After dominating the desert landscape of the Middle East and controlling the immensely profitable Incense Route for almost thirteen hundred years, the Nabateans and their fabled wealth disappeared into the shifting sands. What brought down the civilization that could urbanize the wilderness?

Many tribes filled the Arabian Peninsula two thousand five hundred years ago, but virtually none of their names have survived. The same would doubtless have been true of one particularly industrious and ambitious clan, had it not wandered north toward the Mediterranean coast in the fourth century BCE, near the end of the Persian period. What the tribe’s name was then no one knows, but its distinguishing characteristics included a ban on alcohol, a nomadic lifestyle, and an uncanny instinct for finding its way through the desert.

From their trading partners in Sheba, the tribesmen learned how to channel the desert’s rare floodwaters into hidden water holes, and to lead long camel caravans through any weather. Their mastery of the terrain gave them exclusive control of the overland trade routes linking the main ports along the Dead Sea, the Red Sea, and the Mediterranean. The goods they carried included perfumes and spices from India, especially the myrrh and frankincense so prized in Europe; silks and satins from the Far East; salt, then worth more than gold, and far more useful; and even asphalt from the Dead Sea, which the Egyptians used to embalm their mummies.

The tribe’s main trading arteries were known as the Incense Route. Caravan stops, inns (khans), and forts were spaced along it at twenty-kilometer intervals – the distance a camel can cover in a day. Here travelers could stock up on food and water, replace injured or tired camels, and even stay overnight. The whole operation was so professional that the tribe’s courier services were soon in high demand, making them extremely wealthy.

 

Boundless Riches

Very little is known about the tribe’s culture and history, for none of it was recorded. Most of the information we have comes from the clan’s adversaries or trade partners and from Greek and Roman historians, who’d only heard about these tribesmen secondhand. From pictograms and names of gods etched on rocks along their trading routes, we know they were pagans, like most Arabian tribes prior to the rise of Islam. In Wadi Rum in Jordan, close to the ruins of their temples, rock drawings portray the Arabian mountain god Dushara, Al-Uzza, goddess of love, and Manat, moon goddess of fate and fortune. 

For generations the tribesmen were nomads, resisting all temptation to settle down, but eventually it became impractical to wander through the desert with thousands of women and children. They sought a site large enough to hold them, hidden but at the center of their caravan routes, where they could house their families and – just as vital – safely store their treasures. 

Their settlement program went into action in the fourth century BCE, when the tribe conquered the Idumean city of Petra, hidden deep in the canyons east of the Jordan River, in the hills of Edom east of Eilat. From this modest beginning, the clan built permanent homes, towns, and even cities. Taking over more and more of the Idumeans’ territory, the tribe eventually drove them westward into Judea. Before long the tribesmen were dispersed over northern Arabia, the east bank of the Jordan, southern Syria, the Negev, and the Sinai Peninsula.

Meanwhile, the wars of the Diodochi, heirs to Alexander the Great’s Hellenist empire, were tearing the region apart. Securing Judea, the Diodochi turned their attention across the Jordan, hoping to enslave the area’s inhabitants. This is when the tribe’s name first appears in an inscription. The Greeks called these folk Nabateans, perhaps from the Arabic nabatu, which means carving or digging, alluding to the tribe’s unique talent for finding and storing water in the desert. Greek attempts to conquer the Nabateans failed – as did other enemy attacks over the years. None could overcome these lords of the desert, thanks to their ability to hold out despite parching heat by day and bitter cold by night. 

As Nabatean culture spread throughout the Middle East, trade between ports improved, and major thoroughfares were dotted with Nabatean way stations. Ornamented with stone flourishes and graceful temples, Nabatean cities included intricately carved tombs, particularly in the necropolis of their hidden capital, Petra. With wealth and security came such technological advances as the art of firing eggshell-thin earthenware. 

Just three hundred years after leaving the Arabian Peninsula, the tribe had become a strong, confident nation ruled by its own king.

The origins of the Nabatean royal house remain unknown, but a rock inscription at Halutza in the Negev, immortalizing founding monarch Aretas I, has been dated to 168 BCE, just before the Maccabean revolt in Judea. Second Maccabees also refers to “Aretas, king of the Arabians” (book 5, ch. 8), who conspired to overthrow the Jewish high priest Jason. As Jason threatened to turn Jerusalem into a Greek city, any enemy of his was a natural ally of the Hasmonean rebels, who were delighted when he fled across the Jordan. 

The Nabatean kings struck their own coins, complete with portraits, but in a nod to the Persian Empire, which used Aramaic as its official language, the coins were inscribed with Aramaic letters rather than the Nabatean alphabet, which eventually evolved into Arabic.