15. The Nabataeans - The Last Days of Petra

Introduction to Burckhardt

0:00In the year 1812, a Swiss explorer and eccentric named Johann Ludwig Burckhardt was traveling in the Middle East, in the region of what is today Jordan.

0:22Burckhardt was a strange and colorful character. Born on the shores of Lake Geneva, he had traveled to England to study, and there had been employed by a group known as the African Association, a gathering of upper-class Englishmen who financed expeditions of exploration. They had given Burckhardt the task of

Burckhardt's Assignment

0:46crossing the Sahara Desert from Cairo and making contact with what was then considered a lost city, the city of Timbuktu. Burckhardt took his assignment seriously, and he threw himself into it with all the energy of a true Georgian eccentric. He began to study Arabic at Cambridge University, and while there, he began dressing in traditional Arab clothing, wearing long white dishdashers and a turban, much to the bemusement of his fellow students. After graduating, he

1:23moved to Syria and spent two years there practicing his Arabic, even adopting the name Sheikh Ibrahim ibn Abdallah and attempting to pass himself off as a Muslim. It's not clear how successful Burckhardt's disguise really was, or whether anyone in the Arab world was fooled. In preparation for his great journey, he set out on a number of expeditions into the Syrian desert, but many of these ended in

1:53disaster. He was robbed on a number of occasions, often by the same people he had hired to act as security on the journey, but his desire for adventure was unabated by these setbacks. In 1812, he set out on the journey from Syria to Cairo, with the

Journey to Cairo

2:13intention there of securing passage across the great sandy sea of the Sahara.

2:20It was on this journey, taking the more dangerous inland route through the baking summer heat of the desert, that Burckhardt would make quite a different discovery. It was here that his guides told him of a series of mysterious ruins hidden in a narrow valley nearby, which was known by locals as Wadi Musa, or the Valley of Moses. At this point, Burckhardt was still in disguise as an Arab, and he

2:53contrived an excuse to visit the ruins, as he writes in his diary. August 22nd, 1812. I was particularly desirous of visiting Moses' valley, the antiquities of which I had heard the country people speak in terms of great admiration. I hired a guide at LG to conduct me there, and paid him with a pair of old horseshoes. He carried the goat and gave me a skin of water to carry, as

3:23he knew that there was no water in the valley below.

Burckhardt's Fear

3:26As Burckhardt travelled with his guide down into the dry valley, he began to feel increasingly fearful that someone would see through his disguise, and his ruse would be discovered. In following the rivulet of LG westwards, the valley soon narrows again, and it is here that the antiquities of Wadi Musa begin. Of these, I regret I am not able to give a very complete account, but I knew well the

3:56character of the people around me. I was without protection, in the midst of a desert where no traveller had ever before been seen, and a close examination of these works of the infidels, as they are called, would have excited suspicions that I was a magician in search of treasures. Future travellers may visit the spot, under the protection of an armed force, and the antiquities of Wadi Musa will then be found to rank amongst the most curious remains of ancient art.

4:26Burckhardt's guides led him towards what, from a distance, appeared to be a sheer cliff of brilliant red sandstone. But as he drew closer, he saw a well-concealed ravine opening up in the stone wall, from which a sparse stream was flowing. The valley seemed to be entirely closed by high rocks, but upon a nearer approach, I perceived a chasm about fifteen or twenty feet in breadth, through which the rivulet flows westward

4:59in winter. The precipices on either side of the torrent are about eighty feet in height. In many places, the opening between them at the top is less than at the bottom, and the sky is not visible from below. As Burckhardt travelled down this shady chasm, his sense of excitement gradually grew to wonder, as he came upon the site of an enormous tomb, carved into the very rock of the red sandstone mass

5:30around him. In continuing along the winding passage, an excavated mausoleum came in view, the situation and beauty of which are calculated to make an extraordinary impression upon the traveller, after having traversed for nearly half an hour such a gloomy and almost subterraneous passage as I have described. The natives call this monument Kostra-Farun, or Pharaoh's Castle, and pretend that it was the residence of a prince. But it was rather the sepulchre of a prince, and great must have been

6:07the opulence of a city which could dedicate such monuments to the memory of its rulers. It's clear that the site of this hidden wonder had an enormous effect on Burckhardt, and he writes breathlessly in his diary about the site of this enormous edifice.

6:28It is one of the most elegant remains of antiquity existing in Syria. Its state of preservation resembles that of a building recently finished, and on closer examination, I found it to be a work of immense labour. The colonnade is about 35 feet high, and the columns are about 3 feet in diameter with Corinthian capitals. The colonnade is crowned with a pediment, which consisted of an insulated cylinder crowned with a vase, standing between two other structures in the shape of small temples, supported

7:04by short pillars. The entire front, from the base of the columns to the top of the ornaments, may be 60 or 65 feet.

Introduction to Petra

7:16Johann Burckhardt would be the first European in modern times to set foot in a city that for much of the previous millennium had been only a legend. This was the ancient city of Petra. For centuries, it had been the heart of a powerful trading kingdom that controlled the flow of spice and incense coming across the desert from the lands of the east. Its people had built vast constructions, carved with immaculate skill into the sandstone bedrock of the desert itself,

7:52and tamed one of the harshest environments to be found on planet Earth. They had fought and traded with empires, and played a starring role in many of the historical dramas of their age. They were called the Nabataeans. As Burckhardt wandered through the gullies and chasms of that lost city, he must have wondered how such a society had flourished out here in the harsh landscape of the Arabian desert.

8:25And if so great a civilization had arisen here, what had happened to empty its temples and streets and leave it to be buried in the wandering sands of the desert? The The The The The The

8:57The The

Introduction to Podcast

9:02My name's Paul Cooper, and you're listening to the Fall of Civilizations podcast. Each episode, I look at a civilization of the past that rose to glory and then collapsed into the ashes of history. I want to ask, what did they have in common, what led to their fall, and what did it feel like to be a person

9:34alive at the time who witnessed the end of their world?

Nabataean Civilization

9:38In this episode, I want to look at one of the most remarkable stories of civilizational survival to come down to us from the ancient world, the story of the trading empire of the Nabataeans. I want to explore how these once humble traders rose to become masters of the desert sands and to defy empires. I want to show how the city of Petra flourished to become the crossroads of the world, and I want to explore what happened to finally bring down the empire of

10:14Nabataean.

Geology of Jordan

10:25Sandstone is a sedimentary rock. It's formed when layers of sand are piled one upon another, and then over time subjected to enormous pressure. This pressure, along with natural mineral processes, fuses the sand grains together into rock. Beneath the lands of Jordan, where this historical drama will unfold, two great beds of sandstone stretch out.

10:57These are known as Disi Sandstone and Um-Ishrin Sandstone.

11:04Disi Sandstone is the youngest and uppermost layer. Sandstones can be any color, depending on the kinds of grains that went into forming it, and this kind is hard, pale gray, and usually erodes to form distinctive dome-like structures. But beneath this layer is a layer of older sandstone, at least 20 million years older. This is Um-Ishrin Sandstone, and it's easily recognizable by the

11:36beautiful patterns it forms. Due to its composition of iron, hydroxides, and manganese oxides, it is famous for its color, woven with rich oranges, purples, and deep rosy reds. The winding, interlaced patterns on these stones were formed by the shapes of riverbeds that ran across this landscape as much as 500 million years ago, in the

12:07middle of the period known as the Cambrian. During this period, the planet Earth would have looked like a very alien place, almost like the surface of another planet. There were a few plants like mosses and lichens, but no leaves or trees, and no animals on the bare, rocky land. The sea levels were high, with little or no polar ice, and so large areas of the continents were flooded with warm, shallow seas, filled with

12:41some of the largest forms of life to yet have evolved. Crustaceans and arthropods like trilobites. Over the hundreds of millions of years that followed, an enormous amount of sand was deposited on the floors of these oceans, as their waves ground away at the rocks of the planet crust, as rainwaters flowed down through rivers, bringing silt and dust along with them.

13:10Today, the Umm Ishwin layer of sandstone is more than half a kilometer thick, and in most places, it is buried by sheets of younger gray limestone. This rosy sandstone would have remained buried if it weren't for the unique plate tectonics of the Arabian Peninsula. The Arabian Plate is currently being crushed by the other plates around it, the much larger African and Eurasian plates. It's being pushed north at a rate

13:43of 15 millimeters a year, or about as fast as your fingernails grow. As it does so, these enormous forces have thrown up mountain ranges in Turkey, Syria, and Iran. This vice-like pressure has caused the landmass to tilt. All of the rock layers in Jordan now sloped gently towards the northeast. The upper limestone layer became exposed to the powerful forces of the wind and sand. In places like Wadi Ram, Danar, the eastern shore of the Dead Sea, and

14:21at the site of Petra, these gray sandstones eroded away, and the long-buried layers of Umm Ishwin sandstone came into view in all their rich red glory. And it's here, in this landscape

Nabataean History

14:38of rosy red stone, that the story of the Nabataeans would begin. The earliest hints of a people who may have been the Nabataeans comes from the sources of the late kings of Assyria in the 8th and 7th centuries BC. Like many rulers of this region before them, they had struggled to control the nomadic tribal peoples living in the deserts

15:08to their south. The 7th century BC, Assyrian king Sennacherib wrote the following inscription detailing one of his campaigns in the south. In my first campaign, I accomplished the defeat of Merodach-Baladin, king of Babylonia, together with the army of Alam, his ally, in the plain of Kish. On my return march, the Temunah, the Abudu, the Damanu, the Nabatu, who were not submissive at all. All of them I conquered.

15:45Sennacherib's grandson, the king Ashurbanipal, also wrote of encountering these desert peoples.

15:53The Nabatu live in a far-off desert place where there are no wild animals, and not even birds build their nests. Today, many scholars dismiss the similarities between the name of the ancient Nabatu and the later Nabateans as a simple coincidence. But what we do know is that since the earliest history of this region, people have lived in this kind of nomadic manor in the deserts of Arabia.

16:25These people would have no fixed towns or cities, no houses or temples, but they would move with their herds, constructing tents wherever they went, and moving as restlessly as the desert sands. They would survive by raising animals like goats, sheep, and cows, which could provide meat, milk, and wool. They would forage and hunt what they could from the environment, and would perhaps

16:56plant orchards that they would return to each year on their wandering route. It seems that during their early history, the Nabataeans would also act as pirates and bandits, using their knowledge of the desert to outmaneuver the slow-moving trade caravans that passed through their territory and along their coast. The 1st century Roman writer Strabo recounts that the Nabataeans even dabbled in seaborne piracy.

17:31Nabatea is a country with a large population and well supplied with pasturage. They also dwell on islands situated off the coast nearby, and these Nabataeans formerly lived a peaceful life. But later, by means of rafts, went to plundering the vessels of people sailing from Egypt. But they paid the penalty when a fleet went over and sacked their country.

18:01Soon, it seems that the Nabataeans discovered that it was more profitable not to rob the trade caravans, but to offer them protection to pass through their territory for a price. By the end of the 1st millennium BC, the Nabataeans had pushed out their rivals and now dominated the business of transporting goods across the deserts of Arabia. By the time the first books of the Hebrew

18:35Bible were being written down, it's clear that the Arab kingdoms of the south were already making a killing. In the Book of Kings 10.15, the following account is made of the wealth of the 10th century King Solomon, with particular mention of the wealth of the Arab kingdoms. Now, the weight of gold that came to Solomon in one year was six hundred threescore and six talents of gold. Beside that he had of the merchantmen, and of the traffic of the spice merchants, and of all

19:13the kings of Arabia, and of the governors of the country. The first truly solid account of the Nabataeans comes second-hand, from around the year 312 BC, and the Greek writer known as Hieronymus of Cardia.

19:38Hieronymus wrote an apparently detailed description of the Nabataean people, expounding on their history, their culture, and their way of life. But unfortunately for us, that text hasn't survived into the modern day. But he was used as a major source for other later scholars, like the Greek historian Diodorus of Sicily, writing more than 300 years later. In his work, Diodorus gives a lengthy description of the Nabataeans, based on the earlier observations

20:12of Hieronymus of Cardia. He paints a picture of an uncompromising nomadic people, who refused the comforts of settled society out of a desire for independence.

20:27For the sake of those who do not know, it will be useful to state in some detail the customs of these Arabs, by following which it is believed they preserve their liberty. They range over a country that is partly desert and partly waterless, though a small section of it is fruitful. They live in the open air, claiming as native land a wilderness that has neither rivers nor abundant springs from which it is possible for a hostile army to obtain water. It is their custom neither to plant

20:59grain, set out any fruit-bearing tree, use wine, nor construct any house. And if anyone is found acting contrary to this, death is his penalty. They follow this custom because they believe that those who possess these things are, in order to retain the use of them, easily compelled by the powerful to do their bidding.

21:24Diodorus also recounts the great wealth that the Nabataeans had amassed due to their control of crucial trade routes for spices and incense.

21:37Some of them raise their camels, others sheep, pasturing them in the desert. While there are many Arab tribes who use the desert as pasture, the Nabataeans far surpass the others in wealth. Although they are not much more than 10,000 in number, for not a few of them are accustomed to bring down-to-the-sea frankincense and myrrh and the most valuable kinds of spices which they procure from those who convey them.

22:05Frankincense and myrrh are the resins of two different plants in the Boer Serakai family, gnarled and stunted trees that grow on the Arabian Peninsula, in India and North Africa. When the bark of these trees is damaged, they have evolved to release resin from their wounds, which forms a glassy seal, protecting the plant's delicate insides from further harm. But trees are also susceptible to bacterial infections, just like we are. As an extra line

22:42of defense, these resins are filled with volatile compounds that kill bacteria and fungi, similar to our own immune system. It's these volatile chemicals that also act in interesting ways on the human sense of smell. For at least the last 5,000 years, these resins have been used for their antibacterial properties in medicine and for their striking aromas when burned. Frankincense releases a sweet and woody scent with notes of lemon, while myrrh releases a smell that

23:22is more like spice, bitterer with floral overtones. At harvest times, farmers slice gashes into the barks of the trees and collect the milky resins that ooze from within. Once exposed to air and sun, myrrh dries and hardens to reddish-brown pea-sized chunks, while frankincense dries to pale yellow, tear-shaped droplets. Diodorus of Sicily even claims that the smells were so strong

23:56that sailors traveling up the coast of Arabia could smell them as they sailed past. A group of Greek sailors who ran out of supplies on the Arabian coast around the year 300 AD landed on the shore in search of water and stumbled upon a plantation of these trees. They were later interviewed by the botanist Theophrastes, who wrote down everything they told him about the methods of

24:28extracting these resins. They said that on the coasting voyage they landed to look for water on the mountains and saw these trees and the manner of collecting their gums. They reported that with both trees incisions had been made, both in the stems and in the branches. Also that in some cases the gum was dropping, but that in others it remained sticky to the tree, and that in some places mats woven of palm leaves were put underneath, while that which remained sticky to the trees they scraped off with iron tools.

25:05The cultivation of these trees was veiled in secrecy, and this secrecy gave rise to outlandish myths. The historian Herodotus, writing in the 5th century BC, recorded the process for harvesting these incenses, along with an account of a supposed race of monsters that guarded them.

25:30Arabia is the furthest of the inhabited lands in the direction of the midday, and in it alone of all lands, grow frankincense and myrrh. These are got with difficulty by the Arabians. For these trees which produce frankincense are guarded by winged serpents, small in size and of various colours, which watch in great numbers about each tree, and they cannot be driven away from the trees by any other thing but only the

26:06smoke of the smoke of the storax." We will never know whether this was a simple legend, or whether it was a purposeful piece of disinformation spread by Arab frankincense farmers to scare others away from their lucrative industry. If this latter was the case, then it seems to have worked. The stories of venomous flying snakes were repeated by a number of other ancient Greek writers, and few of those who

26:37explored the coast of Arabia by sea were ever brave enough to venture inland to see the incense plantations for themselves. It's not hard to see why these commodities were so sought after. Towns and cities of the Bronze and Iron Age would likely have been a potent mix of pungent smells.

27:03Even in the most refined cities, sanitation was in its early stages, if it existed at all, and little centralised planning would often mean that waste would build up close to where people lived and worked. With no refrigeration, food would spoil quickly, and industries like leather tanning used dung and urine to produce their products. All of this would have combined to create a heady assault on the noses of all the people who lived there. For the rich, alleviating this discomfort was something they were

27:40willing to pay for. Aside from this obvious use, the burning of incense also took on a significant spiritual dimension. Temples and places of religious worship wanted to create a clear divide between the inside of the temple, a holy, sacred space, and the dirty, smelly world outside. Incense was one of the best ways to do this. Since ancient times, people had noticed the connection between bad smells and

28:18illness and death. Our sense of smell evolved in part to protect us from harmful bacteria in waste and decaying matter. So naturally, people noticed that those who lived close to foul-smelling places, like sewers and waste heaps, would get sick more often, and even die. Since the earliest texts have been recorded, it's clear that people considered the presence of bad smells to be evidence of the

28:50existence of evil spirits, invisible to the eye but lingering in the air, waiting to cause disease and misery to the people around them. A large part of the responsibility of a temple was to give people comfort from the daily horrors of disease and misfortune. To do this, they would need to create a space where these putrid smells and the evil associated with them were not allowed entry. This use of incense to create a sense of holy space is truly ancient. It was mentioned as part of rituals

29:29in Homer's Odyssey, and the Book of Exodus even describes a particular blend of frankincense and other spices to be ground and burnt in the sacred altar before the Ark of the Covenant, and even goes so far as to forbid its use for any other purpose. Then the Lord said to Moses, Take fragrant spices, gum resin, onica and galbanum, and pure frankincense, all in equal amounts, and make a fragrant blend of

30:04incense, the work of a perfumer. It is to be salted and pure and sacred. Grind some of it to a powder and place it in front of the Ark of the Covenant law in the tent of meeting. It shall be most holy to you. Do not make any incense with this formula for yourselves. Whoever makes incense like it to enjoy its fragrance must be cut off from their people.

30:34From this connection to the divine, incense would soon become integral to the function of royalty. Myrrh was used in the anointing rituals of Hebrew queens and in the embalming process for the mummies of Egyptian pharaohs. In the Christian New Testament, the Gospel of Matthew describes a group of wise men who travel from the east to attend the birth of Jesus and who bring him the traditional offerings

31:08given to royalty, gold, frankincense, and myrrh, gifts designed to reinforce his claim to being born as king of the Jews and the descendant of King David. In other words, incense around this time was serious business. These fragrances were not simply frivolous luxuries, but they were essential tools in the way that religious authority and the power of the state were constructed.

31:41As societies became more centralized and these institutions grew in power and wealth, the demand for incense would only increase. As the 2nd and 1st centuries BC passed by, the Nabataean people found themselves at the very heart of this crucial industry.

32:03Camels would soon lumber across the Nabataean roads with boxes of frankincense and myrrh from Oman, sacks of spices from India, and bolts of cloth from Syria, as well as sugar and ivory from Africa. All of this would pass through a city that sat at the crossroads of multiple trade routes, a place that would come to hold a semi-mythical reputation around the known world. To the Nabataeans,

32:36this city was known as Rakim. But to the people of the wider world, it would come to be known by the Greek word for rock, the element from which it was carved. This was the city of Petra.

32:58The site of Petra has been inhabited for at least the last 7,000 years, and this is partly due to its interesting geology. A freshwater spring rises from the ground here, known as Musa's Spring. It's held in traditional beliefs to be the place where the biblical figure Moses once struck a rock with his staff and caused water to gush from the desert stones. The appearance of a spring of water in this

33:31arid desert really must have seemed miraculous to the early peoples who settled here. As rainwaters permeate through these porous sandstones, they gather in subterranean pools, and these waters slowly leach out of the rocks along the paths of least resistance. This means that the very stones of Petra's landscape act like enormous water towers, slowly releasing their stores of water through the

34:02long dry months of the Arabian summer. Over millions of years, these spring waters, along with the brief but heavy winter rains, have cut through the sandstone bluffs so that a narrow ravine known as a seek wound its way through the solid stone. Beyond this was a perfectly enclosed area, sheltered by high cliffs from the desert wind and sands, and with a constant supply of fresh water.

34:35The first-century Roman author and naturalist Pliny the Elder gives one early account of the city in his work, natural history. The Nabataeans inhabit a town named Petra. It lies in a deep valley in little less than two miles wide and is surrounded by inaccessible mountains with a river flowing between them. At Petra, two roads meet. Its distance from the town of Gaza on the Mediterranean coast is 600 miles,

35:11and from the Persian Gulf is 635 miles.

35:18This naturally occurring spring water was enough to support a small population, but as the city's importance grew and the trade caravans got larger, the strain on its supply must have grown and grown. To enhance the natural water systems of the region, the Nabataeans began to build complex water control systems, cutting aqueducts into the sandstone of the mountains, and even building underground plumbing systems out of terracotta pipes to divert the water of several nearby springs directly into

35:55the heart of the settlement. They also learned techniques for gathering rainfall that they used to enormous effect. Although the climate of the region wasn't quite as arid 2,000 years ago as it is today, this landscape was still a desert. Rain in these parts came extremely rarely, and the so-called rainy season around January could consist of just one or two spells of rain in a year. In the height of

36:27summer, rainfall stops entirely, and so the Nabataeans worked tirelessly to maximize the amount of water they could gather during these few rainy spells. Rainwater would naturally gather in depressions and hollows, and for centuries herdsmen had taken advantage of these natural pools. But sandstone is a porous rock, and the water would naturally drain away over time. To fix this problem, the Nabataeans worked to line

37:00these natural pools with hard stucco plaster, meaning that the water would remain and could be used long into the season of drought. They built large dams across the valleys to gather rainwater into reservoirs, and also reduce the flooding that occurred each year as rainwater followed the well-worn channels it had cut for millions of years through the red rock of the valley. The Nabataeans' expert control of scarce

37:32water resources meant that Petra was able to grow to eventually house as many as 20,000 permanent residents, and to support the constant arrival of large trading caravans, many of them made up of hundreds of people and camels arriving thirsty from the long desert roads. Soon, the water was even abundant enough that it could be used for more luxurious purposes. The citizens of Petra would soon be able to

38:04bathe, make wine, cultivate fruit, and stroll through their streets in the shade of palm trees. Archaeology shows that Petra was not just a city of tombs. In its time of flourishing, it was sprawling with lush gardens and pleasant fountains, enormous temples and luxurious villas. The Roman writer Strabo gives some glimpse of this. The metropolis of the Nabataeans is Petra, as it is called, for it lies

38:37on a site which is otherwise smooth and level, but it is fortified all around by a rock, the outside parts of the site being precipitous and sheer, and the inside parts having springs in abundance, both for domestic purposes and for watering gardens. Outside the circuit of the rock, most of the territory is desert, in particular towards Judea.

39:04And some of the Nabataeans' own inscriptions clearly reference gardens existing within the city. The following inscription, from a tomb at Petra, illustrates some of the flourishing plant life that once stood here, and which may have belonged to a temple, and its description stands in stark contrast to the barren sand and stones that today stretch out around it.

39:34This tomb, and the large burial chamber within it, and the small burial chamber beyond it, the enclosure in front of them, and the porticos and the rooms within it, and the gardens and pleasure garden, and the walls of water, and the cistern and walls, and all the rest of the property, which in these places are sacred, and dedicated to Dushara, the god of our lord, and his sacred throne, and all the gods. Outside the city, in the surrounding countryside, water control was even more crucial.

40:09Even with enough water, the Nabataeans still needed to eat, and to do so, they would employ a unique style of farming that maximized the potential of the difficult terrain. They would contour a large area of the land, digging it out into a shallow funnel, sloping down to a single point, and at this point, they would plant a single fruit tree. When the rains came, the water would drain down to this central point, and the tree could survive.

40:41To plant an orchard of trees using this method, you need about 50 times the normal space, but it was an effective technique. And out here in the desert, one thing the Nabataeans had no shortage of was space. The Nabataeans also used their expertise at water control to enormous strategic advantage. Diodorus of Sicily recounts how they built a system of secret, hidden reservoirs across the desert, meaning that only they could take advantage of them, ensuring that no competitors

41:15could move in on their lucrative trade routes. And in times of war, their secret reservoirs also gave them an advantage against their enemies, as Diodorus recalls. They are exceptionally fond of freedom, and whenever a strong force of enemies comes near, they take refuge in the desert, using this as a fortress, for it lacks water and cannot be crossed by others, but to them alone. Since they have prepared subterranean reservoirs lined with stucco,

41:50the mouths of which they make very small. After filling these reservoirs with rainwater, they close the openings, making them even with the rest of the ground, and they leave signs that are known to themselves but are unrecognizable by others. They water their cattle every other day, so that if they flee through waterless places, they may not need a continuous supply of water. But despite the immense difficulties of maintaining this city, its position meant it was all worth it.

42:25That's because Petra sat at the center of a spider's web of trade routes, spreading off in every direction. To the east, desert roads led to the port towns of Basra and Dakhran in the Persian Gulf, where spices from East Asia like cinnamon, vanilla, ginger, nutmeg, and pepper flowed, as well as precious stones from India and fine silks from China. From the south, frankincense and myrrh poured into Petra from the incense fields of Yemen and Oman.

43:04Petra connected the nearby Red Sea port of Aqabar with the Mediterranean port town of Gaza, connecting the markets of eastern Africa with those of Europe. On the roads to the north lay the great cities of Damascus and Antioch. To the west, the roads led from Petra into Egypt, where tin was in constant demand, brought from Afghanistan along with the brilliant blue stone lapis lazuli.

43:34The black volcanic glass obsidian was brought from Abyssinia. Perfumes and scented oils, as well as cosmetic powders and eyeshadows, flowed north to Greece, stored in containers carved from giant clamshells, harvested in the Red Sea. The tarry substance bitumen was farmed from the Dead Sea and brought south to Egypt to help in the embalming process for mummies and to waterproof the hulls of ships.

44:07The Nabataeans were so crucial to the transferring of all of these goods by land and sea that they were able to charge a tax equal to a full quarter of all the goods that passed through their lands. As a result, the Nabataeans would soon grow fabulously, even absurdly wealthy. But soon, others would start to look with jealous eyes to the fortune they had made.

44:45The Nabataeans were not a warrior people, and it seems that they preferred, wherever possible, not to fight. But they were more than capable of defending themselves when attacked, as one colorful episode from their history shows.

45:07The society of the Nabataeans rose into a world that still bore the marks of one of history's most dramatic reshufflings of power.

Rise of Nabataeans

45:18Towards the end of the 4th century BC, the 20-year-old King Alexander of the mountainous kingdom of Macedon in northern Greece had embarked on a 10-year campaign that would see him topple the Persian Empire and sweep eastwards to capture vast swathes of territory throughout Central Asia, even invading India. Alexander died in the year 323 BC in the city of Babylon,

45:52and his empire immediately disintegrated. He left in his wake a series of large Greek kingdoms stretching from Pakistan to Egypt, and each of these began fighting with one another over who would rule the remnants of the empire. One of these kingdoms was ruled by a king, Antigonus, who had been a general under Alexander, and who had served him as governor of much of the Middle East.

46:23Antigonus had lost an eye after apparently being struck by shrapnel from a splintering catapult bolt while serving under Alexander's father, Antigonus was also monomaniacal. He soon embarked on a determined campaign to reunite Alexander's great empire and rule over it himself. He quickly swept through Syria, taking the lands of his rivals,

47:00and conquered down the Mediterranean coast, eventually reaching the borders of the wealthy lands of the Nabataeans. War is an expensive business, and as with most warmongers, Antigonus was permanently short of money. Soon, he began to look hungrily to the south, and dreamed of seizing the fabled wealth of Petra for himself. In the year 312 BC, he ordered one of his generals, a man named Athenius,

47:36to march into the desert and seize as much as he could of the wealth of these Nabataean traders. The disciplined and battle-hardened phalanxes of Antigonus were among the best soldiers in the world, some having served under Alexander himself, and these crack troops don't seem to have expected much of a challenge. Athenius marched out into the desert from Judea with an army made up of 4,000 foot soldiers,

48:08armed with long pikes and 600 horsemen, as Diodorus of Sicily recounts. Deciding that this people was hostile to his interests, he selected one of his friends, Athenius, and gave him 4,000 light foot soldiers and 600 horsemen fitted for speed, and ordered him to set upon the barbarians suddenly, and cut off all their cattle as plunder.

48:39It took Athenius and his soldiers three days to travel the 160 kilometers across the desert, but soon they came into view of the legendary Stone City. Athenius ordered his men to prepare for a nighttime attack. We can imagine the sight of the Greek army waiting and watching as the shadows stretched long over the rosy stones of the city,

49:12and the sun set in a purply haze over the Jordanian desert. When night fell, the soldiers stormed into the city. They found it almost completely undefended. There seems to have been no permanent garrison guarding the city of Petra, and the Nabataean men were away on business. What followed was a frenzy of looting, and here we can get a sense for the vast wealth that had been amassed in this city.

49:46Athenius and his men loaded themselves with as much frankincense and myrrh as their animals could carry, and reportedly made away with nearly 14 tons of silver. Not content with that, they also rounded up all of the women and children they could and abducted them, with the intention of selling them as slaves. As Diodorus recalls, Of those that were caught there, some he slew at once, some he took as prisoners, and others who were wounded he left behind,

50:19and of the frankincense and myrrh he gathered together the larger part and about 500 talents of silver. The Greeks, hardly believing how easy it had been, marched off with their slaves and loot as fast as they could, and made their way back along the road to safety. Weighed down with treasure and prisoners, and with their horses no doubt struggling in the desert landscape, they traveled about 36 kilometers from Petra,

50:50and thought that there would be safe to make camp. But they had not reckoned on the camel-powered armies of the Nabataeans. Only a few hours after Athenius and his soldiers had left Petra, the first Nabataean men began to return to the city. Finding its houses and temples looted, and their wives and children gone, they heard about the Greek attack from wounded survivors, and began an immediate pursuit.

51:20They sent out riders, and gathered more men from every village they passed through, until the Nabataean force had swollen to a horde of 8,000 camel riders. They loped across the desert with exceptional speed, easily outpacing the Greek horses, and caught up to Athenius' camp by nightfall. While the men of Athenius were encamped with little thought of the enemy,

51:50and because of their weariness were in deep sleep, some of their prisoners escaped secretly, and the Nabataeans, learning from them the condition of the enemy, attacked the camp at about the third watch, being no less than 8,000 in number. Under cover of darkness, the enraged Nabataeans swept into the Greek camp and slaughtered everyone they could find.

52:20Most of the hostile troops they slaughtered where they lay. The rest they slew with their javelins as they awoke and sprang to arms. In the end, all the foot soldiers were slain. But of the horsemen, about 50 escaped, and of these the larger part were wounded. When the Nabataeans had manfully punished the enemy, they themselves returned to the rock with the property that they had recovered.

52:48Every single Greek foot soldier was killed, and only about 50 of the Greek cavalry were able to flee the scene and trickle back across the desert. For the Greeks, this was an incredible humiliation. But it's clear the Nabataeans had no interest in fighting a war. They sent a message to King Antigonus in Aramaic, the common language of the ancient Middle East, explaining why they had wiped out his army

53:19and asking for no further aggression against them. The embarrassed Greek king clearly tried his best to save face.

53:30To Antigonus, they wrote a letter in Syrian characters in which they accused Athenius and vindicated themselves. Antigonus replied to them, agreeing that they had been justified in defending themselves. But he found fault with Athenius, saying that he made the attack contrary to the instructions he had been given. He did this, hiding his own intentions and desiring to delude the barbarians into a sense of security. The Arabs were highly pleased

54:01because they seemed to have been relieved of great fears, yet they did not altogether trust the words of Antigonus. Regarding their prospects as uncertain, they placed watchmen upon the hills from which it was easy to see from a great distance This final act of caution seems to have been completely justified. In fact, King Antigonus had no intention of maintaining the peace or accepting defeat

54:33at the hands of a people he considered to be barbarians. He ordered his son, Demetrius, to march back into the Nabataean lands and accomplish what Athenius could not, this time with another 4,000 foot soldiers and a much larger force of 4,000 cavalry. But Demetrius would not have much more success.

55:01The watchmen that the Nabataeans had placed along their borders quickly spotted the advancing Greeks and lit warning beacons on the hilltops. The desert people scattered their flocks, hiding them away in narrow crevices and hidden places, and took all of their precious goods, women and children, with them. They all fled to a stony fortress, possibly a flat-topped mountain named Umm al-Biyada,

55:33the tallest point around the city of Petra. Demetrius, on arriving at the rock and finding that the flocks had been removed, made repeated assaults upon the stronghold. Those within resisted stoutly and easily had the upper hand because of the height of the place. And so on this day, after he had continued the struggle until evening, he recalled his soldiers by a trumpet call. The Greek general Demetrius was clearly frustrated.

56:09The single, narrow approach up to the mountain's stronghold made a direct attack on it virtually impossible, and it's clear that at least someone among the Nabataeans had a gift with words. As Demetrius approached the next day for a fresh round of assaults, someone called down from the walls with the following impassioned plea, which Diodorus of Sicily recounts. On the next day, however,

56:43when he had advanced upon the rock, one of the barbarians called to him, saying, King Demetrius, with what desire or under what compulsion do you war against us who live in the desert and in a land that has neither water, nor grain, nor wine, nor any other thing whatever of those that pertain to the necessities of life among you? For we, since we are in no way willing to be slaves, have all taken refuge in a land that lacks all the things

57:13that are valued among other peoples, and have chosen to live a life in the desert, harming you not at all. We therefore beg both you and your father to do us no injury, but after receiving gifts from us, to withdraw your army and henceforth regard the Nabataeans as your friends. For neither can you, if you wish, remain here many days since you lack water and all other necessary supplies, nor can you force us

57:45to live a different life.

57:49Here we can see the Nabataeans deploying both of their great strengths. Their strategic control of the water, secreted away in hidden reservoirs, meant that any protracted siege of the city was impossible, and their enormous wealth often meant that they could simply pay off their enemies.

58:13Demetrius must have sensed that the siege was hopeless. He agreed to accept a payment from the Nabataeans and marched back to his lands, not exactly victorious, but at least a good deal richer. His father, King Antigonus, seems to have been quite angry at his son's decision, as Diodorus relates.

58:39Antigonus, when Demetrius returned and made a detailed report of what he had done, rebuked him for the treaty with the Nabataeans, saying that he had made the barbarians much bolder by leaving them unpunished, since it would seem to them that they had gained pardon not through his kindness, but through his inability to overcome them.

59:02This episode gives us a marvelous glimpse of the unique survival strategy that the Nabataeans employed, and shows how they built an empire not out of conquest and death, but out of the trickle of fresh water from the desert rocks, and the endless clinking of silver pieces moving across the desert from hand to hand.

59:32In telling the story of the Nabataeans, there will be one voice conspicuously missing, and that is the voice of the Nabataeans themselves. As far as we can tell, the Nabataeans had a good level of literacy, and it seems even common people could read and write to some extent. The Nabataeans' script is a kind of late Aramaic, ultimately derived from what's called Imperial Aramaic,

1:00:03which was used by the Persian Empire. We have evidence of graffiti written on stones all over the Jordanian desert, some apparently left by shepherds who were capable of writing at least their own names, and some short inscriptions. But despite this apparently widespread literacy, no histories or accounts actually written by Nabataeans have survived. We may never know the reasons for this.

1:00:33It's possible that the tribal roots of Nabataean society meant that they had inherited a cast of oral historians and storytellers whose job it was to memorize their histories and recite them, and that while these storytellers were alive, it simply never seemed necessary to write those histories down. It's possible that oral historians of this kind may even have jealously guarded their histories, even forbidden them

1:01:04from being written down, in order to preserve their own importance and status. But all of this is speculation, and for the most part, all the Nabataeans have left us on this matter is silence.

1:01:21The almost complete lack of Nabataean sources means that to tell their story, we are left searching through the written records of other societies, looking for any mention of them. These mentions are often brief and fragmentary, and form instantaneous, flashbulb moments in which the Nabataeans appear suddenly in the historical record, and then disappear again into darkness.

1:01:51About 50 years after the incident with Antigonus the One-Eyed and his two failed invasions of Nabataea, we get a colorful account from the Papyrus archives of an Egyptian politician named Zenon, a right-hand man to the minister of finance in Ptolemaic Egypt around 259 BC. One Papyrus gives the account of a chariot driver who had seen two of his colleagues have an uncomfortable

1:02:21run-in with a group of Nabataeans. These two Greek chariot drivers had apparently been moonlighting as human traffickers, transporting slave girls and selling them in the cities they visited.

1:02:37Memorandum to Zenon from Heraclides, the charioteer, regarding what was done by Drimulus and Dionysus to the slave girl, abusing her and handing her over to a border guard. Returning from there, he encountered the Nabataeans, and when there was a shout of protest, he was put under guard and placed in shackles for seven days. Concerning further details, if you question me,

1:03:08you will learn the entire truth.

1:03:12This remarkable and enigmatic entry leaves us with a lot of questions, but it shows that the Nabataeans were already familiar figures right across the Middle East. It's not clear what caused the Nabataeans to utter their shout of protest and imprison these men. Perhaps it was some personal insult or a dispute over trade, but some historians have wondered whether it shows that the Nabataeans were offended by the men's treatment

1:03:43of the women in their captivity and decided to dole out some justice of their own. Nabataean culture seems to have held women in high regard, with queens appearing alongside kings on certain coins, and with tomb inscriptions describing women acting as the heads of households. And so, it's not far-fetched to imagine that the Greeks' treatment of these women may have offended the Nabataeans' cultural sensibilities.

1:04:15Another tantalizing flashbulb comes from the records of the Roman-Jewish historian Flavius Josephus in his account of the Jewish Maccabee revolt against the Seleucid Empire nearly a hundred years later. The revolt was led by a Jewish priest named Judas Maccabeus, and at one point, he and his brother Jonathan fled from Seleucid forces across the River Jordan. At this point,

1:04:45Josephus recounts how the brothers and their rebel forces ran into a group of Nabataeans. These Nabataeans met them on friendly terms and even warned them about atrocities that the Seleucids had been committing in a nearby Jewish settlement.

1:05:04Now, as for Judas Maccabeus and his brother Jonathan, they passed over the River Jordan, and when they had gone three days' journey, they lighted upon the Nabataeans, who came to meet them peaceably, and who told them how the affairs of those in the land of Gilead stood, and how many of them were in distress, and driven into garrisons, and into the cities of Galilee, and exhorted him to make haste, to go against the foreigners, and to endeavour to save his own

1:05:35countrymen out of their hands. To this exhortation, Judas hearkened, and returned to the wilderness, and in the first place fell upon the inhabitants of Bosor, and took the city.

1:05:52Again, this fragmentary glimpse is fascinating but frustrating. The Nabataeans seem to have had a long-standing, friendly relationship with the Judean people, and were apparently supportive of their rebellion. It's possible that the Nabataeans, clearly valuing their own independence, viewed the Judean struggle for freedom with a great deal of sympathy. But, no doubt, they also enjoyed the opportunity to cause trouble for the Seleucid Empire,

1:06:23their powerful rivals to the north.

1:06:27An inscription at the archaeological site of Halusa in the Negev Desert contains the first mention of the name of a king of Nabataean. This inscription, written in a very early form of Nabataean, says only the following.

1:06:46This is the place which Netairu made for the life of King Aratas, king of the Nabataeans. This King Aratas was the first king of Nabataean that we can definitively put a name to, and it's clear that by this time, Nabataean was not just a tribal confederacy, but actually a kingdom. Half a century later, by the year 129 BC, we get another flashbulb showing that Petra

1:07:17was now recognized as a major regional capital.

1:07:22One inscription from a Greek ambassador named Moskio, son of Kidimos, came from the city of Priena in modern-day Turkey. It recounts how Moskion travelled on diplomatic missions around the region and mentions two cities in the same breath, the great city of Alexandria in Egypt and the city of Petra.

1:07:49He acted as an envoy on behalf of the people on many occasions, both to kings and to cities, and he performed all these embassies to the advantage of the people. The previous embassies he performed as a free gift, but when he was sent by his fatherland on official business to King Ptolemaeus in Alexandria and to Petra in Arabia, he stayed there for a longer time than had been anticipated by the people.

1:08:15It's clear that by this time, the tribal peoples of Nabatea had grown into a true regional power and gained the respect of their neighbors. They now directly controlled territory across the Arabian Peninsula, into the Negev Desert, and across Palestine, but their zone of influence stretched even further. Their caravans arrived in countless cities laden with goods and crossed the seas to trade with faraway lands.

1:08:46And as the power of the Nabateans grew, so did the magnificence of their stony capital.

1:08:56Petra was now a hive of construction, with its people carving temples and tombs directly imitating the architectural styles of their powerful Greek neighbors.