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85-577: The Nabataean equivalent is šrʾ , and the modern Arabic equivalent is thought to be al-Sharat ( Arabic : جبال الشراة , romanized :  Jibāl ash-Sharāh , lit.   'Mountains of Sharāh') in Jordan . The Hebrew Bible mentions two distinct geographical areas named Seir: a 'land of Seir' and 'Mount Seir' in the South, bordered by the Arabah to the west; and another 'Mount Seir' further north, on

170-516: A sibilant first radical prefix the -t- or infix it without voicing or emphatic assimilation: y t zbn and yz t bn 'it will be sold'; these kinds of forms also occur in contemporary texts from the Dead Sea region, however. The late form mq t ry (for earlier m t qrʔ ) 'called (m.sg.)' shows Arabic-like infixation of -t- after a non-sibilant first radical, although the form cannot have been borrowed from Arabic in its entirety. A purely passive form

255-500: A Nabataean perspective, Dhushara was probably associated with the heavens. However, one theory which connects Dushara with the forest gives a different idea of the god. The eagle was one of the symbols of Dushara. It was widely used in Hegra as a source of protection for the tombs against thievery. Nabataean inscriptions from Hegra suggest that Dushara was linked either with the sun, or with Mercury , with which Ruda , another Arabian god,

340-446: A bribe of 300 talents to lift the siege of Petra, partly because of the difficult terrain and the fact that he had run out of supplies. Hyrcanus II , who was a friend of Aretas, was despatched by Scaurus to the King to buy peace. In so obtaining peace, King Aretas retained all his possessions, including Damascus, and became a Roman vassal. In 32 BC, during King Malichus I 's reign, Herod

425-581: A bright red produced from madder . Blue textiles were also found. When it comes to the types of clothing and what can be surmised from these finds are that Nabatean men wore a tunic and a mantle both made of wool.The tunic in a Roman style (sleeveless) and with the mantle cut in a Greek style. This, as stated before, reflects a popular style rather than an ethnic style exclusive to the Nabateans. Nabataean women wore long tunics along with scarves and mantles. These scarves were loosely woven and sported fringes at

510-399: A feminine suffix ( -h , -w , -y ) or unmarked. The masculine is always unmarked. Various endings express the combination of number and state. The feminine suffix -h is replaced by -t in the construct state, which expresses possession by a following noun or suffixed pronoun. -t is also added in the construct state after the feminine suffixes -w and -y . In other words, the construct

595-554: 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 . Petra

680-569: 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

765-576: A probable candidate. However, John F. Healey states that: "The Nabataean origin of the Arabic script is now almost universally accepted". In surviving Nabataean documents, Aramaic legal terms are followed by their equivalents in Arabic. That could suggest that the Nabataeans used Arabic in their legal proceedings but recorded them in Aramaic. The name may be derived from the same root as Akkadian nabatu , to shine brightly. Although not as dry as at present,

850-560: A recipe for fermented Nabatean water bread ( khubz al-ma al-nabati ). The yeast-leavened bread is made with a high quality wheat flour called samidh that is finely milled and free of bran and is baked in a tandoor . Based on coins, inscriptions and non-Nabatean contemporary sources, Nabataean women seem to have had many legal rights. Inscriptions on tombs demonstrate the equality of property rights between man and woman and women's rights in matters of inheritance and also their ability to make decisions about their own property. That set

935-479: A shift in pronunciation to a rounded ō . The attested third person independent personal pronouns are masculine singular hw (rarely hwʔ ), feminine singular hy , and masculine plural hm . These also function as demonstrative pronouns. The legal documents found in the Dead Sea region also attest the first person singular ʔnh and second person masculine singular ʔnt . The first person plural suffixed pronoun

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1020-596: A stem like rḥm 'loving (m.sg.)'. As noted above, the G-stem passive participle is formed like dk y r 'remembered (m.sg.)'. In late graffiti, the form m dk (w) r 'remembered (m.sg.)' also occurs, a pattern which is borrowed from Arabic. The participles (both active and passive) of the derived stems are formed by prefixing an m- , but examples are scarce. Nouns distinguish two genders , masculine and feminine; two numbers , singular and plural; and three states , absolute, construct, and emphatic. Feminine nouns may be marked by

1105-454: A verb is rarely expressed by a suffixed pronoun attached to the verb, normally it is attached to the following object marker yt . If a sentence includes a verb, the normal word order is verb—subject—object(s), as in lʕnw (V) dwšrʔ wmnwtw wqyšh (S) kl mn dy ... (O) 'may Dushara and Manat and Qayshah curse anyone who ...'. If a sentence does not include a verb, the sentence is copular . It then consists of two noun phrases which make up

1190-536: Is -nʔ . Unlike many other dialects of Aramaic which simply have -(a)n , Nabataean preserves the final vowel * -ā here, as indicated by the mater lectionis ʔ . The third person masculine singular suffixed pronoun is normally -h . After long vowels and diphthongs (both marked by matres lectionis ), -hy is used instead, as in ʔbw hy 'his father', ywmw hy 'his days'. In later graffiti, this distribution breaks down and other suffixes, -hw and -w , also appear. The third person feminine singular suffixed pronoun

1275-570: Is zy in the oldest inscriptions and dy elsewhere; it does not inflect. The relative particle introduces relative clauses, as in dʔ msgdʔ dy ʕbd ʕbydw 'this is the sacred stone which ʕBYDW made', and can express a genitive relation, as in dnʔ ṣlmʔ dy ʕbdt ʔlhʔ 'this is the statue of Obodas the god'. Finally, the attested interrogative and indefinite pronouns are mn 'who' and mh 'what'. Like other Semitic languages, Nabataean Aramaic attests various (basic and derived) verb stems . Based on comparison with other varieties of Aramaic, it

1360-627: Is also given as the location where the remnants "of the Amalekites that had escaped" were annihilated by five hundred Simeonites ( 1 Chronicles 4:42–43 ). In 2 Chronicles 20:22–23 , the "inhabitants of Mt. Seir", i.e. the Edomites, came along with the Ammonites and Moabites against Jehoshaphat of Judah, however "the LORD set ambushments" against them, causing their forces to annihilate one another. Mount Seir

1445-550: Is also largely Aramaic in origin, with notable borrowings from Arabic , Greek , and other languages. With the collapse of the Achaemenid Empire (330s BC), Aramaic lost importance as the lingua franca of the Near East . Koine Greek now appeared beside it. The formerly unified written culture fell apart into local schools and the old vernaculars now also increased in importance as written languages. Nabataean Aramaic

1530-626: Is also referenced in the prophetic books as a term for Edom, as in Isaiah 21:11 and Ezekiel 25:8 and 35:10 . There is also another Seir mountain near Hebron which, according to Joshua 15:10 , was allotted to the tribe of Judah , near the modern town of Sa'ir in the West Bank of the Palestinian territories . Before the emergence of the Israelite kingdoms and of Edom, with Mount Seir standing on

1615-472: Is always -h and the third person plural (used both for masculine and feminine) is -hm . The most common demonstrative pronouns besides hw , hy , and hm are masculine singular dnh (rarely znh ), feminine singular dʔ , and plural ʔlh . Other, rarely attested, plural forms are ʔlk and ʔnw . In the later period, the gender distinction in the singular breaks down and both forms occur with both masculine and feminine antecedents. The relative particle

1700-569: Is characterized by a cursive style. This is even more true for the few known texts that were written with ink, which use a more advanced form of the script. The Nabataean alphabet itself developed out of the Imperial Aramaic alphabet . It became the precursor of the Arabic alphabet , which developed out of cursive variants of the Nabataean script in the 5th century. Scholars used to be divided over

1785-502: Is commonly assigned to Western Aramaic. Evidence of Nabataean writings can be found in the burial and dedicatory inscriptions of the cities of Petra , Bosra and Hegra (Mada'in Salih) . Many shorter inscriptions have been found in the southern Sinai Peninsula as well as other areas that were at one point ruled by the Nabataean kings. Several Nabataean texts written on papyrus were found at Nahal Hever . The oldest Nabataean inscription

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1870-412: Is identical to the absolute state in the singular. One set of plural endings consists of absolute -yn (rarely -n ), construct -y (which changes to -w- before the suffix -hy ), used for masculine and some feminine nouns. For other feminine nouns, the construct plural form is written the same as the construct singular form (although the plural was probably marked by a long ā vowel, as in -āt- , that

1955-429: Is inconclusive. As the Nabataean script does not indicate short vowels, the only information on vocalic phonemes comes from names in foreign transcription. But these are normally of Arabic origin and do not tell us anything about Nabataean Aramaic. Proto-Aramaic long * ā is sometimes spelled with a mater lectionis w , as in * ʔin ā š > ʔn w š 'human', * θam ā nā > tm w nʔ 'eight (m.)'. This may indicate

2040-404: Is inflected as a plural before suffixes, as in ʕl why over him , ʕl yhm 'over them'. Of the two finite verb conjugations, the suffix conjugation can express the past tense , as in dnh kprʔ dy ʕbd ... 'this is the grave which ... made' , and the optative , as in w lʕnw dwšrʔ wmnwtw wqyšh ... 'and may Dushara and Manat and Qayshah curse ...'. The prefix conjugation expresses

2125-489: Is likely that active verbs could occur as G-stems (basic stem), D-stems (intensive stem, characterized by different vowels and gemination of the second radical ), or C-stems (causative stem, characterized by different vowels and a prefix). Due to the limitations of the Nabataean alphabet, the G- and D-stem are not distinguished in writing: cf. ʕbd 'he made' (G-stem), qrb 'he approached' (D-stem). The suffix conjugation (see below) of

2210-450: Is marked by a mater lectionis -y- between the second and third radical, as in dk y r 'remembered (be) (m.sg.)'. This is sometimes inflected as an adjective, as in dkyr yn 'remembered (m.pl.)' but can also be inflected according to the suffix conjugation, as in ʕbyd t 'it (f.) was made'. Two finite conjugations can be distinguished: the suffix conjugation , which exclusively marks its subject agreement through suffixation, and

2295-465: Is notable for the occurrence of a number of loanwords and grammatical borrowings from Arabic or other North Arabian languages . Attested from the 2nd century BC onwards in several dozen longer dedicatory and funerary inscriptions and a few legal documents from the period of the Nabataean Kingdom , Nabataean Aramaic remained in use for several centuries after the kingdom's annexation by

2380-506: The Babatha archive. Some excavations have unearthed inscriptions on metallic objects. Most of such inscriptions were inscribed on metallic coins. Excavations in Wadi Musa in southern Jordan unearthed dozens of bronze fragments with Nabataean inscriptions on them, including a bronze oil burner which attests a well-preserved dedication by a priest and his son to Obodas . This dates to the reign of

2465-574: The Book of Numbers , the prophet Balaam , predicting Israelite victories over the Trans-Jordanian nations at the end of their Exodus from Egypt , stated "Edom shall be a possession; Seir also, his enemies, shall be a possession" ( Numbers 24:18 ). In the antique Song of Deborah in the Book of Judges , God is described as emerging from Seir to lead the Israelites in battle ( Judges 5:4 ). Mount Seir

2550-482: The Later Roman Era . They have been described as one of the most gifted peoples of the ancient world and one of the "most unjustly forgotten". 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 Antigonus I 's officer Athenaeus in

2635-544: The Qasr al Bint i temple was dedicated to Dushara then the other major temple must have been al-Uzzas. This is just a theory however, based on conjecture, and it can only be said that the temple is likely dedicated to the supreme goddess figure of the Nabateans, but the exact identity of this goddess is uncertain. Excavated from The Temple of the Winged Lions was the "Eye Baetyl " or "Eye-Idol". Numerous Nabatean bas-relief busts of

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2720-636: The Roman Empire in 106 AD. Over time, the distinctive Nabataean script was increasingly used to write texts in the Arabic language. As a result, its latest stage gave rise to the earliest form of the Arabic script , known as Nabataean Arabic . The phonology of Nabataean Aramaic can only be reconstructed in part, based on the mostly consonantal Nabataean script and comparison with other kinds of Aramaic. Similarly, its morphology and syntax are incompletely attested, but are mostly comparable to other varieties of Aramaic from this period. The Nabataean lexicon

2805-664: The Ruwafa inscriptions . They are ascribed to an auxiliary military unit drawn from the Roman-allied Thamud tribe and were built to describe the temple they were inscribed in and to recognize the authority of the emperors Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus . By the 3rd century AD, the Nabataeans had stopped writing in Aramaic and begun writing in Greek instead. By the 5th century AD, they had converted to Christianity. The new Arab invaders, who soon pressed forward into their seats , found

2890-692: The Seleucids , marrying a female member of the Nabatean royal family reinforced a ruler's position or one whose claim to the throne was not as strong as his wife's. The Nabatean royal house like the Ptolemaic and Seleucids later adopted sibling marriage. Not much is known for certain about the fashions of ancient Nabateans and before the Hellenization and Romanization of the region but based on extant clothes and textiles found in graves and tombs on Nabatean territory,

2975-410: The future tense , as in wmn ybʕʔ ... 'and whoever shall want ...' and can be used modally as a subjunctive , as in ... dy tʕbd bh ... '... so that she make of it ...', conditional , as in hn yhwʔ ... bḥgrʔ 'if ... be in Hegra ', or optative, like the suffix conjugation, as in w ylʕn dwšrʔ wmnwtw ... 'and may Dushara and Manat curse ...'. While the pronominal direct object of

3060-418: The prefix conjugation , which uses both suffixes and prefixes. Attested suffix conjugation endings include -t (third person feminine singular and second person masculine singular) and -w (third person plural for both genders); the third person masculine singular is unmarked. Examples include ʕbd 'he made', ʕbd t 'she made', ʕbd w 'they made', and qrʔ t 'you (m.sg.) called'. The subject markers for

3145-597: The southern Levant . 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 their kingdom centered around

3230-618: The 1st century. Its power extended far into Arabia along the Red Sea to Yemen, and Petra was a cosmopolitan marketplace, though its commerce was diminished by the rise of the Eastern trade-route from Myos Hormos to Coptos on the Nile . Under the Pax Romana , the Nabataeans lost their warlike and nomadic habits and became a sober, acquisitive, orderly people, wholly intent on trade and agriculture. The kingdom

3315-464: The 3rd century, states that in Dūmah , a boy was sacrificed annually and was buried underneath an altar. Some scholars have extrapolated this practice to the rest of the Nabataeans, but this view is contested due to the lack of evidence. The Nabataeans used to represent their gods as featureless pillars or blocks . Their most common monuments to the gods, commonly known as "god blocks", involved cutting away

3400-401: The Aramaic elements it had and to have successively replaced them with Arabic loans". This theory, while widely acknowledged, is contested. Michael Patrick O'Connor has questioned alleged Arabic loanwords identified by Cantineau, stating that loanwords are largely restricted to technical terms. More recently, Aaron Butts has argued that the use of Aramaic in the tomb inscriptions of Hegra in

3485-567: The C-stem is marked by a prefixed h- , as in h qym 'he erected', or ʔ- , as in ʔ qymw 'they erected'; the prefix conjugation cannot be distinguished in writing from the G- or D-stem. Mediopassive stems are derived from the G- and D-stems. These are marked by a prefixed -t- ; all the examples Cantineau mentions are prefix conjugation forms (see below), such as y t ptḥ 'it will be opened' (tG-stem), y t ʔlp 'he will compose for himself' (tD-stem). Unlike in some other kinds of Aramaic, verbs with

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3570-839: The Edomite side of the border, this range marked the southeastern border of Egyptian Canaan (Late Bronze Age) . This is suggested by the description of the military campaign undertaken in Canaan by Ramses III (r. 1186–1155 BCE), and possibly also by the Amarna letter EA 288 , if "the land of Šeru" is to be understood to mean Seir. 30°11′03″N 35°19′00″E  /  30.1843°N 35.3166°E  / 30.1843; 35.3166 Nabataeans The Nabataeans or Nabateans ( / ˌ n æ b ə ˈ t iː ən z / ; Nabataean Aramaic : 𐢕𐢃𐢋𐢈 ‎, NBṬW , vocalized as Nabāṭū ) were an ancient Arab people who inhabited northern Arabia and

3655-644: The Great , with the support of Cleopatra , started a war against Nabataea. The war began with Herod plundering Nabataea with a large cavalry force, and occupying Dium . After this defeat, the Nabataean forces regrouped near Canatha in Syria, but were attacked and routed. Cleopatra's general, Athenion , sent Canathans to the aid of the Nabataeans, and this force crushed Herod's army, which then fled to Ormiza. One year later, Herod's army overran Nabataea. After an earthquake in Judaea,

3740-518: The Nabataean Arabs , and was the official god of the Nabataean Kingdom who enjoyed special royal patronage. His official position is reflected in multiple inscriptions that render him as "The god of our lord" (The King). The name Dushara is from the Arabic "Dhu ash-Shara": which simply means "the one of Shara", a mountain range south-east of Petra also known as Mount Seir . Therefore, from

3825-466: The Nabataean king Rabbel II Soter , who ruled between the years 70 and 106 AD. From the period of its earliest attestation, Nabataean Aramaic is notable for the use of Arabic or Ancient North Arabian loanwords and grammar, reflecting strong contact with these languages. A first- or second-century AD Nabataean inscription from Ein Avdat even contains three lines of Arabic poetry, of debated meaning. From

3910-413: The Nabataeans had already some trace of Aramaic culture when they first appear in history. Some of the authors of Safaitic inscriptions identified themselves as Nabataeans. The extent of Nabataean trade resulted in cross-cultural influences that reached as far as the Red Sea coast of southern Arabia. The major gods worshiped at Petra were notably Dushara and Al-‘Uzzá . Dushara was the supreme deity of

3995-405: 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. Diodorus Siculus (book II) described them as a strong tribe of some 10,000 warriors, preeminent among the nomads of Arabia, eschewing agriculture, fixed houses, and the use of wine, but adding to pastoral pursuits a profitable trade with

4080-470: The Nabateans apart from the attitudes on a woman's role in society by their neighbours in the region. Women also participated in religious activities, and had a right to visit the temples and make sacrifices. Archeological evidence strongly suggest that the Nabataean women had a role in the social and political life by the first century AD, which is shown by the fact that Nabatean queens were depicted on coins, both independentely and together with their spouse

4165-460: The Nabateans rebelled and invaded Judea, but Herod at once crossed the Jordan river to Philadelphia (modern Amman ) and both sides set up camp. The Nabataeans under Elthemus refused to give battle, so Herod forced the issue when he attacked their camp . A confused mass of Nabataeans gave battle but were defeated. Once they had retreated to their defences, Herod laid siege to the camp and over time some of

4250-523: The Northern Syrian goddess Atargatis were identified by Nelson Glueck at Khirbet et-Tannû . Atargatis was amalgamated into the worship of Al-‘Uzzá. However, when the Romans annexed the Nabataean Kingdom, Dushara still had an important role despite losing his former royal privilege. The greatest testimony to the status of the god after the fall of the Nabataean Kingdom was during the 1000th anniversary of

4335-755: The accumulation of loess in wadis and create an infrastructure for agricultural activity. This theory has also been explored by E. Mazor, of the Weizmann Institute of Science . Nabataean Aramaic Nabataean Aramaic is the extinct Aramaic variety used in inscriptions by the Nabataeans of the East Bank of the Jordan River , the Negev , and the Sinai Peninsula . Compared with other varieties of Aramaic, it

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4420-422: The area occupied by the Nabataeans was still a desert and required special techniques for agriculture. One was to contour an area of land into a shallow funnel and to plant a single fruit tree in the middle. Before the ' rainy season ', which could easily consist of only one or two rain events, the area around the tree was broken up. When the rain came, all the water that collected in the funnel would flow down toward

4505-414: The area of Nabataean culture, which extended as far north as the north end of the Dead Sea , and testify to widespread literacy; but except for a few letters no Nabataean literature has survived, nor was any noted in antiquity. Onomastic analysis has suggested that Nabataean culture may have had multiple influences. Classical references to the Nabataeans begin with Diodorus Siculus . They suggest that

4590-490: The bottom. The upper class of Nabataean society, what can be seen on coins, show an even stronger Greek and Roman influence. The kings are depicted clean-shaven with long curled hair while queens are depicted wearing headcoverings with curled hair and long tunics and highnecked garments. Purple cloth seems to have been associated with the king based on Strabo's account of Nabatean men going outside "without tunics girdles about their loins, and with slippers on their feet – even

4675-400: The clothing worn by the Nabateans during the first and second century were not unlike their neighbour Judaeans. Its hard to say with any certainty what the Nabateans wore in more ancient times since their art before this period was non-figurative. That is based on finds of similar clothing and textiles being found in both places. Among the most common colors were yellow made from saffron and

4760-557: The course of the Third War of the Diadochi ; at that time Hieronymus of Cardia , a Seleucid officer, mentioned the Nabataeans in a battle report. About 50 BC, the Greek historian Diodorus Siculus cited Hieronymus in his report, and added 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

4845-421: The defenders surrendered. The remaining Nabataean forces offered 500 talents for peace, but this was rejected. Lacking water, the Nabataeans were forced out of their camp and battled but were defeated. Aretas, IV king of Nabatea, defeated Herod Antipas, son of Herod the Great, in a battle after he intended to divorce his daughter Phasaelis An ally of the Roman Empire, the Nabataean kingdom flourished throughout

4930-581: The earliest Nabataean inscription is one found in Petra, Jordan , which can be dated back to the late Hellenistic era in the years 96 or 95 BC. Over 4,000 inscriptions have been confirmed to be written in Nabataean Aramaic. The vast majority are engraved on stone, like the Aslah Triclinium inscription from Petra (95 BC), the dedication to the goddess al-Kutbay from Wadi Tumilat (77 BC) and

5015-441: The enigmatic phenomenon of "Tuleilat el-Anab". Evenari showed that the runoff rainwater collection systems concentrate water from an area that is five times larger than the area in which the water actually drains. Another study was conducted by Y. Kedar in 1957, which also focused on the mechanism of the agriculture systems, but he studied soil management , and claimed that the ancient agriculture systems were intended to increase

5100-540: The founding of Rome where Dushara was celebrated in Bostra by striking coins in his name, Actia Dusaria (linking the god with Augustus victory at Actium ). He was venerated in his Arabian name with a Greek fashion in the reign of an Arabian emperor, Philip . Other gods worshipped in Nabatea during this period were Isis , Balshamin and Obodat Sacrifices of animals were common, and Porphyry 's De Abstenentia , written in

5185-462: The fruit tree and sink into the ground. The ground, which was largely loess , would seal up when it got wet and retain the water. In the mid-1950s, a research team headed by Michael Evenari set up a research station near Avdat (Evenari, Shenan and Tadmor 1971). He focused on the relevance of runoff rainwater management in explaining the mechanism of the ancient agricultural features, such as terraced wadis, channels for collecting runoff rainwater, and

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5270-459: The inscription of Rabbel I from Petra (66 BC). The earliest inscription found to be written in a cursive Nabataean script was unearthed in Horvat Raqiq, close to the city of Beersheba , Israel. This inscription is unique not only because of its age, but also because it was written using ink applied on a large rock. Similarly cursive texts written with ink on papyrus were found as part of

5355-453: The king. The assumption to be made from this were that they ruled together and that the Nabatean queens and other female members were given or already had political importance and status. One can surmise other Nabatean women also benefited from this by extension. Though admittedly Nabatean culture seems to have favored male succession rather than female or equal succession, it seems plausible that like their neighbouring Ptolemaic dynasty and

5440-575: The kings, though in their case the colour is purple." Historians such as Irfan Shahîd , Warwick Ball , Robert G. Hoyland , Michael C. A. Macdonald , and others believe Nabataeans spoke Arabic as their native language. John F. Healy states that "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

5525-546: The legal documents written on papyrus discovered in the Nahal Hever Cave of Letters in the 1960s. Other publications containing a significant number of texts are the 1993 edition of the tomb inscriptions of Mada'in Saleh by J. Healey and the collection of Nabatean Aramaic–Greek bilingual texts published by G. Petrantoni in 2021. Newly discovered inscriptions continue to be published with great frequency. Nabataean handwriting

5610-665: The north boundary of Judah , mentioned in the Book of Joshua ( Joshua 15:10 ). Mount Seir was named for Seir the Horite, whose offspring, the Horites , had previously inhabited the area ( Genesis 14:6, 36:20 ). The children of Esau , the Edomites , battled against the Horites and destroyed them ( Deuteronomy 2:4–5, 12, 22 ). Mount Seir is specifically noted as the place where Esau made his home ( Genesis 32:3; 33:14, 16; 36:8 ; Joshua 24:4 ). In

5695-546: The north of Saudi Arabia reflects imperfect learning by native speakers of a North Arabian language. Nabataean Aramaic continued to be written for several centuries during this rise of Arabic written in the Nabataean script. The longer texts from this period mainly concern a few funerary inscriptions from North Arabian oasis towns. Based on the high number of Hebrew -derived names these contain, they may have been commissioned by members of local Jewish communities . The latest Nabataean inscription found dates back to 356 AD. This

5780-897: The origins of Arabic script. One (now marginal) school of thought derives the Arabic script from the Syriac script , which also originated in Imperial Aramaic. The second school of thought, led by Theodor Nöldeke , traces Arabic script to Nabataean. This thesis was confirmed by John Healey in his work on the Syriac and the Arabic alphabet. According to Cantineau, Nabataean Aramaic had the following consonantal sounds: In other contemporary dialects of Aramaic, [f], [θ], [x], [v], [ð], and [ɣ] are postvocalic allophones of /p/, /t/, /k/, /b/, /d/, and /g/, respectively, but according to Cantineau, it cannot be established whether this also holds for Nabataean. The voiceless sibilants /s/ and /ʃ/ are sometimes confused in writing. /s/ also interchanges with /ɬ/, which

5865-534: The region's lingua franca . Therefore, Aramaic was used for commercial and official purposes across the Nabataean political sphere. The Nabataean alphabet itself also developed out of the Aramaic alphabet , but it used a distinctive cursive script from which the Arabic alphabet emerged. There are different opinions concerning the development of the Arabic script. J. Starcky considers the Lakhmids ' Syriac form script as

5950-547: The related scripts of Palmyrene , Phoenician , and Imperial Aramaic as represented on the Carpentras Stele , Eduard Friedrich Ferdinand Beer published his reading of the Nabataean script in 1840. Texts of various length continued to be discovered and published by European scholars during the 19th and 20th century. This period also saw the publication of Cantineau's grammar of Nabataean Aramaic and lexicon with sample texts. Important finds after this publication include

6035-769: The remnants of the Nabataeans transformed into peasants . Their lands were divided between the new Qahtanite Arab tribal kingdoms of the Byzantine vassals, the Ghassanid Arabs, and the Himyarite vassals, the Kingdom of Kinda in North Arabia. The city of Petra was brought to the attention of Westerners by the Swiss explorer Johann Ludwig Burckhardt in 1812. Many examples of graffiti and inscriptions—largely of names and greetings—document

6120-428: The seaports in frankincense , myrrh and spices from Arabia Felix (today's Yemen), as well as a trade with Egypt in bitumen from the Dead Sea. Their arid country was their best safeguard, for the bottle-shaped cisterns for rain-water which they excavated in the rocky or clay-rich soil were carefully concealed from invaders. Ibn Sayyar al-Warraq 's Kitab al-Tabikh , the earliest known Arabic cookbook , contains

6205-934: The subject and predicate, as in dnh (S) kprʔ ... (P) 'this is the grave ...'. Clauses can be coordinated by the conjunction w- 'and, but'. Most forms of subordinate clauses are introduced by the particle dy . Conditional clauses are introduced by hn 'if'. Most of the Nabataean basic vocabulary was inherited from older Aramaic. Examples of these inherited words include ʔb 'father', ʔm 'mother', br 'son', brt 'daughter', dkr 'male', and nqbh 'female'. Loanwords, however, are also common. Arabic and Ancient North Arabian loanwords have received special attention. Words like ʔṣdq 'heir' and kpr 'tomb' may have been borrowed from Dadanitic . Words thought to have been borrowed from Arabic include ḥlyqh 'custom' (Arabic ḫalīqah ), lʕn 'to curse' (Arabic laʕana ), and ʕyr 'other than' (Arabic ġayr ). The Nabataean kingdom's contacts with Hellenistic states and Rome also led to

6290-480: The third century onwards, the Nabataean script was increasingly used to write the Arabic language. Prominent examples include the mixed Aramaic-Arabic epitaph of RQWŠ daughter of ʕBDMWNTW ( JSNab 17 ) and the entirely Arabic Namara inscription . According to Jean Cantineau , this marked the beginning of the end of the widespread use of Nabataean Aramaic, which came to be replaced by Arabic. During this process, "Nabataean seems to have emptied itself little by little of

6375-496: The third person prefix conjugation are y- (third person masculine singular), t- (third person feminine singular), and y-...-wn (third person (masculine?) plural), as in y ʕbd 'he will make', t ʕbd 'she will make', and y ktb wn 'they will write'. Besides these finite conjugations, Nabataean Aramaic verbs form an infinitive . The G-stem infinitive is formed with a prefixed m- , as in m ktb 'to write'. The G-stem active participle does not have any special affixes and has

6460-476: The whole top of a hill or cliff face so as to leave only a block behind. However, over time the Nabataeans were influenced by Greece and Rome and their Gods became anthropomorphic and were represented with human features. The Nabataeans spoke an Arabic dialect but, for their inscriptions, used a form of Aramaic that was heavily influenced by Arabic forms and words. When communicating with other Middle Eastern peoples, they, like their neighbors, used Aramaic,

6545-510: Was a bulwark between Rome and the wild hordes of the desert except in the time of Trajan, who reduced Petra and converted the Nabataean client state into the Roman province of Arabia Petraea . There was a Nabataean community in Puteoli , in southern Italy, that reached its end around the establishment of the province. Five Greek-Nabataean bilingual inscriptions are known dating to AD 165–169, known as

6630-618: Was absent in the singular; this is not expressed in the writing); based on other varieties of Aramaic, the expected absolute suffix for these nouns is -n , but this is unattested. Finally, the emphatic state, expressing definiteness , is formed by adding the suffix -ʔ to the construct state. The full paradigm is thus (example forms are of mlk 'king' and mlkh 'queen'; not all forms are actually attested): Frequent prepositions include b- 'in', l- 'to, for, of', k- 'according to', mn 'from', and ʕl 'on, about'. These can take pronominal suffixes, as in b h 'in it', l hm 'to them'. ʕl

6715-517: Was found in Elusa , in the Negev . The inscription mentions "Aretas, king of the Nabataeans", interpreted by Joseph Naveh  [ de ] as Aretas I , an Arab ruler with whom the Jewish high priest Jason reputedly sought refuge in Petra in 169 BC. This inscription lacks some of the Nabataean features and resembles uniform Imperial Aramaic and Jewish script. Therefore, some scholars propose that

6800-635: Was found in Hegra. An even later graffito, dated to 455/6 AD and written in Nabataeo-Arabic characters, was discovered in 2004 at Jabal Umm Jadhayidh in north-western Saudi Arabia , but its Aramaic content is limited to stock formulas, the non-formulaic text being entirely Arabic. The existence of thousands of Nabataean graffiti in the Sinai desert , originally referred to as "Sinaitic", had long been known. Based on Jean-Jacques Barthélemy 's earlier decipherment of

6885-411: Was identified. "His throne" was frequently mentioned in inscriptions; certain interpretations of the text consider it as a reference for Dushara's wife, goddess Harisha. She was probably a solar deity. Dushara's consort at Petra is considered to have been al-Uzza and the goddess has been associated with Temple of Winged Lions on the basis that if the divine couple of Petra was Dushara and al-Uzza and

6970-560: Was one of these local varieties. The language of the Nabataean inscriptions, attested from the second century BCE, is close to the Imperial Aramaic of the Achaemenid Empire but with local developments. Of the few innovations compared to Imperial Aramaic, the use of the object marker yt is a Western Aramaic feature, although the older form ʔyt already occurs in Old Aramaic . Since Nabataean Aramaic also does not participate in innovations typical of Eastern Aramaic , it

7055-623: Was rapidly built in the 1st century BC, and developed a population estimated at 20,000. The Nabataeans were allies of the first Hasmoneans in their struggles against the Seleucid monarchs. They then became rivals of the Judaean dynasty, and a chief element in the disorders that invited Pompey 's intervention in Judea . According to popular historian Paul Johnson , many Nabataeans were forcefully converted to Judaism by Hasmonean king Alexander Jannaeus . It

7140-482: Was this king who, after putting down a local rebellion, invaded and occupied the Nabataean towns of Moab and Gilead and imposed a tribute of an unknown amount. Obodas I knew that Alexander would attack, so was able to ambush Alexander's forces near Gaulane destroying the Judean army (90 BC). The Roman military was not very successful in their campaigns against the Nabataeans. In 62 BC, Marcus Aemilius Scaurus accepted

7225-471: Was written with the same sign as /ʃ/ (a practice dating back to the Ancient Aramaic period). Cantineau states that the phonetic value of this sound is uncertain and suggests it may have been palatalized; the realization as a lateral fricative is argued in later scholarship. The evidence for the preservation of the uvular fricatives /χ/ and /ʁ/ or their merger with pharyngeal /ħ/ and /ʕ/ as in later Aramaic

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