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Fall of Civilizations Podcast
15. The Nabataeans - The Final Days Of Petra
02:01:17
In the deserts of Jordan, a city lies hidden for …
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- [00:08]
Paul Cooper
In the year 1812, a Swiss explorer and eccentric named Johann Ludwig Burkhardt was travelling in the Middle east, in the region of what is today Jordan. Burckhardt was a strange and colourful character. Born on the shores of Lake Geneva, he had travelled 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 crossing the Sahara Desert from Cairo and making contact with what was then considered a loss 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 dish dashers and a turban, much to the bemusement of his father fellow students. After graduating, he moved to Syria and spent two years there practicing his Arabic, even adopting the name Sheikh Ibrahim IBN Abdullah 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 disaster. 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, and in 1812 he set out on the journey from Syria to Cairo with the intention there of securing passage across the great sandy sea of the Sahara. It 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 contrived an excuse to visit the ruins.
- [02:57]
Johann Ludwig Burckhardt
As he writes in his diary, August 22, 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 he knew that there was no water in the valley below.
- [03:28]
Paul Cooper
As 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.
- [03:42]
Johann Ludwig Burckhardt
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 character of the people around me. I was without protection in the midst of a desert where no traveler 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 travelers 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.
- [04:26]
Paul Cooper
Burckhardt'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.
- [04:46]
Johann Ludwig Burckhardt
The valley seemed to be entirely closed by high rocks, but upon a nearer approach, I perceived a chasm about 15 or 20ft in breadth through which the rivulet flows westward. In winter, the precipices on either side of the Torrent are about 80ft 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.
- [05:15]
Paul Cooper
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 around him.
- [05:33]
Johann Ludwig Burckhardt
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 traveler. After having traversed for nearly half an hour such a gloomy and almost subterraneous passage as I have described, the natives call this monument Khostra Faroon, 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 the opulence of a city which could dedicate such monuments to the memory of its rulers.
- [06:15]
Paul Cooper
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.
- [06:29]
Johann Ludwig Burckhardt
It 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 35ft high, and the columns are about 3ft 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 by short pillars. The entire front, from the base of the columns to the top of the ornaments, may be 60 or 65ft.
- [07:16]
Paul Cooper
Johann 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, and tamed one of the harshest environments to be found on planet 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 Nabateans. 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. And 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? My 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 alive at the time, who witnessed the end of their world? In 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 Nabateans. 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 Nabatea. Sandstone 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. These are known as disi Sandstone and um, Ishrin Sandstone. DC sandstone is the youngest and uppermost layer. Sandstones can be any colour, depending on the kinds of grains that went into forming it. And this kind is hard, pale grey 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 beautiful patterns it forms. And 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 middle 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 some 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. Today, the um, Ishrin layer of sandstone is more than half a kilometre thick and in most places it is buried by sheets of younger grey 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 of 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. And this vice like pressure has caused the landmass to tilt. All of the rock layers in Jordan now slope gently towards the northeast. The upper limestone layer became exposed to the powerful forces of the wind and sand. In places like Wadi Rum Danar, the eastern shore of the Dead Sea. And at the site of Petra, these grey sandstones eroded away and the long buried layers of Umm Ishrin sandstone came into view in all their rich red glory. And it's here in this Landscape of rosy red stone that the story of the Nabateans would begin. The earliest hints of a people who may have been the Nabateans 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 to their south. The 7th century BC Assyrian king Sennacherib wrote the following inscription detailing one of his campaigns in the south.
- [15:21]
Various Historical Figures
In my first campaign I accomplished the defeat of Merodach Baladan, king of Babylonia, together with the army of Elam, his ally, in the plain of Kish. On my return march the Tamuna, the Ubudu, the Damanu, the Nabutu, who were not submissive at all. All of them I conquered.
- [15:45]
Paul Cooper
Sennacherib's grandson, the king Ashurbanipal, also wrote of encountering the desert peoples.
- [15:54]
Various Historical Figures
The Nabatu live in a far off desert place where there are no wild animals and not even birds build their nests.
- [16:05]
Paul Cooper
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 manner. In the deserts of Arabia. These 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 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 plant orchards that they would return to each year on their wandering routes. It seems that during their early history the Nabateans 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 first century Roman writer Strabo recounts that the Nabateans even dabbled in seaborne piracy.
- [17:31]
Various Historical Figures
Nabatea is a country with a large population and well supplied with pasturage. They also dwell on islands situated off the coast nearby. And these Nabateans 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.
- [18:01]
Paul Cooper
Soon it seems that the Nabateans 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. And from there it was only one small step to organizing the caravans themselves. By the end of the first millennium bc, the Nabateans 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 Bible 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 kingdom.
- [18:58]
Various Historical Figures
Now the weight of gold that came to Solomon in one year was 603 score and 6 talents of gold. Beside that he had of the merchantmen and of the traffic of the spice merchants and of all the kings of Arabia and of the governors of the country.
- [19:20]
Paul Cooper
The first truly solid account of The Nabateans comes second hand from around the year 312 BC and the Greek writer known as Hieronymus of Cardia. Hieronymus wrote an apparently detailed description of the Nabatean 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 Nabateans based on the earlier observations of 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.
- [20:28]
Various Historical Figures
For 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 grain, 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.
- [21:24]
Paul Cooper
Diodorus also recounts the great wealth that the Nabateans had amassed due to their control of crucial trade routes for spices and incense.
- [21:37]
Various Historical Figures
Some 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.
- [22:06]
Paul Cooper
Frankincense and myrrh are the resins of two different plants in the Boerceraci 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. And as an extra line of defence, 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. And 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 is 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 that sailors travelling 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 of water and stumbled upon a plantation of these trees. They were later interviewed by the botanist Theophrastus, who wrote down everything they told him about the methods of extracting these resins.
- [24:33]
Various Historical Figures
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.
- [25:06]
Paul Cooper
The cultivation of these trees 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.
- [25:31]
Various Historical Figures
Arabia 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 colors, which watch in great numbers about each tree. And they cannot be driven away from the trees by any other thing, but only the smoke of the storax.
- [26:10]
Paul Cooper
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 explored the coast of Arabia by sea were ever brave enough to venture inland to see the incense plantations for themselves. And 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. Even in the most refined cities, sanitation was in its early stages, if it existed at all. And little centralized 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. And for the rich, alleviating this discomfort was something they were willing 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. And incense was one of the best ways to do this. Since ancient times, people had noticed the connection between bad smells and illness and death. Our sense of smell evolved in part to protect us from harmful bacteria in waste and decaying matter. And 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 existence 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. And 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 in Homer's Odyssey, and the Book of Exodus even describes a particular blend of fruits, frankincense and other spices, to be ground and burnt in the sacred altar before the Ark of the Covenant, and even go so far as to forbid its use for any other purpose.
- [29:50]
Johann Ludwig Burckhardt
Then the Lord said to Moses, take fragrant spices, gum resin, onycha and galbanum, and pure frankincense, all in equal amounts, and make a fragrant blend of incense, 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.
- [30:39]
Paul Cooper
From 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 given 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. As societies became more centralised and these institutions grew in power and wealth, the demand for incense would only increase. As the second and first centuries BC passed by, the Nabatean people found themselves at the very heart of this crucial industry. Camels would soon lumber across the Nabatean 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. And 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 Nabateans, this city was known as Racam. 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. The 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, and 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. And the appearance of a spring of water in this arid 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 long 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 siq 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. The first century Roman author and naturalist Pliny the Elder gives one early account of the city in his work Natural History.
- [34:47]
Various Historical Figures
The Nabateans 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, and from the Persian Gulf is 635 miles.
- [35:19]
Paul Cooper
This 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 the heart of the settlement. And they also learned techniques for gathering rainfall that they used to enormous effect. Although the climate of the region wasn't quite as arid 2000 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 summer, rainfall stops entirely. And so the Nabateans 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 Nabateans worked to line these 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 Nabateans expert control of scarce water 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. And 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 bathe, 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.
- [38:33]
Johann Ludwig Burckhardt
The metropolis of the Nabateans is Petra, as it is called for it lies on 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.
- [39:04]
Paul Cooper
And some of the Nabateans 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.
- [39:34]
Various Historical Figures
This tomb and the large burial chamber within it, and the small burial chain 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.
- [40:04]
Paul Cooper
Outside the city, in the surrounding countryside, water control was even more crucial. Even 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. To 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 Nabateans had no shortage of was space. The Nabateans 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 could 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.
- [41:31]
Various Historical Figures
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, the 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.
- [42:17]
Paul Cooper
But despite the immense difficulties of maintaining this city, its position meant it was all worth it. That's because Petra sat at the centre 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 Dahran 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. Petra connected the nearby Red Sea port of Aqaba with the Mediterranean port town of Gaza, connecting the markets of Eastern Africa with those of Europe. And on the road 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, the 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. The Nabateans 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 Nabateans would soon grow fabulously, even absurdly wealthy. But soon others would start to look with jealous eyes to the fortune they had made. The Nabateans 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 colourful episode from their history shows, the society of the Nabateans rose into a world that still bore the marks of one of history's most dramatic reshufflings of power. Towards 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 and 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. Antigonus had lost an eye after apparently being struck by shrapnel from a splintering catapult bolt while serving under Alexander's father. And so he has gone down in history by the name Antigonus Monophthalmos or Antigonus. The one eyed 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 and conquered down the Mediterranean coast, eventually reaching the borders of the wealthy lands of the Nabateans. 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 Athenaeus, to march into the desert and seize as much as he could of the wealth of these Nabatean 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 armed with long pikes and 600 horsemen, as Diodorus of Sicily recounts.
- [48:19]
Johann Ludwig Burckhardt
Deciding that this people was hostile to his interests, he selected one of his friends Athenas, 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.
- [48:43]
Paul Cooper
It took Athena and his soldiers three days to travel the 160km across the desert. But soon they came into view of the legendary stone city. Athena's 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 and the sun set in a purpley 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 Nabatean 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. Athenas and his men loaded themselves with as much frankincense and myrrh as their animals could carry and reportedly made away with nearly 14 tonnes 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.
- [50:09]
Johann Ludwig Burckhardt
Diodorus of those that were caught there, some he slew at once, some he took as prisoners, and others who were wounded, left behind. And of the frankincense and myrrh he gathered together the larger part and about 500 talents of silver.
- [50:28]
Paul Cooper
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 the desert landscape. They traveled about 36 kilometers from Petra and thought that there would be safe to make camp. But they had not reckoned on the camel powered armies of the Nabateans. Only a few hours after Athenas and his soldiers had left Petra, the first Nabatean 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. They sent out riders and gathered more men from every village they passed through until the Nabatean 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 Athena's camp by nightfall.
- [51:46]
Johann Ludwig Burckhardt
While the men of Athenus were encamped with little thought of the enemy and because of their weariness, were in deep sleep. Some of their prisoners escaped secretly and the Nabateans, learning from them the condition of the enemy, attacked the camp at about the third watch, watch being no less than 8,000 in number.
- [52:10]
Paul Cooper
Under cover of darkness, the enraged Nabateans swept into the Greek camp and slaughtered everyone they could find.
- [52:21]
Johann Ludwig Burckhardt
Most 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.
- [52:49]
Paul Cooper
Every 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 Nabateans 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 and asking for no further aggression against them. The embarrassed Greek king clearly tried his best to save face.
- [53:31]
Johann Ludwig Burckhardt
To 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 Athenaeus, 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 because 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 the passes into Arabia.
- [54:21]
Paul Cooper
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 at the hands of a people he considered to be barbarians. He ordered his son Demetrius to march back into the Nabatean 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. The watchmen that the Nabateans 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 Albiada, the tallest point around the city of Petra.
- [55:39]
Johann Ludwig Burckhardt
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.
- [56:05]
Paul Cooper
The Greek general Demetrius was clearly frustrated. The single narrow approach up to the mountain stronghold made a direct attack on it virtually impossible. And it's clear that at least someone among the Nabateans had a gift with words. As Demetrius approached, 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.
- [56:41]
Johann Ludwig Burckhardt
On the next day, however, when 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 that 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 Nabateans 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 to live a different life.
- [57:50]
Paul Cooper
Here we can see the Nabateans 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. Demetrius must have sensed that the siege was hopeless. He agreed to accept a payment from the Nabateans 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.
- [58:36]
Johann Ludwig Burckhardt
As Diodorus relates, Antigonus, when Demetrius returned and made a detailed report of what he had done, rebuked him for the treaty with the Nabateans, 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.
- [59:03]
Paul Cooper
This episode gives us a marvelous glimpse of the unique survival strategy that the Nabateans 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. In telling the story of the Nabateans, there will be one voice conspicuously missing and that is the voice of the Nabateans themselves. As far as we can tell, the Nabateans had a good level of literacy and it seems even common people could read and write to some extent. The Nabatean script is a kind of Late Aramaic, ultimately derived from what's called Imperial Aramaic, which 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 Nabateans have survived. We may never know the reasons for this. It's possible that the tribal roots of Nabatean society meant that they had inherited a caste 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 from 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 Nabateans have left us on this matter is silence. The almost complete Lack of Nabateans 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 Nabateans appear suddenly in the historical record and then disappear again into darkness. About 50 years after the incident with Antigonus the One Eyed and his two failed invasions of Nabatea, we get a colourful account from the papyrus archives of an Egyptian politician named Xenon, 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 run in with a group of Nabateans. These two Greek chariot drivers had apparently been moonlighting as human traffickers, transporting slave girls and selling them in the cities they visited.
- [62:37]
Various Historical Figures
Memorandum to Xenon from Heracleides, the charioteer, regarding what was done by Dramelus and Dionysus to the slave girl, abusing her and handing her over to a border guard. Returning from there he encountered the Nabateans 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, you will learn the entire truth.
- [63:13]
Paul Cooper
This remarkable and enigmatic entry leaves us with a lot of questions, but it shows that the Nabateans were already familiar figures right across the Middle East. It's not clear what caused the Nabateans 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 Nabateans were offended by the men's treatment of the women in their captivity and decided to dole out some justice of their own. Nabatean 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 Nabateans cultural sensibilities. Another tantalizing flashbulb comes from the records of the Roman Jewish historian Flavius Josephus in his account of 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 Josephus recounts how the brothers and Their rebel forces ran into a group of Nabateans. These Nabateans met them on friendly terms and even warned them about atrocities that the Seleucids had been committing in a nearby Jewish settlement.
- [65:05]
Various Historical Figures
Now, 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 Nabateans 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 countrymen out of their hands. To this exhortation, Judas hearkened and returned to the wilderness and in the first place fell upon the inhabitants of Bosaw and took the city.
- [65:52]
Paul Cooper
Again. 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 Nabateans, clearly valuing their own independence, viewed the Judeans struggle for freedom with a great deal of sympathy. But no doubt they also enjoyed the opportunity to cause trouble for the Seleucid empire, their powerful rivals to the north. An inscription at the archaeological site of Haluza in the Negev desert contains the first mention of the name of a king of Nabatea. This inscription, written in a very early form of Nabatean, says only the.
- [66:46]
Johann Ludwig Burckhardt
This is the place which Netairu made for the life of King Aretas, king of the Nabateans.
- [66:55]
Paul Cooper
This king Aretas was the first king of Nabatea. The we can definitively put a name to. And it's clear that by this time Nabatea 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 was now recognized as a major regional capital. One inscription from a Greek ambassador named Moskio, son of Kidymos, came from the city of Priena in modern day Turkey. It recounts how Moscion traveled 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.
- [67:50]
Various Historical Figures
He 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 Ptolemais in Alexandria and to Petra in Arabia. He stayed there for a longer time than had been anticipated by the people.
- [68:16]
Paul Cooper
It's clear that by this time the tribal peoples of Nabatea had grown into a true regional power and gained the respect of their neighbours. 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. And as the power of the Nabateans grew, so did the magnificence of their stony capital. Petra was now a hive of construction, with its people carving temples and tombs, directly imitating the architectural styles of their powerful Greek neighbours. And it's around this time during the first century bc, that the people of Petra would construct the most impressive monument from their unique culture of sandstone carving. That's the enormous edifice known today as the Khazneh, or the Great Treasury. The towering construction known as the Khazneh is today one of the most famous buildings in the world. It's thought to have been the mausoleum of a Nabatean king, possibly Aretas ii, Obodas iii, or his successor, Aretas iv. But no inscriptions stand beside this enormous carving to explain its its purpose or who built it. Today, the Khazneh stands as a silent testimony to the golden age of the Nabatean kingdom. And it seems at every point to have been designed for maximum impact on those who saw it. Ancient visitors to Petra would walk along the narrow gully of the Sikh, winding through the towering walls of sandstone, and finally emerge into this spectacle of sheer visual drama. The towering colonnades and galleries of the facade, a site that still has its intended impact on modern tourists to this day, more than two millennia after its designers walked the earth. At the time it was built, the ground level beneath the Khazneh was about 4 metres long, lower than it is today, and a steep staircase led up to its pillared doorway. The design of the Khazneh marries the Nabatean art of stone carving with Greek architectural styles, depicting Nabatean gods alongside Greek deities like Tyche, God of fortune and cities, and Egyptian gods like Isis. It's clear that in this hybrid style, the people of Petra were laying claim to a status equal to the Greek empires that surrounded them and marking their city as one of the great metropolises of the world. The monument was carved using iron pickaxes and chisels, and today you can still see the marks left by the scaffolding of the workers who toiled through endless hours and dangerous conditions to bring its perfect proportions into existence. When the Khazneh was built, it would have been remarkable to the citizens of Petra, who had never seen anything like it in their city. But in the coming century, the building would act as a model for several more monuments. Among these are the stone facades known as the Monastery and another named the Corinthian Tomb. But both of these monuments are smaller, less ambitious and less beautifully proportioned than the towering facade of the Khazneh. Thanks to visitors who passed through in the coming centuries, we do know a great amount about what the average citizen of Petra would have experienced in their everyday life. The first century Greek writer and geographer Strabo recounts the foods enjoyed by the Nabataeans.
- [72:50]
Johann Ludwig Burckhardt
Most of the country is well supplied with fruits, except the olive. They use sesame oil instead. The sheep are white fleeced and the oxen are large. But the country produces no horses. Camels afford the service they require instead of horses.
- [73:08]
Paul Cooper
We can also find a reference to a particular kind of fermented bread known as Khubz Al Ma Al Nabati or Nabatean Water Bread in A 10th Century Cookbook by Ibn Sayyar Al Warak.
- [73:25]
Various Historical Figures
Take seven and a half pounds of good quality same flour and sift it in a big wooden bowl. Mix it with 3 ounces yeast and add 3 ounces salt that has been dissolved in water and strained. Knead the mixture into a very firm dough, as firm as stone, and press it well. Cover the dough and let it ferment with the help of some oil of hulled sesame seeds. Divide the dough into portions, light the tenure and wait until the fire starts to smoulder. Gently rub each portion of the dough with 2 dirham sesame oil or olive oil. Then flatten it by hand and stick it to the inside of a smouldering oven.
- [74:14]
Paul Cooper
It's likely that the Nabateans would have done their baking early in the morning, before the heat of the day would make lighting a fire a unbearable. We can imagine the smoke of these fires drifting through the shaded gullies of the city. In the cool desert mornings. The smells of baking bread, yeast and sizzling sesame oil filling the air. According to sources of the time, walking the streets of Petra would have been a colourful experience. The writer Strabo recounts the many coloured clothes of the city's inhabitants and the many smells that would have wafted through the streets.
- [74:57]
Johann Ludwig Burckhardt
They go without tunics with girdles around their loins and with slippers on their feet. Even the kings, though in their case the colour is purple. Some things are imported wholly from other countries, but others not altogether so, especially in the case of those that are native products, as for example, gold and silver and most of the aromatics, whereas brass and iron, as also purple garb, styrax, crocus, castaria, embossed works, paintings and moulded works are not produced in their country.
- [75:32]
Paul Cooper
Nabatean religion revolved mostly around the worship of a God named Dushara, a kind of father God, like the Greek Zeus, who was responsible for justice and seems to have been associated with the sun. He was often represented by simple square shaped blocks of stone, and there seems to have been some anxiety about representing him in any other fashion. Nabateans would apparently offer animal sacrifices to Dushara and would give him offerings in the form of Petra's most abundant trade commodity, incense.
- [76:13]
Johann Ludwig Burckhardt
They worship the sun, building an altar on top of the house and pouring libations on it daily and burning frankincense.
- [76:22]
Paul Cooper
No doubt the temples of Petra would have sent great clouds of frankincense, myrrh and other aromatics wafting out into its streets to mix with the smells of camels and goats cooking food and smouldering charcoal ovens. Many of the peoples of Nabatea were still transient, travelling constantly all year round from trade post to trade post. But in order to maintain a sense of community, it seems they did all gather every year for a kind of festival, part market, part ceremony and part feast, where the disparate tribes of the Nabateans would come together to exchange goods, talk, tell stories, and of course, drink wine. Strabo describes the sights of one of these Nabatean celebrations and he's struck by the noticeable lack of slavery in the city, something that would have been remarkable to someone who lived in the Roman Empire.
- [77:28]
Johann Ludwig Burckhardt
But when the time draws near for the national gathering at which those who dwell round about are accustomed to meet, they travel to this meeting, leaving on a certain rock their possessions and their old men, also their women and their children. Since they have but few slaves, they are served by their kinsfolk, for the most part, or by one another, or by themselves, so that the custom extends even to their kings. They prepare common meals together in groups of 13 persons, and they have two girl singers for each banquet. The king holds many drinking bouts in magnificent style, but no one drinks more than 11 cupfuls, each time using a different golden cup. The king is so Democratic that in addition to serving himself, he sometimes even serves the rest himself in his turn.
- [78:24]
Paul Cooper
The fact that we have to largely rely on the accounts of others when recreating the daily lives of the Nabateans is frustrating for any scholar of the period. But in fact, the Nabateans did leave behind one great body of literature. That's the inscriptions carved into the stones of their great tombs in their own distinctive script. Many of the most complete of these can be found at the site of Hegra, now in the northwest of modern Saudi Arabia. Hegra was founded by the Nabatean king Aretas IV in the final years of the first century bc, and he named it the kingdom's second capital. In some ways, its carved tombs are more dramatic and impressive than those at Petra, since they can be seen from great distances, looming on the horizon of the flat desert plain. The most famous of these is known in Arabic as Qasr al Farid, or the Lonely Castle. It is as finely carved as anything found at Petra, and it forms a particularly haunting monument to the city that once stood here, now buried beneath the sands. The tomb inscriptions of Hegra are remarkable texts. Many of them are extremely weathered, since they have been exposed to the desert winds for more than 2,000 years. But many are also perfectly clear and legible. These tomb inscriptions often contain warnings of curses from the gods that would land upon any tomb robbers. But they were also binding legal documents, ensuring that the tomb remained the property of a single family down the generations, with infractions punishable by fines. This inscription from one Hegra tomb is a prime example of this hybrid form.
- [80:38]
Various Historical Figures
This is the tomb and platform and enclosure from which Khoshabu, son of Nafiu, son of Al Khuf, the Temanite, made for himself and his children, and Habu, his mother, and Rufu, and Aftiu, his sisters and their children, inviolable according to the nature of inviolability among the Nabataeans and Salamiyans forever. And may Dussara curse anybody who buries in this tomb, anyone except those inscribed above, or sells it, or buys it, or gives it in pledge, or leases it, or makes a gift of it, or disposes of it. And whoever does, other than what is written above, shall be liable to the God Dussara for the full price of a thousand sellers, and to our Lord King Haret for the same amount in the month of Shibat, the 13th year of Haret, king of the Nabateans, lover of his people.
- [81:44]
Paul Cooper
Inside the tomb, the niches are marked with a shorter Inscription.
- [81:51]
Various Historical Figures
These are the two burial niches of Hashabu, son of Nafiu, and Abdalga and Habu, his children. And may he who separates night from day curse whoever removes them forever.
- [82:06]
Paul Cooper
These tomb inscriptions all more or less follow this format. And while they are limited in what they can teach us, they do take on a remarkable significance and even poignancy when we consider that these are the only texts left behind, actually written by Nabateans. Theirs is a culture whose only surviving testament is their tombstones. In these brief carved messages, we can learn little glimmers of information. We learn about the names of their gods and get some sense of how they thought of them. We can hear Nabatean names, and sometimes we can recreate their family trees, their wives and sisters and children. We can hear hints of a society in which the temple and the king both held some kind of independent authority and where a complex legal system was enforced with laws and fines. In some of these inscriptions, credit is even given to the masons who carved the tomb, giving some hint as to the importance that these artists held in this city of stone.
- [83:23]
Various Historical Figures
In the month of Nisan, the 36th year of Haratat, king of the Nabateans, love of his people, Afta, son of Abdobodat, and Wabu, son of Afsah and Huru, the masons made this tomb.
- [83:43]
Paul Cooper
Since the professions of the people buried in the tombs are usually listed, we also get a wonderful account of the variety of ways that a Nabatean could make their living in the cities of Hegra and Petra.
- [84:00]
Various Historical Figures
Malkian, the omen, diviner Sule, the governor.
- [84:05]
Adu, the prefect.
- [84:08]
Manotu, the exorcist priest Kalan, the physician.
- [84:14]
Sadalahi, the centurion.
- [84:19]
Paul Cooper
All of these people lived full lives in the streets and markets and houses of these cities. They had friends, families, lovers, secrets and dreams. And now all that is left are the faded inscriptions in stone, slowly disappearing under the desert winds and rain. Despite their centuries of domination of trade in this region, the Nabateans would eventually encounter an enemy that could neither be defeated nor bought off. That was a growing imperial power, based on a peninsula far off in the central Mediterranean that would soon expand to its most enormous height, encompassing the entire Mediterranean Sea and the lands of Arabia. Beyond that was the power of Rome. By the end of the 1st century BC, the Roman Republic had given way to the Roman Empire, a confident, expanding military power. By this time, Rome had conquered Judea and installed a tyrannical puppet, king, Herod the Great, to rule it, a colony. In 30 BC Rome also conquered the Greek kingdom of Ptolemaic Egypt and brought Roman legions to the banks of the Nile. And then, like so many empires before them, the Romans began to look hungrily east to the rich lands of Nabatea and the incense fields of Arabia. Rome was an enormous consumer of incense. Roman temples burned frankincense and myrrh as part of their rituals. And with the rapid growth of the empire, these temples would now stretch across all of Europe, from Tunisia to Scotland, from Morocco to Mesopotamia. At the height of its trade, it's estimated that each year well over a million kilograms of frankincense was imported into the Roman Empire. Considering the exorbitant 25% tax that the Nabateans charged on this, it's no wonder that the Romans soon began to consider ways of cutting out the middleman and taking charge of the incense trade themselves. In the year 26 BC, the new Roman emperor Augustus sent one of his prefects who had been stationed in Roman Egypt to explore the south of Arabia, accompanied with a small expeditionary force and to establish new direct trade routes with the people who lived there. This man's name was Aelius Gallus. The geographer Strabo recalls the purpose of this expedition.
- [87:40]
Various Historical Figures
Alias Gallus conceived the purpose of winning the Arabians over to himself or of subjugating them. Another consideration was the report which had prevailed from all time, that they were very wealthy and that they sold aromatics and the most valuable stones for gold and silver, but never expended with outsiders any part of what they received in exchange for he expected either to deal with wealthy friends or to master wealthy enemies.
- [88:14]
Paul Cooper
Curiously, the Nabateans seemed all too eager to help the Romans on their eggs expedition. They even offered to send one of their own people as a guide.
- [88:26]
Various Historical Figures
It was encouraged also by the expectation of assistance from the Nabateans, since they were friendly and promised to cooperate with him in every way.
- [88:36]
Paul Cooper
Considering that the Nabateans stood to lose a great deal if Gallus's expedition was a success, the Romans should perhaps have been more suspicious of these offers of help. But apparently they were not. The guide that the Nabatean king sent to help this Roman expedition was a man named Sylleus, a cunning politician high up in the Nabatean establishment. Sylleus faced an unenviable task. He had to appear to cooperate with the Roman expedition so as not to arouse the anger of the mighty empire. But the Nabatean king had made quite clear that the expedition must be a failure. Trapped between the Romans and his own king, Sylleus must have experienced sleepless nights as he guided the Roman army through the deserts of Arabia. Strabo recounts how the mission unfolded.
- [89:41]
Various Historical Figures
Gallus set out on the expedition, but he was deceived by the Nabatean administrator Sylleus, who, although he had promised to be guide on the march and to supply all needs and to cooperate with him, acted treacherously in all things and pointed out neither a safe voyage along the coast nor a safe journey by land, misguiding him through places that had no roads and by circuitous routes, and through regions destitute of everything, or along rocky shores that had no harbors, or through waters that were shallow or full of submarine rocks. And particularly in places of that kind, the flood tides and also the ebb tides caused very great distress.
- [90:32]
Paul Cooper
It's clear that at every turn the Nabatean Sylleus worked to frustrate and weaken Aelius Gallus expedition, using every deception available to him.
- [90:45]
Various Historical Figures
After many experiences and hardships, he arrived in 14 days at Lukikome in the land of the Nabateans, although he had lost many of his boats, some of these being lost crews and all on account of difficult sailing, but not on account of any enemy. This was caused by the treachery of Sylleus who said that there was no way for an army to go to Luke, come by land. And yet camel traders traveled back and forth from Petra to this place in safety and ease.
- [91:22]
Paul Cooper
The expedition of Alius Gallus would take six months to work its weary way up the coast of southern Arabia, suffering from disease, shipwrecks, even eating poisoned herbs and drinking tainted water so that the soldiers suffered from sickness and disease. They would travel around in circles across the stony desert wastes and take the longest possible routes along rough terrain baking in the searing Arabian sun, suffering from heatstroke and fatigue. Finally, with only a fraction of his original force remaining, Gallus was forced to admit defeat. Although he was within reach of his goal, he now feared that if he pushed on none of them would survive. And he feared that the journey home would take another six months. He ordered his men to turn around and march back along the desert roads. And it's only on the way home that he realized the trick that had been played on him.
- [92:31]
Various Historical Figures
He was indeed only two days journey from the country that produced aromatics as informed by his captives. But he had used up six months time on his marches because of bad guidance. And he realized the fact when he turned back, when at last he had learned the plot against him and had gone back by other roads. On his return he accomplished the whole journey within 60 days. He'd used up six months in his first journey.
- [93:04]
Paul Cooper
It's not recorded whether Sylleus stuck around to face the anger of the Roman commander or whether he slunk away in the night. Strabo recounts the sorry sight of the expedition as it returned to its base in Alexandria empty handed.
- [93:24]
Various Historical Figures
Thence he carried his army across the maia's harbour within 11 days and with all who had been fortunate enough to survive landed in Alexandria. The rest he had lost not in wars, but from sickness and fatigue and hunger and bad roads. For only seven men perished in war. For these reasons this expedition did not profit us to a great extent in our knowledge of these regions.
- [93:56]
Paul Cooper
For his part, Sylleus seems to have returned to Petra to a hero's welcome. The failure of this disastrous expedition set Rome back significantly. The empire would soon be convulsed by civil wars and was soon far too distracted to think about expanding any further into Arabia. Sylleus actions would buy his people more than a century of independence. But Rome's civil wars would not last forever and for the kingdom of Nabatea, the writing was on the wall. As the first millennium BC became the first millennium ad, Rome officially absorbed Judea, Mesopotamia and Syria into its enormous empire. Nabatea gradually found itself surrounded by this overwhelming power and the era of its existence as an independent kingdom was soon to come to an end. The last king of the Nabateans was a man named Rabel II who had ruled for 36 years. When he died in the year 106 AD, the Roman emperor Trajan ordered two legions to march into the region and capture the lands of Nabatea. There doesn't seem to have been any particular pretext for the invasion. Rabel had a legitimate heir named Obodas who was ready to take the throne. But it's clear that Rome didn't want to waste its opening. The man who led this campaign was the Roman governor of Syria, a man named Cornelius Palma. Under his command, the 3rd Cyrenaica Legion moved north from Egypt into petra, while the 6th Ferrata Legion, a Syrian garrison unit, moved south to occupy the town of. As far as we can tell, the Romans faced little resistance. In fact, the campaign was so underwhelming that the Roman historian Cassius Dio, normally a colourful and detailed writer, had only the following to say about it.
- [96:24]
Various Historical Figures
About this time, Palma, the governor of Syria, subdued the part of Arabia around Petra and made it subject to the Romans.
- [96:35]
Paul Cooper
This sparse report is wedged in between colourful Accounts of Trajan's campaigns against the Dacians and his spectacles involving 10,000 gladiators. Even the Roman coins minted to celebrate the victory seem to reflect the understated nature of the campaign. They were marked with the words Arabia Adquisita rather than the more normal capta. For the Romans, Arabia had not been captured but simply acquired. Some units of the Nabateans elite royal guard do seem to have resisted the invaders. But for the most part the regular troops saw no point in fighting. The inevitable Roman legions marched into Petra and the age of Nabatean independence finally came to an end. Rome would name the province they founded there Arabia Petraea, after the great city and the period of Roman Petra began. From what we can tell, it seems that for the average citizen of the Nabatean kingdom, the annexation by Rome had little effect on their lives. At least at first. The historian Jane Taylor describes the situation.
- [98:09]
Various Historical Figures
It was only the top management that changed. The governors and a handful of officials. In due course the old royal army was absorbed into the Roman auxiliary forces as six petraean cohorts, a total of 6,000 men. As for the non military majority, landowners, stonemasons, ceramicists, scribes, priests, musicians, jugglers or minor officials. Most stayed where they were, paid their taxes to the new authority and pursued the accustomed daily pattern of their lives, more or less unchanged.
- [98:49]
Paul Cooper
Usually when Rome captured an area, they would set about immediately building new aqueducts and water systems. But conspicuously in Petra, they left the Nabatean water system virtually untouched. This suggests that they saw little room for improvement to the already skilful engineering. To ensure the security of their new conquest. And perhaps with bitter memories of Aelius Gelas expedition still in their minds, the Romans built a highway through the entire territory. They named this the Via Nova Trajana or Trajan's new Road. A 400 kilometer highway connecting Petra and Bostra to the seaport of Aqaba on the Red Sea. The road was lined with forts, ensuring a permanent control of the trade routes to the rich incense fields of the south and meaning that the Romans could now move their forces with ease. One Roman citizen, Alius Aristeides, who lived during the 2nd century AD in the Roman province of Asia, wrote the following description the times and shows that the Romans believed that the uncontrollable lands of Arabia had finally been pacified.
- [100:16]
Johann Ludwig Burckhardt
Wars have so far vanished as to be legendary affairs of the past. Now a man simply travels from one country to another as though it were his native land. We are no longer frightened by the CILICIAN Pass, or by the narrow sandy tracks that lead from Arabia to Egypt. We are not dismayed by the height of mountains or by the vast breadth of rivers, or by inhospitable tribes of barbarians. To be a Roman citizen is a sufficient guarantee of personal safety.
- [100:51]
Paul Cooper
For the city of Petra, the period of Roman annexation would be the beginning of the end. Over the coming centuries, Petra would ultimately be undone by cultural and economic shifts that swept the whole world along with them. In the third and fourth centuries, the Roman Empire would undergo some dramatic changes. The cult of Jesus Christ, once a small fringe group of worshippers based around the veneration of an executed Jewish prophet, had grown to become a real threat to Roman power. For a time, Christianity was outlawed in the Empire. And during the reign of the Emperor Diocletian, records show that the Christians of Petra were punished for their reference, refusal to sacrifice to Roman gods. Many of them were sent to die by forced labour in the nearby Roman copper mines of Phaino. Christianity was finally adopted by the Emperor Constantine and would become the major belief system of the late Roman Empire. But as Christian modes of worship spread, the way that people conducted ceremonies also changed. And this would have a dramatic effect on the commodities that people consumed and on the people of Petra. While today we think of incense as an integral part of worship in the Catholic and Orthodox churches, early Christians were keen to emphasize the difference between themselves and the old pagan temples. For this reason, Christians at this time did not use incense in their ceremonies. As pagan temples were shut down, demand for incense crashed and the price began to fall. This broader cultural and economic change came at the same time as Egyptian ports, but began to supersede the land based trade routes for incense, spices and silks. As an independent kingdom, the Nabateans had jealously guarded their source of frankincense. But with Nabatea conquered, the Romans began extracting incense by the more efficient route, carrying goods by sea to Egypt rather than on the arduous desert roads by land. As a result, the very thing that the Nabateans had feared came to pass. The importance of Petra as a trading hub began to fall. Although it had given its name to the province of Arabia Petraea, the Romans also seemed to have had little use for the rose city. The very things that had made Petra attractive to the Nabateans, that is how remote, hidden and difficult to reach it was, made it an unattractive place for a Roman administration which needed good links to the capital. The Romans increasingly conducted the running of the province from the more northern and well connected town of Bostra and the prominence of Petra as the administrative centre of the region fell even further. Petra at this time must have been a sad place. The former markets and workshops that had once boomed with life and noise must have grown smaller every year as fewer and fewer caravans passed through the fine cliffside houses where once children brought, ran and played, where families hung up their laundry and watched. The sunset would have become abandoned one by one, home only to desert bats and wild dogs that would have howled to one another at night in the gradually emptying valleys. Despite its declining importance, Petra may still have continued as an important trading spot were it not for the events of the 18th of May in the year 363 AD it was the middle of the night when the first tremors began. A shuddering and shaking in the earth, accompanied by a low rumble. Somewhere deep in the fault line of the Red Sea the the edges of the African and Arabian plates gave way against one another and an earthquake shook the region. This would be known as the Galilee earthquake. A pair of severe tremors on the 18th and 19th of May in the year 363. One letter, thought to be written by the Bishop Cyril of Jerusalem, recalls the tremendous impact of the earthquake.
- [106:19]
Various Historical Figures
This event took place on Monday at the third hour and partly at the ninth hour of the night. There was a great loss of life here. The land was shaken and mighty prodigies took place and fire consumed great numbers of them. The land shook considerably and there were great tremors in the towns round about. Many Christians too, living in these regions, as well as the majority of the Jews, perished at that scourge, and not just in the earthquake, but also as a result of fire and in the heavy rain they had.
- [107:03]
Paul Cooper
Cyril goes on to list the settlements most damaged by the tremors and notes that more than half of the city of Petra was destroyed.
- [107:14]
Various Historical Figures
Now we should like to write down for you the names of the towns that were overthrown. Beit Gubrin, more than half of it, part of Bashan, the whole of Sebastia and its territory, the whole of Nicobolis and its territory, more than half of Petra, part of Tiberias too, and its territory Haifa, flowed with blood for three days.
- [107:42]
Paul Cooper
Another chronicler named Thomas from the Rasena region wrote the following account in which he views the earthquake as a punishment from God for the continuing pagan worship in the region.
- [107:58]
Johann Ludwig Burckhardt
At that time the Lord was angry with the cities of the pagans and Jews and the Samaritans and of the false teachings in the south that had joined in with the Madness of the pagan Julian and anger went out from the Lord's presence and began to destroy the unclean and pagan cities because they had defiled them with blood which they shed unjustly in them. And it began to Destroy the cities, 21 in number, some of which were overturned, some collapsed and yet others survived. In the month of IYA of the year 674 and on the 27th day in that month, in the month of.
- [108:39]
Paul Cooper
Haziran, Archaeological evidence in Petra supports the picture of a sudden and devastating disaster. One house excavated by archaeologists was reduced to a pile of rubble. Around this time, beneath the collapsed roof, a great number of everyday domestic items were found. Lamps, shattered ceramics and glass spindles and coins, even a copper pot with an iron handle. Near the door, a smashed pot contained 85 small denomination copper cor coins, apparently kept there for everyday expenses. The fact that these were never reclaimed or even looted suggests that the damage in the city was too great for its declining population to even pick through, let alone rebuild from. Many of Petra's great public buildings were severely hit by the earthquake. The so called Temple of the Winged Lions, the building known as the Great Temple and the public Theatre were all damaged and they would never be repaired. Particularly devastating seems to have been the earthquake's effect on the city's water systems. Subterranean pipes were cracked and would have leaked their precious water into the sands. And some of its aqueducts split open. Dams designed to hold in reservoirs of rainwater collapsed, causing widespread flooding and severely depleting the city's supplies. Petra's capacity to support life was directly linked to its capacity to store water. And with the complicated system now coming apart at the seams, its water and the city's remaining life would now leach away into the dust of the desert. It's clear that some of Petra's people did creep back to repopulate the city after the earthquake. In the area known as the colonnaded street, archaeology shows that some of the earthquake debris was cleared away and a shanty town of simple shops and shelters was built out of material reclaimed from the rubble. But the destruction of the city's water system meant that the annual flash floods were no longer being controlled. We can see the evidence of these floods in the build up of silt and sand in the floors of these humble buildings. As the waters crash down from the rocks in the rainy season, flooding everyone's homes and then giving way to months of punishing drought. Some domestic structures were rebuilt after the earthquake and it's clear people tried to continue their lives. They Even constructed some new churches, although they were largely built from material scavenged from other destroyed monuments. But in the early 5th century another earthquake struck and after that most of the grand houses were abandoned for good. The dream of Petra had died and the city gradually fell into disrepair and ruin. Despite all of this damage, people did continue to live in reduced numbers around the ruins of Petra, and it would continue as a humble caravan stop for several more centuries. People continued to live in the hollowed out cave houses and farmed on the terraces of its hills right up to the modern era, as the Eastern and Roman Empire morphed into the Byzantine Empire. The old city of Petra was even named the capital of the province of Palestina, Tertiary and several churches were built in and around the city. In one of them, one hundred and forty papyruses were discovered which contained mainly contracts dated up to the year 590, showing that people were still living in the city. According to the writer John Moscas, Petra even had a bishop in the first decades of the seventh century, a man named Athanogenes. But sometime before the year 687, the declining fortunes of the city meant that the position ceased to exist when Arab armies, inspired by the new faith of Islam and the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad, swept across the region. Petra doesn't seem to have featured in their interests at all. It's not mentioned once in the narratives of the Muslim conquest and nor does it appear in any early Islamic records. As power in this region underwent another of its great reshufflings, it seems the city of Petra was finally abandoned for good. The Arabic that these new rulers spoke was directly descended from the old Nabatean spoken by the ancient peoples of Petra. But to these new conquerors, the Rose city was an irrelevance, a city of tombs and ruins lost among the desert stones. The Muslims who came after and built their own empires in the region were struck by the incredible sight of these monumental stones still left at the sites of Tegra and Petra. To explain them, they told stories about a tribe that they called the Thamud, who were punished by God for refusing to listen to a prophet named Salih. One version of this is given in the Quran in the Surah Al Araf, or the Chapter of the Heights.
- [115:04]
Various Historical Figures
And they flouted the commandment of their Lord. And they said, O Salih, bring upon us that thou threatenest, if thou art indeed of those sent from Allah. So the earthquake seized them and morning found them prostrate in their dwelling place. And Salih turned from them and Said, O my people, I delivered my Lord's message unto you and gave you good advice, but ye love not good advisers. As for the earth, we spread it out and placed it upon its firm mountains and caused everything to grow there in perfect balance. And we made in it means of sustenance for you and others. We send fertilizing winds and bring down rain from the sky for you to drink. But the residents of the Stone Valley also denied the messengers. We gave them our signs, but they turned away from them. They carved their homes in the mountains, feeling secure. But the mighty blast overtook them in the morning, and all they achieved was of no help to them.
- [116:18]
Paul Cooper
For these later people, the towering ruins of the Nabata cities became warnings about excessive pride and a reminder that the power of nature or the power of God can always undo the works of man. For others, the ruins inspired poetry. I want to end the episode with a reading from one of the great pre Islamic poets, a man named Taraffa. He wrote poetry that responded to the ruined sites that littered the horizon of the Arab peninsula left by peoples like the Nabateans. In this poem, he describes how the site of these ruins leads him to think about the transience and the injustice of life. As you listen, imagine what it would feel like to live in the great city of Petra during its final days, to watch the life slowly ebb from the city around you as the caravans arrived in fewer and fewer numbers across the sands. Imagine the earthquakes cracking the great stones of the city, the feeling of hopelessness as the water systems broke and no one left knew how to repair them, as people departed across the desert to begin new lives in other places. Imagine watching the sands creep in to cover the streets, the homes and markets, the stables and the workshops, finally leaving nothing in the city but its tombs.
- [118:05]
Johann Ludwig Burckhardt
The ruins Khaula left on the mottled flatlands of Tomad appear and fade like the trace of a tattoo on the back of a hand. There my friends halted, tall camels over me, saying, don't lose yourself in grief, man, endure. A man's soul flies to his throat in fear and he imagines impending ruin, though no one stalks his evening journey, waiting. Death does not miss the brave, its slackened ropes around him, hand around the twisted coils. A generous man quenches his soul while he is still alive. I see the tomb of the hoarder panting for his wealth, like the tomb of the wasteful evil doer. Both the same, two heaps of earth with silent slabs of hard death stone piled up upon them. I see death choose the generous and the noble while picking over the best part of the hardened rich man's spoil. I see life a treasure shrinking every night, shrunken by days and time. Then go.
- [119:25]
Paul Cooper
Thank you once again for listening to the Fall of Civilization's podcast. I'd like to thank my voice actors for this episode, Nick Denton, Jay Forrester, Shem Jacobs, Annie Kelly, and Paul Cassell. I love to hear your thoughts and responses on Twitter, so please come and tell me what you think. Thought you can follow me aallmmcooper and if you'd like updates about the podcast, announcements about new episodes, as well as images, maps and reading suggestions, you can follow the podcast at fallofsivpod with underscores separating the words, this podcast can only keep going with the support of our generous subscribers on Patreon. You keep me running, you help me cover my costs, and you let me dedicate more time to researching, writing, recording and editing to get the episodes out to you faster and bring as much life and detail to them as possible. I want to thank all my subscribers for making this happen. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider heading onto patreon.com fallofcivilizationspodcast or just Google Fall of Civilizationspatreon. That's P A T R E O n for now. Goodbye and thanks for listening.