page_title: Nabataean Kingdom
section_title: Creation of the Nabataean Kingdom
hierarchical_section_title: Nabataean Kingdom / History / Creation of the Nabataean Kingdom
caption_attribution_description: English: Nabataean bronze coin from Petra showing Aretas IV in military dress standing left, holding a spear in his right hand and resting his left hand on sword in sheath, palm branch to left, Aramaic letter “Heth (H)” to right (15 mm, 2.5 g)
context_page_description: The Nabataean Kingdom, also named Nabatea, was a political state of the Arab Nabataeans during classical antiquity.
  The Nabataean Kingdom controlled much of the trade routes of the region, amassing large wealth and drawing the envy of its neighbors. It stretched south along the Red Sea coast into the Hejaz, up as far north as Damascus, which it controlled for a short period.
  Nabataea remained independent from the 4th century BC until it was annexed in AD 106 by the Roman Empire, which renamed it Arabia Petraea.
context_section_description: The Nabataean Arabs did not emerge as a political power suddenly; their rise instead went through two phases. The first phase was in the 4th century BC (ruled then by an elders' council), which was marked by the growth of Nabataean control over trade routes and various tribes and towns. Their presence in Transjordan by the end of the fourth century BC is guaranteed by Antigonus's operations in the region, and despite recent suggestions that there is no evidence of Nabataean occupation of the Hauran in the early period, the Zenon papyri firmly attest the penetration of the Hauran by the Nabataeans in the mid-third century BC beyond all doubt, and according to Bowersock, it "establish[es] these Arabs in one of the principal areas of subsequent splendor". Simultaneously, the Nabataeans had probably moved across the 'Araba to the west into the desert tracts of the Negev. In their early history, before establishing urban centers, the Nabataeans demonstrated on several occasions their impressive and well organized military prowess by successfully defending their territory against larger powers.
  The second phase saw the creation of the Nabataean political state in the mid-3rd century BC. Kingship is regarded as a characteristic of a state and urban society. The Nabataean institution of kingship came about as a result of multiple factors, such as the indispensabilities of trade organization and war; the subsequent outcomes of the Greek expeditions on the Nabataeans played a role in the political centralization of the Nabatu tribe. The earliest evidence of Nabataean kingship comes from a Nabataean inscription in the Hauran region, probably Bosra, which mentions a Nabataean king whose name was lost, dated by Stracky to the early third century BC. The dating is significant, since the available evidence does not attest the existence of Nabataean monarchy until the second century BC. This nameless Nabataean king perhaps could be linked with a reference from the Zenon archive (the second historical mention of the Nabataeans) to deliveries of grain to "Rabbel's men", Rabbel being a characteristically royal Nabataean name, it is thus possible to link Rabbel of the Zenon archive with the nameless king of Bosra's inscription, though it is highly speculative. 
  A recent papyrological discovery, the Milan Papyrus, provides further evidence. The relevant part of the Lithika section of the papyrus describes an Arabian cavalry of a certain Nabataean king, providing an early 3rd century BC reference to a Nabataean monarch. The word Nabataean stands alone beside a missing word that start with the letter M; one of the suggested words for filling the gap is the traditional name of Nabataean kings, Malichus. Furthermore, the anonymous Nabataean coins dated by Barkay to the second half of the 3rd century BC, found mainly in Nabataean territory, support such an early date of the Nabataean Kingdom. This is in line with Strabo's account (whose description of Arabia derives ultimately from reports by 3rd century BC Ptolemaic officials) that the Nabataean kingship was old and traditional. In conclusion, Rachel Barkay states that "the Nabataean economy and political regime were in existence by the third century BC". The Kingship of the Nabataeans, was in the view of Strabo, an effective one, where the Nabataean kingdom was "very well governed" and the king was "a man of the people". For more than four centuries the Nabataean kingdom dominated, politically and commercially, a large territory and was arguably the first Arab kingdom in the area.
  The testimony of the 4th and 3rd century external accounts and local materialistic evidence demonstrate that the Nabataeans played a relatively substantial political and economic role in the sphere of the early Hellenistic world. While the Nabataeans didn't attain observable characteristics of a Hellenistic state (i.e. monumental architecture) in their early period, similar to contemporary Seleucid Syria, the Milan papyrus speaks of their wealth and prestige in this period. In that respect, the Nabataeans must be cons
caption: Coin showing Aretas IV in military dress
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