Nabatean Religion
NABATEAN RELIGION. The scholarly consensus is that the Nabateans, whose kingdom flourished from about 400 BCE to 106 CE and whose capital was Petra in Jordan, were in part the descendants of the earlier inhabitants of southern Jordan, though apparently ruled by a dynasty of north Arabian background. At its most extensive, the Nabatean kingdom also incorporated other populations, including many of Aramean descent in southern Syria. In discussing Nabatean religion, therefore, one needs to take account of the fact that some peoples under Nabatean rule may only have adopted the traditions of Petra superficially, while basically retaining their own traditional cults. A "new" deity could be assimilated into or merged with a well-established local deity. Also, distinct Nabatean regions can be detected in which the deities worshiped vary along with other cultural markers (such as language and personal names).
Nabatean History
The history of the Nabatean kingdom can only be traced in part, the sources being principally epigraphic, literary, and numismatic. Archaeology and iconography provide some evidence in relation to religion but add little to Nabatean history.
The epigraphic corpus consists of thousands of inscriptions and a few papyri written in the Nabatean version of the Aramaic language (widely used from the Achaemenid era) and in a distinctive local variety of the Achaemenid Aramaic script.
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