Nabataean Food, Cooking and Communal Dining in Daily and Ritual Life

Nabataean food supplies came from farmers, orchard owners, herders and traders working across the southern Levant and northwestern Arabia. Wheat and barley, lentils, olives, grapes, figs and dates appear in archaeological finds from settlements associated with the kingdom. These ingredients supported household meals and provisions for travellers. Eating also brought people together in formal dining rooms and in gatherings associated with temples and tombs.

The kingdom was annexed by Rome in 106 CE. Some food remains come from earlier Nabataean occupation, while others document communities that continued under Roman government. At Petra, domestic deposits and dining rooms reveal different parts of this history: the ingredients arriving in the city, the equipment used to prepare and serve them, and the social settings in which people ate.

On this page5 sections

Grain, pulses and fruit

Charred plants from the houses on Petra’s ez-Zantur terraces include barley, wheat and lentils, alongside olive stones, grape seeds, figs and dates. The terraces are residential areas on the slopes above the city centre, excavated by a Swiss team. These foods occur in deposits from the Nabataean occupation as well as in later phases of the neighbourhood.

Grain supplied a storable staple. Before it could become flour, harvested grain had to be separated from the stalks and husks, cleaned and ground. Flour could then be made into bread; grain and lentils also provided ingredients that could be cooked in water. The household finds contain much less cereal-processing waste than the grain itself, suggesting that cleaned supplies were brought into this part of Petra.

Fruit cultivation added foods with different seasons and preparation requirements. Grapes could be eaten, dried or turned into wine, while figs and dates could be preserved as dried fruit. Olive oil required crushing and pressing. An olive crusher from early Nabataean occupation at ez-Zantur, dating to the late second or early first century BCE, connects the olives found in Petra with actual processing equipment. Producing oil involved breaking up the fruit and then extracting liquid from the crushed pulp.

Regional supplies differed. At Hegra, an oasis in northwestern Arabia, date palms were particularly important, and wheat was more prominent relative to barley than at several northern sites. Archaeological work there has also identified pomegranate remains. Petra and the better-watered uplands to its north had stronger evidence for olives and vines. Food reaching a town therefore reflected both local cultivation and connections with other growing areas.

Animals and provisions on the road

Sheep and goats formed part of the regional pastoral economy. Herders supplied animals as well as products that could be obtained without slaughtering them. A study of human remains from first-century CE tombs on Petra’s North Ridge found a dietary pattern consistent with cereals such as wheat and barley together with animal foods. This chemical evidence describes broad components of diet; the excavated plant and animal remains give the more specific identifications.

Travellers needed provisions as well as goods to sell. Neqarot, on the desert route between Petra and the Mediterranean, had a residential building used in the late first century BCE and early first century CE. Rubbish beside it contained sheep and goat bones, a gazelle jaw, barley and wheat grains, and probable olive and date stones. Two edible Mediterranean clam shells demonstrate that even this small desert stop received food from outside its immediate surroundings.

Later deposits at the road stations of Orhan-Mor and Sha’ar-Ramon broaden the picture under Roman rule. Barley, dates and olives were prominent, while rarer finds included lentil, pomegranate and walnut. Fish and shellfish had also travelled inland. These stations required incoming supplies because their desert surroundings could not produce everything consumed there. Dried grain and fruit were particularly suitable for carrying and storage, while pack animals also required fodder.

Cooking, storage and serving

Nabataean pottery included robust cooking and storage vessels as well as the delicate painted bowls for which the potters are famous. These forms performed different jobs. A container used to keep provisions needed capacity and convenient access; a cooking pot had to withstand heating; a serving bowl brought prepared food to the people eating it. Thin painted bowls served food at the table.

Domestic installations help place these objects in a working household. A complex on Petra’s North Ridge had storage facilities and an oven in one of its larger rooms, reached from a central corridor. This building dates to the early second century CE, around the transition to Roman government. It shows how preparation and storage could be accommodated inside a residential building, alongside rooms reached through the same entrance.

More elaborate arrangements existed in the first-century mansion at ez-Zantur. Its excavated plan identifies kitchens linked to different parts of the house, including a service wing connected with reception rooms. Preparing food and carrying it to guests were part of the organisation of a large household. Corridors allowed the work to continue alongside the owner’s reception of visitors.

Formal meals and dining rooms

Some meals took place in rooms with benches arranged around an open central space. A triclinium had dining places on three sides; a biclinium had them on two. These arrangements allowed diners to recline around food brought into the room. Rock-cut versions survive around Petra, where the benches and chamber could be carved directly from sandstone.

The Painted Biclinium at Little Petra, north of the main city, is a first-century dining hall with two benches and a vaulted alcove. Its ceiling depicts vines, flowers, birds and small winged figures. The combination of a dining room and luxuriant vine imagery gave the gathering an elaborate visual setting. The painting evokes wine-growing and abundance.

Strabo, the Greek geographer writing around the beginning of the first century CE, describes Nabataean communal meals in groups of thirteen with two female singers. He also describes lavish drinking gatherings held by the king. His account presents organised dining as an occasion for entertainment and royal hospitality, with the king sometimes serving the guests himself.

Food, offerings and remembrance

Dining spaces also formed part of some funerary complexes. At Petra’s Wadi Farasa, a tomb and a separate banqueting room were connected through a courtyard. Such an arrangement gave visitors somewhere to assemble near the burial place. Bringing food, eating together and remembering the dead could thus occur within a space designed to connect a living group with its deceased members.

Food placed with the dead was another practice. Research on plants from Nabataean-period North Ridge tombs identified wheat, barley, lentils, olives, grapes, figs and dates. The study interpreted most of the relevant contexts as deliberate food offerings. These deposits differ from the remains of meals eaten by visitors in a dining chamber: the food was being provided within the burial setting.

Liquid offerings, or libations, likewise transferred something valuable to a divine recipient. Strabo describes daily pouring and the burning of frankincense at rooftop altars. The act of offering had a different purpose from drinking at a banquet. Across these settings, familiar agricultural products could sustain a household, accompany a journey, honour a guest or express care for the dead.