South Arabia in 26–25 BC and on the number of days Gallus’ army would have needed, starting from Leuke Kome and provided the latter was located at al-Wajh, to cross “the land of Aretas”, a kin of king Obodas II (formerly III). However, since no major Nabataean settlement was found south of al-ʿUlā and since Nabataean sherds were only found at a couple of sites in Southern Arabia, and in small quantities (Durand 2008: App. 3), it is fitting to consider that the vast territories from al-ʿUlā southwards were not intensively peopled by the Nabataeans. Besides, the number of Nabataean inscriptions is much lower to the south than to the north of this city.

Yet there are clear indications that the Nabataeans controlled the main caravan roads at least down to Medina, ancient Yathrib. The reasons for this are threefold: first, a man “from Yathrib” (dy mn ytrb, UJadhNab 459) carved his signature in the Nabataean script, at Umm Jadhāyidh, 125 km northwest of Hegra. There were therefore people in Yathrib who used Nabataean script. Secondly, during surveys undertaken between 2019 and 2021 along possible caravan routes between Medina and the Saudi-Jordan border, several inscriptions written by individuals who identify themselves as ʾsrtgʾ, i.e., “strategos”, were documented far from urban centres. It is well known that Nabataean strategoi played a role in the administration of Nabataean provinces and their presence outside urban centres shows that this included the control of routes and traffic, particularly in strategic places (e.g., watering places), such as al-Ṣuwaydira, 60 km east–northeast of Medina and the area of Ghadīr al-Rāshida, 130 km northwest of Hegra. This would better explain the episode related to king Aretas IV’s daughter who, in AD 27 or a little later, travelling from Machaerus, on the east shore of the Dead Sea, to Petra, was “being passed from one governor [strategos] to the next as they provided transport” (Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews XVIII.112). It would also raise the possibility that the two strategoi identified at Ṣuwaydira were indeed in charge of controlling the road passing through this wadi, roughly at the latitude of Medina. Third, it is very likely that the fort locally known as al-Muṣannaʿa, at Umm Zarb, 135 km south–southeast of Hegra, at the crossroads between wadis al-Jizl and al-Ḥamḍ, was occupied during the Nabataean period. Indeed, a small rim sherd of a Nabataean unpainted fine ware bowl, belonging to Schmid Phase 2 (mid-first century BCE–beginning of the first century CE), was discovered in 2022 in the tower standing on one side of the fort.

Considering the above, it is logical to conclude that the Nabataeans extended their influence at least down to the Medina region through the control and defense of the road network, but there are no traces of a huge Nabataean presence south of Hegra.

The opening of the Saudi Arabian Kingdom, in the early 2000s, to joint archaeological projects combining local and foreign research teams has considerably increased our knowledge on Nabataean presence in Arabia. The list of sites or locations with traces of Nabataean presence is now probably close to 200, and this number will shortly become obsolete when the results of the most recent surveys, particularly in the region of al-ʿUlā, are made public. The sites can be divided into the following categories: large oases where Nabataean settlements were identified; caravan halts/camps or stopping points along ancient roads; forts and caravanserais; religious or assimilated installations; isolated inscription(s). As for the criteria used to identify Nabataean presence at a site, they are relatively straightforward thanks to the Nabataeans themselves. Indeed, several aspects of their material culture are both easily recognisable and characteristic of them. This is the case of coins, which started to be minted around the mid-third century BCE (Proto-Nabataean) and were only followed by regular issues from c. 34/33 BCE onwards, during the reign of Malichus I (Hendin and Huth 2020: 120–121).

Another key criterion is the fine painted or unpainted Nabataean pottery, one type of which was possibly manufactured in Hegra or its vicinity. The latter combines a decoration pattern consisting of two red lines and a carinated bowl profile and was hence named “two red lines” (Durand and Gerber 2022). The same is true of Nabataean inscriptions, more than 2,000 of which were identified in the Arabian Peninsula. As regards architecture, certain categories of buildings are almost certainly Nabataean: rock-cut tombs with a decorated facade belonging to one of the types identified as Nabataean (Braun 2015), religious monuments such as niches with betyls, some banqueting installations (Durand 2017), etc. Finally, it is important to mention the use of the so-called Nabataean capital in architectural decoration — a one or two row plain Corinthian capital — the original form of which is from Alexandria. Based on these criteria and considering the importance of the remains, the following sites can be classified as major Nabataean sites in Northwest Arabia: ʿAynūna, al-Badʿ (ancient Madian?), al-Jawf/Dūmat al-Jandal (ancient Adummatu), Madāʾin Ṣāliḥ (ancient Hegra), and Taymāʾ. Excavations at each of them started at different times from the early 2000 onwards. To these we can add a number of sites where Nabataean remains have been identified: al-Dīsa, Ithra, Kāf, Qiyāl, Qurayya, al-Quṣayr, Ruwāfa, al-Ṭuwayr, and Umm Jadhāyidh. The site of al-Dīsa, halfway between al-Badʿ and Madāʾin Sāliḥ, contains one unfinished Nabataean tomb, as well as several pit graves, and a probable settlement. Nabataean and Roman pottery were collected on the surface. Ithra and Kāf are both located on the eastern side of the Wādī Sirḥān, the more than 500-km-long depression connecting Qaṣr al-Azraq in Jordan to al-Jawf/Dūmat al-Jandal, and through which went, at all periods, the main route from the southern Levant to the Arabian Peninsula. At Kāf — on top of Jabal as-Ṣaʿīdī, which overlooks the oasis — a c. 6 x 11 m rectangular building, where Iron Age and Nabataean sherds were collected on the surface, was interpreted as a hypothetical Nabataean temple. At Ithra, where ancient – Nabataean? – hydraulic installations were identified, it has been suggested that the large building known as Qaṣr Ithra, at the centre of the village, is Nabataean, but it may also be Byzantine or Umayyad. Near the village, at Raʾs al-ʿĀniya, a 20 x 18 m building enclosing a rectangular chamber yielded Nabataean fine ware pottery and was also interpreted as a Nabataean temple. Finally, an incomplete Nabataean inscription with three lines (Winnett and Reed 1970: no. 130), discovered on the south side of the oasis of Ithra, is the dedication of an unidentified monument.

Qiyāl and al-Ṭuwayr are two Nabataean sites located 15 km northwest and 8 km south of Sakākā. More than thirty Nabataean inscriptions and various structures were identified there. Finally, no Nabataean structures were identified at Umm Jadhāyidh but the number of Nabataean inscriptions recorded there — more than 500 — indicates that it was a major stopover on the so-called Darb al-Bakra ancient road connecting Hegra and Petra.

The evidence available so far points to a much stronger Nabataean presence in Northwest Arabia than assumed 30 years ago. Several sites were genuine urban centres, others were probably caravan stations, while a possible Nabataean fort was identified south of Hegra. The sites studied so far point to the “arrival” of the Nabataeans in the region in the first century BCE (mid-first century BCE in the Hegra region). The small quantities of Nabataean fine ware from earlier periods found in Hegra have been explained by commercial contacts between the Nabataeans and the city of Dadan (Durand and Gerber 2022). As for the reasons which have led them to extend their control over these vast territories, they may be linked to the development of maritime trade in the Red Sea (Nehmé 2021). Indeed, the second half of the first century BCE corresponds to the time when the maritime route became widely used and when Leuke Kome, the location of which is still debated but which was certainly on the northern Arabian coast of the sea, became an important harbour, as stated by the Periplus Maris Erythraei in the mid-first century BCE and by Strabo in about 20 BCE (Geog. 16.4.24). The southernmost large urban site was without doubt Hegra, but Nabataean control of the routes may have extended further south. From Hegra, the Nabataeans were probably able to transport the ‘loads of aromatics’ unloaded in Leuke Kome mentioned by Strabo. This would in turn explain the development of the Darb al-Bakra caravan route. All the major Nabataean sites are located north of an east-west line going through Hegra. In the east, apart from a couple of isolated Nabataean inscriptions in Jubba and in the Qasīm, there are no Nabataean sites east of the al-Jawf and Sakākā, which were at the outlet of the Wādī Sirḥān, as well as on the way to Mesopotamia. Nabataean investment in Northwest Arabia is best explained by their willingness to secure the revenues they earned from controlling trade routes and collecting taxes in a changing economic context.

Laïla Nehmé

Siglum

UJadhNab: Nabataean inscriptions in Nehmé 2018.

References and suggested reading

• Braun, J.P. 2015. Éléments pour une analyse architecturale des tombeaux, in L. Nehmé (ed.) Les tombeaux nabatéens de Hégra, vol. 1 (Épigraphie & Archéologie, 2): 203–245. Paris: Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres.
• Charloux, G. 2020. A Note on Aṭ-Ṭuwayr: An Eastern Nabataean Site?. Jordan Journal for History and Archaeology 14: 97–124.
• Durand, C. 2008. Le rôle du royaume nabatéen dans le commerce oriental et méditerranéen, de l’époque hellénistique aux campagnes de Trajan (IV^e s. av. J.-C. – II^e s. apr. J.-C.). Étude historique et archéologique. PhD thesis, Université Lumière Lyon 2.
• Durand, C. 2017. Banqueter pour mieux régner ? À propos de quelques assemblages céramiques provenant de Pétra et du territoire nabatéen. Syria 94: 85–98. DOI: 10.4000/syria.5882.
• Durand, C. & Y. Gerber 2022. When the Nabataeans Settled in Hejaz: New Data from the Nabataean Painted Fine Ware Found in Hegra/Madāʾin Sālih (Northwest Arabia). Studies in the History and Archaeology of Jordan 14.
• Hendin, D. & M. Huth 2020. Early Nabataean Coinage Until the Monetary System of Malichus I, in T. Daryaee, J.A. Lerner, V.C. Rey (eds) Dinars and Dirhams. Festschrift in Honor of Michael L. Bates: 119–138. Irvine (CA): Jordan Center for Persian Studies.
• Nehmé, L. (ed.) 2018. The Darb al-Bakrah. A Caravan Route in North-West Arabia Discovered by Ali I. al-Ghabban. Catalogue of the inscriptions (Series of Archaeological Refereed Studies, 50). Riyadh: Saudi Commmission for Tourism and National Heritage. https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02096586v1
• Nehmé, L. 2021. New Insights into the Nabataean Long-Distance Trade, in M. Luciani (ed.) Archaeology of the Arabian Peninsula 2: Connecting the Evidence. Proceedings of the Workshop held at the 10th ICAANE in Vienna, April 2016 (OREA, 19): 199–213. Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften.
• Robin, C.J. 2015. Ghassān en Arabie, in D. Genequand & C.J. Robin (eds) Les Jafnides, rois arabes au service de Byzance (VIe siècle de l’ère chrétienne) (O&M 7): 79–120. Paris: De Boccard.
• Winnett, F.V. & W.L. Reed 1970. Ancient Records from North Arabia. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

_{Alternate spellings: Nabateans, Nabaṭ, Nabat, Nbṭm}