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Nabataeans

Middle East & Central AsiaHeartland today: Jordan

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Arab traders who controlled incense and spice routes across what is now Jordan and the Negev from Petra, a capital cut into sandstone cliffs. They stored water in hidden cisterns, wrote in a script derived from Aramaic, and lost their kingdom to Rome in 106 CE.

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Key events

  1. Antigonus I sends troops against the Nabataeans at a rock refuge, the first certain mention of them in writingDisputed

    Diodorus describes an attack on 'a certain rock'. Some scholars identify it with Petra, others with Sela (Es-Sela).

  2. Aretas I becomes the first Nabataean king named in surviving sources, in an inscription at Halutza and in 2 MaccabeesDisputed

    Sources give 169 or 168 BCE.

  3. Aretas III becomes ruler of Damascus as Seleucid power fails there, and has coins struck with his name in GreekDisputed

    Accounts differ on how he gained Damascus: some say he occupied it at its citizens' request, others that he took it from the weakening Seleucids. The year, about 85 BCE, is not in dispute.

  4. The Treasury (Al-Khazneh) is carved into the cliff at Petra, probably for King Aretas IVDisputed

    The facade has no dated inscription. It is usually placed in the late 1st century BCE or early 1st century CE and attributed to Aretas IV. Sediment analysis of a tomb beneath it gives a range from the mid 1st century BCE to the early 2nd century CE.

  5. Rome annexes the Nabataean kingdom under Trajan and makes it the province of ArabiaDisputed

    Rabbel II died in early 105 CE. Sources date the annexation to 105 or 106 CE.