THE NABATEANS

THE last Pharaoh whose activity was recorded in Serabit was Ramessu VI (b.c. 1161-1156), after whose reign information about the peninsula ceased for several centuries. The road along the north was trodden by the Egyptians when the country was in friendly relation with King Solomon (b.c. 974-35) and the kings of JudÆa. It was trodden also by the Assyrian armies which invaded Egypt under Esarhaddon (b.c. 670), and under Ashurbanipal (b.c. 668-626). Although we hear nothing of the sanctuary at Serabit its importance must have continued. For in the list of temples which made gifts to Nitocris on the occasion of her adoption by the Pharaoh Psamtek I (XXVI 1), about the year b.c. 654, a gift was made of a hundred deben of bread by the temples of Sais, of Buto, and by “the house of Hathor of Mafkat” i.e. Serabit, and by Per-Seped, i.e. the sanctuary of Sopd in the city of Goshen.[117]

In the third century before Christ, Egypt passed under the rule of the Ptolemies. Ptolemy Philadelphus (b.c. 250-247), a man of wide outlook, built ArsinoË (north-east of the later Suez) to serve as a port in place of the ancient HeroÖpolis, which was silting up. He further sent out an expedition to explore the coasts of the Red Sea under the charge of Ariston. Diodorus Siculus (c. b.c. 20), quoting Agatharcides (b.c. 110), and the geographer Strabo (c. a.d. 24), quoting Artemidorus (b.c. 100), give an account of the information that is preserved regarding Sinai. After describing the western shore of the Red Sea with its countries and its inhabitants who were Ichthyophagoi (fish-eaters), and Troglodytes (cave-dwellers) or nomads, and the dangers which threatened shipping from storms and sand-banks, Diodorus, in his account, passed to the other side of the Gulf. Here Ariston erected an altar at Neptunium or Posidium. “From thence to the mouth of the Gulf, is a place along the sea-coast of great esteem among the inhabitants for the profit it yields them; it is called the Garden of Palm-trees (Phoenikon), because they abound there, and are so very fruitful that they yield sufficient both for pleasure and necessity. But the whole country next adjoining is destitute of rivers and brooks, and lying to the south is even burned up by the heat of the sun; and therefore this fruitful tract that lies amongst dry and barren regions (remote from tillage and improvement), and yet affords such plenty of food and provision, is justly, by the barbarians, dedicated to the gods. For there are in it many fountains and running streams as cold as snow, by which means the region from one side to the other is always green and flourishing, and very sweet and pleasant to the view. In this place there is an ancient altar of hard stone, with an inscription in old and illegible characters; where a man and a woman, that execute here the priest’s office during their lives, have the charge of the grove and altar. They are persons of quality and great men that abide here, and for fear of the beasts, have their beds (they rest upon) in the trees.”[118] In the corresponding account Strabo mentioned no altar, but the man and woman who guarded the trees.[119]

The Phoenikon or palm grove of these writers, was sometimes located at Raithou; perhaps the one at Ayun Musa is meant.

Diodorus then mentioned the Island of the Sea-calves on the coast of Arabia, and the promontory (i.e. Sinai) that shoots out towards this island, describing this as “over against Petra in Arabia and Palestine to which the Gerrhaens and Mineans bring incense.” He then mentioned the Maraneans and Garindaeans (names which recall Mara and Wadi Gharandel, the Carandar of Pliny), who dwell along the coast, and related how the Maraneans were absent on their quinquennial festival, sacrificing fattened camels to the gods of the grove and fetching spring water, when the Garindaeans killed those who were left behind and then murdered those who returned and seized their country.

According to Diodorus (still quoting Ariston) there were few harbours along the shore in the direction of the Aleanite promontory where dwelt the Arabians called Nabateans, who held not only the coast but large districts inland. The Nabateans have a special interest for Sinai, since the numerous rough rock-inscriptions along the wadis of the south, which long puzzled the learned, are now generally attributed to them.

Josephus located Nabatea between Syria and Arabia extending from the Euphrates to the Red Sea, and connected the name Nabatean with Nebajoth, whose name stands first in the confederacy of the Ishmaelite tribes (Gen. xxv. 13).[120] On the other hand Strabo, like Diodorus Siculus, located them in north-western Arabia, extending as far south as Leukokome on the Gulf of Arabia.[121]

The existence of Nabateans in districts that lay far apart is explained by the recently discovered Annals of Assyria. In the long list of peoples “Arameans all of them,” who were raided by Sennacherib (c. b.c. 705), mention is made of the Nabatu, of whom large numbers were carried off into Assyria.[122] Again, when Ashurbanipal (b.c. 668-626) set out to conquer Arabia, King Vaiteh of Arabia sought refuge with Nathan, king of Nabat, “whose place is remote.” The Nabateans were again raided, and numbers of them were transplanted. “The road to Damascus I caused their feet to tread.”[123] The remote homes of the Nabateans was attested by Makrizi († 1441), who classed them with the Magi, the Indians and the Chinese. These denied the Flood because it had never penetrated to them, and traced their origin, not to Noah, but to Kajumath.[124]

The efforts of the transplanted Nabateans to remain in touch with their home sanctuaries, may have opened their eyes to the possibilities of trade. In the fourth century before Christ, they attracted the attention of the western world by seizing Petra, the Ha-Sela of antiquity, which lay half-way between the head of the Gulf of Akaba and the Dead Sea at the point where the old gold and incense route from Arabia to Damascus was crossed by the overland route from India to Egypt. This appropriation gave the Nabateans the control of the Eastern trade. In order to check their progress Antigonus Cyclops, king of Syria and Palestine since b.c. 312, sent AthenÆus and an army against them. The army reached Petra at the time when the Nabateans were absent on a pilgrimage. They easily overcame the aged, the women and children, and seized an enormous booty in spicery and silver. But the returning Nabateans overtook and well nigh destroyed the invading force. Another army was sent under Demetrius to seize Petra, and chastise the Nabateans. But these drew the enemy along desert tracks, and the invaders achieved nothing.[125]

Henceforth the Nabateans acted as a recognised nation, whose kings from about b.c. 200 held their own by the side of the kings of JudÆa. Of these kings Aretas I (Arabic Harith), the contemporary of Antiochus Epiphanes (b.c. 173-164), received the fugitive Hasmoneans (2 Macc. v. 8); Malchos I dwelt at Petra and struck a coinage; Aretas III was master of Damascus and king of Coele-Syria. Their control over the trade-routes extended in many directions. Along the Mediterranean on the north coast of Sinai they secured a foothold far beyond the limit of Coele-Syria almost as far as the Tanitic mouth of the Nile. For excavations made at Qasr Ghait or Ouait between Kantara and Katia led to the discovery of a Nabatean sanctuary with a Nabatean inscription.[126]

As the Romans advanced their frontier, they were brought into contact with the kings of Nabat. Malchos II in the year b.c. 47, supported the Romans under CÆsar, and entered into an agreement with them. As a result, a Roman tax-collector resided at Leukokome, the southernmost point of Nabat. After the conquest of Egypt in b.c. 30, the Romans, their imagination fired by the thought of the untold wealth of Arabia, entered into an agreement with the Nabateans, and sent eighty boats, with ten thousand men, including five hundred Jews and a thousand Nabateans. These sailed from ArsinoË around Sinai in b.c. 25 to invade and conquer Arabia. It was in vain that SyllÆus, the Roman tax-gatherer at Leukokome, urged that the Arabians were rich in merchandise only. The expedition landed, camels were chartered and the Romans entered the country. But here they found a land bare of food and water, and no one to contend with. The expedition was a miserable failure, but SyllÆus who tried to prevent it, was accused of treachery and condemned to death.[127]

The Nabateans had originally been content with pastoral pursuits. For a time they became pirates and had little skiffs, with which they despoiled all other merchants who trafficked in their seas. Their obvious intention was to protect the trade along their overland route which assumed great proportions as we learn from the remarks of Strabo.

One reason of their success in this direction was their extensive use of the camel as a means of transport. There are many references in the Assyrian annals to the large number of camels which were bred in Arabia. Ashurbanipal (b.c. 668-626) says that after his conquest of Arabia, “camels like sheep I distributed and caused to overflow to the people of Assyria dwelling in my country. A camel for half a shekel, in half shekels of silver, they were valued for at the gate.”[128] The Nabateans employed camels in such numbers that Strabo spoke of their convoys of camels (?a???p????), which moved between Petra and Leukokome in the land of Nabat, with so many people and camels that they resembled armies. The camels moved to and fro at certain periods of the year, being timed by the arrival at Leukokome of the boats from the East. In between they were driven to pasture in the fruitful wadis which lay near the caravan routes. It was to the men herding these camels that the wadis of southern Sinai owed their inscriptions.

These inscriptions consist, for the most part, of a few words, including a name or a greeting, which are roughly incised on rock or boulder at about the height of a man above the valley floor. Some are accompanied by signs or by the rough drawing of animals or men, sometimes there are drawings and signs without writing. The animals are chiefly camels, gazelles or cattle. There are some horsemen and some nondescript animals. Among the signs that are used are the Egyptian ankh, the Greek alpha and omega, and the Christian cross, showing that a great variety of persons passed there. The words are written without regularity, the animals and men are drawn with poor skill. They are, for the most part, unattractive scrawls, the interest of which lies in the information which they indirectly convey.

The inscriptions in the wadis of southern Sinai were first noted by the lady Etheria who visited the peninsula about the year 450. A century later they attracted the attention of Cosmas, whose second name, Indicopleustes, marked the extent of his travels. Cosmas was in Sinai about the year 545, and in his Christian Topography wrote of the inscriptions, which he attributed to Israelite industry.

“And when they had received the Law from God in writing and had learnt letters for the first time, God made use of the desert as a quiet school and permitted them for forty years to carve out letters on stone. Wherefore, in that wilderness of Mount Sinai one can see, at all their halting places, all the stones that have been broken off from the mountains, inscribed with Hebrew letters, as I myself can testify, having travelled in those places. Certain Jews too, who had read these inscriptions, informed me of their purpose which was as follows: the departure of so and so of such and such a tribe, in such and such a year, in such and such a month,—just as with ourselves, there are travellers who scribble their names in the inns in which they lodge.—And the Israelites, who had newly acquired the art of writing, continually practised it, and filled a great multitude of stones with writing, so that all those places are full of Hebrew inscriptions, which, as I think, have been preserved to this day for the sake of unbelievers. Anyone who wishes, can go to these places, and see for himself, or at least can enquire of others, about the matter, when he will learn that it is the truth which we have spoken.—When the Hebrews therefore had been at the first instructed by God, and had received a knowledge of letters through those tables of stone, and had learned them for forty years in the wilderness, they communicated them to the Phoenicians at that time when first Cadmus was king of the Tyrians, from whom the Greeks received them, and then in turn the other nations of the world.”[129]

After the time of Cosmas we hear no more of the inscriptions, till the seventeenth century when they attracted the attention of Pietro della Valle about the year 1618.[130] In the eighteenth century copies were brought home of some of them which attracted further attention. In 1762 Niebuhr went to Sinai with the intention of visiting the Gebel Mukattab, or mountain of writing. He was taken, instead, by his sheykh to the inscribed ruins of Serabit. Some of the rough Sinaitic inscriptions appeared in the Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature in 1832; others were incorporated by Lepsius in his work on Sinai. They were first claimed for the Nabateans by LÉvy in 1860.[131] Prof. Palmer of the Ordnance Survey collected over 3000 between 1868-70, and endorsed the view that they were the work of traders and carriers. Prof. Euting recently published over 300 in facsimile and collected similar inscriptions along the wadis west of Petra between Damascus and Palmyra, and elsewhere.[132] It is said to be habitual in Arabia to scrawl tribal marks on walls and rocks in order to show the rights of the tribe, a name and a greeting being frequently added as a notice to kinsmen and friends passing that way. These casual marks and inscriptions have recently gained a new interest, for the light which they throw on the development of the Arabic script.

Most of the inscriptions along the wadis of Sinai are in Aramaic or other Semitic script, a few are in Greek, a few are in Kufic. The larger number are pagan, and their character is indicated by such as the following, “Remember Zailu, son of Wailu, son of Bitasu” (no. 11).[133] “Think of Sambu, son of Nasaigu” (Ibid., no. 120). Many names are those of the Bible, including Jacob (no. 510) and Moses (no. 337). How the sight of these names must have rejoiced the heart of Cosmas! Others include names that are current in Arabia at the present day.

In Greek script stand the words “Be mindful (??s??) of Chalios the son of Zaidu” (no. 253). One inscription consists of an Egyptian ankh with the alpha and omega on either side, and the Greek words Kyrie eleison, with the figure of an animal that may be intended for a camel (no. 380). Again, in Greek stand the words “An evil race! I, Lupus, a soldier, wrote this with my hand” (no. 613). Another inscription consists of a cross with the words “Amen, one God, our Saviour” (no. 581).

A definite date is conveyed by the following: “Blessed be Wailu, son of Sad Allahi, this is the 85th year of the eparchy” (no. 463). And again, “Think of Aallahi, son of Iali, in the year 106, which is that of the three emperors” (no. 451). In the year a.d. 105 Trajan attacked the Nabateans in Petra, which he conquered, and he established the Roman headquarters at Bosra, from which the so-called era of Bosra was dated. The first of the inscriptions which mentioned the 85th year, therefore indicated a.d. 189; the second inscription, which mentioned the 106th year, indicated a.d. 211, the year in which the three emperors Septimus Severus, Caracalla and Geta succeeded one another.

Some authorities also make the Nabateans responsible for the circular huts built of stone, the so-called Nawamis, groups of which are found in the Wadi Wutah, the Wadi Sigilliyeh, and elsewhere. About the year 450 Etheria saw some on her way to the Mount of the Law, and looked upon them as houses built by the Israelites. The huts served at different times as store-houses, places of burial, and hermitages; their origin is quite uncertain. Besides these huts, rectangular huts were noticed in the Wadi Aleyat, the Wadi Nasb, and elsewhere. These also cannot, at present, be claimed for any age.

The introduction of the camel to the wadis of Sinai dealt one more blow at the vegetation of the peninsula. For the camel is to all purposes a huge goat, and, like the goat, is a most destructive animal. His introduction was necessarily followed by the loss of verdure which resulted in loosening of the soil and spread of the desert. In Egypt the introduction of the camel during Roman times depleted the flora and altered the fauna. Gazelles and antelopes sought pasture elsewhere, and the crocodile that lay in wait for them when they came to water, altogether disappeared. In Sinai the effects were equally marked. Gazelles, still numerous in early Christian times, are found now in the remoter wadis only, and the depletion of the soil which began with the destruction of trees for purposes of smelting and charcoal-burning, was carried one stage further by the havoc wrought among the lower growth by the camel.

The conquest of Petra by Trajan in the year 105 set a term to the existence of the kings of Nabat. The greater part of their domain was now incorporated in the Roman province of Arabia, which was firmly and wisely administered by the prefect Aulus Cornelius Palma, who left Nabatean religious cults untouched. The annexation of Damascus followed, through which the control of the trade of the East altogether passed under the Romans.

The frontier line between Egypt and Asia during the period of Roman rule began at Raphia, modern Rafa, and ran in a westerly direction, then turning sharply south towards ArsinoË near the present Suez. The coastal province was called Augustamnica Prima according to Ammianus Marcellinus. It included a number of cities which, by virtue of being situated in a province belonging to Egypt, were later included in the patriarchate of Alexandria.

The first of these cities on the road from Syria was El Arish, situated near the Wadi el Arish, the river or “stream of Egypt” of the Bible (Isa. xxvii. 12). El Arish was accounted a very ancient city by the Arabs. Its land was cultivated soon after the Deluge and was called the Gate to Paradise. Abraham passed here. Makrizi († 1441) relates a tradition regarding the building of reed huts there, which recalls an incident preserved by Diodorus Siculus (c. b.c. 20), the origin of which may be sought in the wish to explain the later name of the city which was Rhinocorura or Rhinocolura. According to Diodorus, King Actisanes of Egypt, possibly Hor-em-heb (XVIII 14), having conquered Egypt, collected all who were suspected of thieving, and after their judicial conviction, caused their noses to be cut off, and sent them to colonise a city built for them at the extremity of the desert. Here, being destitute of means of subsistence, they resorted to the device of splitting reeds, which they wove into nets and stretched out along the sea shore to catch quails. The incident of the noses (quasi ????? ???????? = curti, al. ?. ?e??as?a?), determined the name of the place.[134] Its Egyptian name was probably Zaru (Fig. 18).

The city gained in importance during Roman times. Strabo called it a city of Phoenicia, close to Egypt, and an emporium of Indian and Arabic merchandise, which was discharged at Leukokome and conveyed via Petra to Rhinocorura, where it was dispersed.[135] The city is now partly enclosed by walls of considerable thickness, and lies half a mile from the coast on the edge of the desert. According to the travellers, Irby and Mangles, it contains some notable Roman remains. From this period probably date the marble columns, later appropriated to the churches which were eventually transported to Cairo.

West of Rhinocorura lay Ostracine, the site of which is nowadays surrounded by marshland which is flooded at certain times of the year. The city was formerly fed by a canal that brought water from the Tanitic branch of the Nile. The strategic importance of Ostracine attracted the attention of the emperor Vespasian. For the road coming from Syria divided at Ostracine. One branch led north of the Serbonian bog, via Casium, Gerra and Pelusium to Alexandria; another passing south of the bog, was the old military road to Memphis with stations at Katia and Kantara. A third road led from Ostracine to ArsinoË (near the present Suez), which Pliny described as “mountainous and destitute of water” (asperum montibus et inops aquarum).[136]

Ostracine has recently been excavated by ClÉdat. It consisted of two parts, an inland part with a fortress and a church which have been excavated, and a maritime port, Ostracine Majumas, where Roman remains were found, including mosaics and sculpture, now transferred to the museum at Ishmailia. The buildings were not constructed of brick, but of stone, which points to a certain wealth. Here also there were the remains of a church. The name Ostracine signifies shell, a meaning reproduced in the Arabic El Flousiyeh the name of the village that now occupies the site of the inland part of the town.

West of Ostracine lay the Serbonian bog which stood out in men’s minds as the scene of the disaster which befell the invading Persian forces in the year b.c. 350. On the northern side of the bog, beyond the break in the narrow strip of land confining it, lay Casium, which had a hill with a temple dedicated to Zeus Casius or Jupiter Ammon. On the flank of this hill a tumulus marked the place where the beheaded body of Pompey the Great was buried. Pompey was murdered when he landed on the coast after his defeat at Pharsalia; and Hadrian, at a later date, erected a monument to his memory of which remains were found near Pelusium.

West of Casium lay Gerra, from Greek gerrhon, a shield, a name which corresponds in meaning with Shur, Hebrew for wall, in the Bible. “Shur that is before Egypt as thou goest toward Assyria” (Gen. xxv. 18). Brugsch identified it as the Egyptian Aneb.[137]

Gerra was known also as the camp of Chabrias, the Athenian general, who entered the service of the Pharaoh Nectanebo (XXX 1, b.c. 378-61), and later commanded the forces of his successor Zeher (XXX 2), in opposing the Persian invasion of Egypt. The cities along the Mediterranean coast were at the distance of a Roman day’s march, about 14 miles, from each other. Titus on his march from Egypt for the conquest of Jerusalem, pitched his camp in succession near the temple of the Casian Jupiter, at Ostracine, at Rhinocorura and at Raphia, as recorded by Josephus (Wars, IV. 11, 5). On the Table Peutinger, the Roman road map of the second century, land and water are roughly marked with the stations along the roads of communication. On this Table along the shore of the Mediterranean we note Gerra (?) miles to Casium, 26 miles to Ostracine, 24 miles to Rhinocorura, 28 miles to Raphia.