Nabataean Continuities under Roman Rule and Beyond

Rome’s annexation of the Nabataean kingdom in 106 CE ended its independent monarchy. The towns, farming communities and routes of the region entered a new provincial system. People continued to live in their homes, cultivate land, make pottery and use religious places, while administration and public investment took new forms.

These developments can be followed in particular places and objects. Houses at Petra remained in occupation, road stations received supplies and Nabataean writing continued after the kingdom had ended. Later churches and papyri reveal further changes in the same landscape. Continuity involved practices that people maintained or adapted, alongside institutions and beliefs that were replaced.

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From monarchy to Roman province

The new province of Arabia was governed through Roman institutions, with Bosra as its capital. The disappearance of the Nabataean king changed the authority under which communities operated. Provincial officials, military units and Roman administrative procedures became part of regional life.

Documents from the Babatha archive show some of these changes at the level of a landholding family. The archive belongs to a Jewish woman from Maoza near the Dead Sea and spans 94–132. Earlier orchard transactions were written in Nabataean Aramaic during the kingdom; a property declaration of 127 and later legal proceedings belong to Roman government.

The property itself continued to be cultivated. Ownership, marriage obligations and debts still mattered, but people now registered holdings or pursued particular claims within the new administrative setting. The same family papers therefore connect an older local economy with changing procedures and authorities.

Roads, stations and the movement of supplies

Rome invested in a north–south highway, the Via Nova Traiana, connecting Bosra with Aila on the Red Sea through the Petra region. Important construction dates to 111–114. The road incorporated earlier connections into a provincial network used for movement, administration and military purposes.

East–west routes across the Negev also continued in use. At Neqarot, occupation beside the Petra–Gaza route included a residence dating to the late first century BCE and early first century CE, followed by a later Roman fort. Other stations grew or changed during the second and third centuries. Their rubbish contains food, pottery, glass and lamps consumed along the route.

These deposits show ongoing connections between desert stops and suppliers outside them. Grain and fruit reached stations, as did some fish and shellfish. The continued movement of provisions supported both residents and travellers, even as buildings and the organisation of routes changed under Roman rule.

Houses and crafts across the transition

At Petra, the ez-Zantur terraces preserve residential occupation through the Nabataean, Roman and later periods. An elaborate mansion begun in the early first century CE underwent alterations and remained part of the city long after annexation. Its kitchens, reception spaces and heating arrangements belonged to a building whose uses developed over time.

Pottery also continued to be produced and consumed. Fine painted bowls occur alongside other domestic wares in dated occupation deposits. Their repeated shapes and decoration help distinguish successive phases, while their presence in later contexts shows that a recognisable regional ceramic tradition outlasted the monarchy.

Rooms could be subdivided, doors blocked and cooking facilities added. Such alterations changed how occupants moved through and used a house. The earthquake of 363 damaged buildings in Petra, after which particular areas were rebuilt, reused or abandoned.

Farming likewise followed regional opportunities and changing demand. Oasis cultivation and crops grown around towns continued, while large areas of runoff cultivation in the Negev expanded especially in later Roman and Byzantine centuries. Retaining walls and channels there belong to a longer agricultural history.

Worship and the changing religious landscape

Nabataean religious places remained part of the landscape after 106. The Temple of the Winged Lions at Petra continued through the Roman period until its destruction in the earthquake of 363. Changes to its painted decoration and surrounding rooms show the building being maintained and adapted over its life.

The later city developed Christian institutions. The Petra Church was built around the middle of the fifth century and subsequently enlarged and altered. Its decorated interior and baptismal facilities served a community several centuries after the kingdom’s end. Some older carved building elements were reused in its construction, bringing Nabataean material into a new religious setting.

Reused stone could retain an earlier inscription or decoration while performing a different job in a later wall. The physical survival of the material and the religious purpose of the building therefore had distinct histories. Visitors can see this succession within Petra itself, where monuments and excavated buildings belong to several phases of the city’s life.

Writing after the kingdom

Nabataean writing remained in use after annexation, particularly in inscriptions across northwestern Arabia and neighbouring regions. These texts include personal commemorations and other short records. They locate continued writing practices in communities beyond the former royal centre.

Aramaic and Arabic were both spoken within the Nabataean world. Many inscriptions and contracts recorded Aramaic words in Nabataean letters, a writing system that later developed into Arabic script.

Letter forms changed unevenly. Formal monumental writing could preserve older shapes while more flowing forms developed in writing influenced by pen strokes and joined letters. Third- to fifth-century inscriptions display different combinations of these practices. Nabataean writing was an important predecessor of Arabic script, with the transition involving several stages and overlapping forms.

An inscription from Umm Jadhayidh dated to 455–456 illustrates this overlap. It contains Arabic features alongside inherited Aramaic expressions. Such texts reveal people adapting a written tradition for changing linguistic use. Later recognisably Arabic inscriptions belong to a further stage of that development.

A later community in the Petra papyri

Sixth-century papyri found beside the Petra Church record property divisions, dowries, loans and disputes. The archive centres on Theodoros, son of Obodianos, a church official, and his extended family and associates. The dated documents range from 537 to 594 and were preserved through carbonisation in a fire.

These papers show an active community conducting economic and family affairs in the later city. They were largely written in Greek, the administrative language used for these transactions. Named people, properties and obligations replace a picture of Petra as a city that simply vanished after its ancient monuments were built.

The later inhabitants lived within a transformed provincial and religious world. Their affairs centred on property, family obligations and Christian institutions in a city whose landscape still contained older monuments. Settlement and written business had continued through several governments and major changes to the built environment.