DiscoverScroll article

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".

The name of the Nabataeans may be derived from the same root as Akkadian nabatu, "to shine brightly".

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.". 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.

By the 3rd century the Nabataeans had stopped writing in Aramaic and begun writing in Greek.

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.

Dushara was the supreme deity of the Nabataean Arabs and was the official god of the Nabataean Kingdom who enjoyed special royal patronage. Nabataean inscriptions from Hegra suggest that Dushara was linked either with the sun or with Mercury with which Ruda, another Arabian god, was identified.

Healey states "Nabataeans normally spoke a form of Arabic, while, like the Persians etc., they used Aramaic for formal purposes and especially for inscriptions." Proper names on their inscriptions suggest that they were ethnically Arabs who had come under Aramaic influence, and the Nabataeans had already some trace of Aramaic culture when they first appear in history. The Nabataeans spoke an Arabic dialect but for their inscriptions used a form of Aramaic that was heavily influenced by Arabic forms and words.

That could suggest that the Nabataeans used Arabic in their legal proceedings but recorded them in Aramaic.

Seeia (Sî, Seia) in northern Hauran (ancient Auranitis): 3 temples and a necropolis; inscriptions written in what is known as Nabatean-Aramaic script and language, however the inhabitants were from the 'Ubaishat tribe, which belonged to the Safaitic-Thamudic group of tribes, not the Nabatu (Nabataeans).

Halaf'allahi is named in inscriptions on two tombs there as the responsible stonemason in the reign of King Aretas IV.

Quick Facts

• 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.
• 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 Nabataeans were an Arab tribe who had come under significant Babylonian-Aramaean influence.
• 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.

Source material: Wikipedia - "Nabataeans". Adapted and summarized for DiscoverScroll. Original contributors are credited through the linked Wikipedia article. Read original on Wikipedia. CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes were made from the original.