page_title: Hellenistic period
section_title: Nabatean Kingdom
hierarchical_section_title: Hellenistic period / Hellenistic Near East / Nabatean Kingdom
caption_attribution_description: English: Petra, Al Khazneh Deutsch: Petra, Khazne al-Firaun
context_page_description: The Hellenistic period covers the period of Mediterranean history between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the emergence of the Roman Empire as signified by the Battle of Actium in 31 BC and the conquest of Ptolemaic Egypt the following year. The Greek word Hellas was originally the widely-recognized name of Greece, from which the word Hellenistic was derived.
  During the Hellenistic period Greek cultural influence and power reached the peak of its geographical expansion, being dominant in the Mediterranean world and most of West and Central Asia, even in parts of the Indian subcontinent, experiencing prosperity and progress in the arts, exploration, literature, theatre, architecture, music, mathematics, philosophy, and science. It is often considered a period of transition, sometimes even of decadence or degeneration, compared to the enlightenment of the Greek Classical era. The Hellenistic period saw the rise of New Comedy, Alexandrian poetry, the Septuagint and the philosophies of Stoicism, Epicureanism, and Pyrrhonism. Greek science was advanced by the works of the mathematician Euclid and the polymath Archimedes.
context_section_description: The Nabatean Kingdom was an Arab state located between the Sinai Peninsula and the Arabian Peninsula. Its capital was the city of Petra, an important trading city on the incense route. The Nabateans resisted the attacks of Antigonus and were allies of the Hasmoneans in their struggle against the Seleucids, but later fought against Herod the Great. The hellenization of the Nabateans occurred relatively late in comparison to the surrounding regions. Nabatean material culture does not show any Greek influence until the reign of Aretas III Philhellene in the 1st century BC. Aretas captured Damascus and built the Petra pool complex and gardens in the Hellenistic style. Though the Nabateans originally worshipped their traditional gods in symbolic form such as stone blocks or pillars, during the Hellenistic period they began to identify their gods with Greek gods and depict them in figurative forms influenced by Greek sculpture. Nabatean art shows Greek influences and paintings have been found depicting Dionysian scenes. They also slowly adopted Greek as a language of commerce along with Aramaic and Arabic.
caption: Al-Khazneh in Petra shows the Hellenistic influences on the Nabatean capital city
exif: {"Image Make": "PENTAX Corporation", "Image Model": "PENTAX K10D", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "96", "Image YResolution": "96", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "K10D Ver 1.30", "Image DateTime": "2009:11:10 13:31:40", "Image Artist": "Berthold Werner", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image Copyright": "b'GNU-Lizenz f\\xfcr freie Dokumentation'", "Image ExifOffset": "46802", "Image PrintIM": "[80, 114, 105, 110, 116, 73, 77, 0, 48, 51, 48, 48, 0, 0, 0, 33, 0, 1, 0, 22, ... ]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "96", "Thumbnail YResolution": "96", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "47270", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "5636", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/30", "EXIF FNumber": "4", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "100", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2009:11:10 13:31:40", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2009:11:10 13:31:40", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "19", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2112", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "3359", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "47240", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "28", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Hard", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "3"}