The Nabataean Economy

The Nabataean economy combined long-distance commerce with farming, workshops and the services needed by towns and travellers. Incense routes helped connect Arabia with Mediterranean consumers, but the communities along them also produced food, maintained water supplies and exchanged everyday goods. Prosperity depended on these activities working together.

Petra brought routes, urban consumers and surrounding productive land into close contact. Other regions offered different resources: groundwater supported the oasis of Hegra, while northern districts had agricultural connections with southern Syria. The economy changed through the kingdom’s development and continued under Roman rule after annexation in 106 CE.

On this page5 sections

Trade, caravans and markets

Frankincense and myrrh were aromatic resins collected from trees in parts of southern Arabia and northeastern Africa. Burning incense released fragrant smoke valued in religious offerings. Transporting it toward consuming regions required a sequence of people and transfer points, from producers to carriers and merchants.

Nabataean communities occupied important sections of those routes. Petra connected approaches from Arabia and the Red Sea with routes toward Gaza and Syria. Strabo describes goods moving from the Red Sea port of Leuke Kome to Petra and onward toward Rhinocolura, near modern el-Arish. Sea transport and pack animals could thus form successive stages of a cargo’s journey.

Caravans needed more than a line between destinations. Loads had to be packed and balanced, animals cared for and people supplied with food. Water and terrain shaped the choice of stopping places. Communities able to provide dependable resources could benefit from journeys passing through their region.

Roadside archaeology shows this supporting economy in practice. Neqarot had a residence in use before 106 CE, while later establishments developed under Roman government. Food remains, pottery and imported objects preserve the activities of people eating, staying and obtaining supplies. A market gathering described by Diodorus in 312 BCE also brought dispersed Nabataean people together for exchange.

Commercial relationships extended beyond the kingdom. A Nabataean sanctuary at Puteoli in Italy, investigated underwater in 2023, belonged to a community participating in the Roman port’s commerce. Latin dedications to the god Dushara placed their worship within an Italian setting. The connection gives a particular community to the broader history of trade between Arabia, the Levant and the Mediterranean.

Farming, orchards and pastoral resources

Agriculture supplied permanent communities and travellers. Cereals included barley and wheat, with local differences depending on rainfall, soil and access to irrigation. Winter growing allowed plants to use seasonal rain, while harvest and processing turned the crop into food that could be stored and transported.

Grain required further work before eating. Harvested material had to be separated from stalks and chaff, cleaned and ground or otherwise prepared. Houses, storage vessels and cooking facilities formed part of the journey from field to meal. Farmers’ production supported people whose work took place in workshops, sanctuaries or on the road.

Olive cultivation and processing are attested around Petra. A crusher dated to the late second or early first century BCE provides evidence for oil production before the best-known period of monumental urban building. Pressing and separating the product added processing facilities and skilled work to the value of the crop.

At Hegra, groundwater supported an oasis economy in which dates were important. Orchards required irrigation and repeated care, including the work needed to secure fruiting palms. Their produce could be consumed locally, stored or sold. Plant remains also document other crops whose presence varied between phases of occupation.

Sheep and goats contributed animal foods and other resources, while pack animals supported transport. Herding required access to fodder and water across a landscape that also contained fields and settlements. Farming and pastoral activity supplied materials and provisions to a wider economy of consumers.

Water capture, storage and distribution

Water engineering made settlement and production possible in many districts. Springs, seasonal runoff and groundwater required different techniques. A well reached an underground supply; a cistern stored water brought into a chamber from a catchment or channel. Knowing the distinction helps explain why particular communities built different systems.

At Petra, spring-fed channels and terracotta pipes carried water through the Siq toward the city. The route needed a workable gradient and sound joints. Open basins divided sections of the conduit and provided access, while modern hydraulic analysis suggests that they also helped stabilize flow. Elevated reservoirs stored supplies that could be distributed farther downhill.

Runoff could be retained through collecting channels and waterproofed storage chambers. Slowing water in a basin allowed sediment to settle, making it easier to remove material before it filled storage or blocked a conduit. Maintenance preserved the capacity and effectiveness of the works.

Stormwater required a separate response. A dam and tunnel near the Siq entrance diverted floodwater toward another drainage route, protecting the narrow gorge and parts of the urban centre. Capturing useful water and directing dangerous water away from buildings were complementary tasks within the same landscape.

These works supported several demands: drinking, cooking, animals, workshops, gardens and bathing. Their economic value lay in enabling continued activity between wet periods and in places distant from a source. The Negev’s extensive runoff farms mainly developed later, while earlier Nabataean cultivation around springs belongs to a different phase. Local chronology shows how water management expanded as the region’s communities changed.

Coins, credit and monetary exchange

Nabataean kings issued silver and bronze coins. Some early designs adapted forms familiar from neighbouring coinages; later inscriptions named rulers and queens in Nabataean Aramaic. A royal year could date an issue, while portraits made the dynasty visible on money passing between people.

Coins were struck from metal blanks placed between engraved dies. A blow transferred designs to the two sides. Reusing an older coin for a new strike could leave an earlier design visible underneath, a practice attested among early Nabataean bronzes made from Ptolemaic coins. Manufacturing choices therefore connected the kingdom’s coinage with existing supplies of metal and money.

Silver offered substantial value in a compact form, while copper-alloy pieces supplied smaller monetary objects. Weights and metal content varied over time. A coin’s official image and inscription helped identify its issue, alongside the practical importance of its metal and acceptance by users.

Exchange also involved credit and future obligations. Babatha’s archive from the Dead Sea region preserves a loan of 300 denarii made in 128 CE and contracts concerning orchard produce in 130. The denarius was a Roman monetary unit, reflecting the provincial setting of these later records. Earlier Nabataean Aramaic deeds in the archive record land transactions before annexation.

A loan connected present resources with repayment; a produce contract connected money with a harvest; a deed recorded rights that could persist through later disputes. These agreements gave economic activity a duration beyond the moment when goods or money changed hands.

Workshops and the demands of settlements

Local production tied these activities together. Potters made vessels for storing, cooking and serving; masons shaped buildings and tombs; plasterers and painters finished rooms. Excavation at Petra’s ez-Zantur identified a bronze workshop active in the first century CE, placing craft work within the inhabited city.

Households and patrons created demand for that work. Kamkam and Kulaybat’s tomb commission at Hegra names its maker, preserving the relationship between a family and a skilled worker. Decorated houses and temples brought together building materials, labour and the resources of people able to pay for them.

The same settlements supplied journeys and drew on surrounding farms. A caravan stop needed provisions; a household needed containers and grain; a workshop needed materials and water. Roman annexation changed political administration, but evidence from roads, orchards and houses shows these connections continuing and developing in the centuries that followed.