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Piecing Together the Religion of the Nabataeans
Author(s) -
EricksonGini Tali
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
religion compass
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.113
H-Index - 1
ISSN - 1749-8171
DOI - 10.1111/rec3.12148
Subject(s) - greeks , josephus , pottery , judaism , ancient history , history , archaeology , archaeological evidence , desert (philosophy) , art , classics , philosophy , epistemology
The legacy of one ancient Arabian people, the Nabataeans, is rich in material remains: the rock‐carved monuments of Petra, their delicately crafted pottery vessels, and huge desert cisterns and aqueducts, to name only a few. Unlike their neighbors to the north in ancient Judea, the Nabataeans did not leave a written history of themselves, and what is known about them is mainly derived from non‐Nabataean sources: the reports of Greeks and Romans and the Jewish historian, Flavius Josephus. Our knowledge of the religion of the Nabataeans must be pieced together from fragmentary historical and epigraphic evidence as well as the mute evidence provided by the archeological record.