Nabataeans

Near East (621–478 BCE): Transformation, Conquest, and Cultural Renewal

Josiah’s Religious Reforms and Judah’s Fall

During the early part of this age, Josiah, king of Judah, implements sweeping religious reforms that establish the worship of Yahweh as the sole deity. This monotheistic movement centralizes religious practices in Jerusalem. Josiah aims to reunify Judah and Israel, leveraging the decline of the Assyrian Empire, but is killed at Megiddo in 609 BCE while confronting Egyptian Pharaoh Necho II. This marks the end of Judah’s independence, and subsequently, the kingdom falls under Egyptian and later Babylonian domination.

Babylonian Ascendancy and the Judahite Exile

Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon decisively defeats Egypt at Carchemish in 605 BCE, subsequently asserting Babylonian dominance over the Near East. Jerusalem falls to Babylon in 586 BCE after a prolonged siege. The First Temple is destroyed, and a significant portion of the Judahite population, including King Zedekiah, is deported to Babylon—an event known as the Babylonian Captivity. Scattered in exile, Judahites maintain their identity through adherence to their religious laws and rituals such as circumcision, Sabbath observance, festivals, dietary rules, and cleanliness laws. These customs become foundational in preserving Jewish cultural identity.

Egyptian Revival and Saite Dynasty

Pharaoh Necho II, followed by his successor Amasis II, revitalizes Egypt, fostering cultural and economic growth. Amasis II adorns temples in Lower Egypt with splendid monolithic shrines and other monumental constructions, remnants of which still exist. The Cypriot kingdoms recognize Egyptian overlordship under Amasis, adopting Egyptian artistic and sartorial conventions. However, Egypt's strength is transient; Persian forces under Cambyses II conquer Egypt in 525 BCE, ending the Twenty-sixth Dynasty and integrating Egypt as a province within the Persian (Achaemenid) Empire. Persian emperors are thus recorded as Egypt's Twenty-seventh Dynasty.

Kush and the Shift to Meroë

Egypt under Pharaoh Psamtik II invades and sacks Napata in 590 BCE, causing the Kushite court to relocate southward to the iron-rich and secure region of Meroë. Here, Kush develops independently for centuries, insulated from Egypt’s subsequent periods of Persian, Greek, and Roman domination.

Phoenician Resistance and Babylonian Control

Phoenician cities experience increased turbulence during Babylonian dominance (605–539 BCE). The city of Tyre notably endures a thirteen-year siege by Nebuchadnezzar, finally capitulating in 574 BCE, resulting in enslavement and the deposition of its king.

Lydia and the Ionian Cities

Croesus of Lydia, ruling from Sardis, initially controls western Anatolia until defeated by Persian king Cyrus the Great in 546 BCE. The Ionian Greeks initially welcome Persian rule to escape Lydian dominance but soon rebel against the Persians’ imposition of tyrants. This triggers the Ionian Revolt (499–493 BCE), the opening conflict of the Greco-Persian Wars, a series of conflicts lasting until 448 BCE.

Philosophical Advances in Ionia

This period sees significant philosophical developments in Ionia. Thales of Miletus, active around 585 BCE, is known for predicting a solar eclipse and promoting water as the primary element. His student, Anaximander, introduces the concept of apeiron (the boundless), proposes a cylindrical earth, and creates the first known map of the world. His successor, Anaximenes, suggests air as the fundamental substance, explaining natural phenomena through its condensation and rarefaction.

Judahite Return and Temple Reconstruction

In 539 BCE, Persian conquest of Babylon under Cyrus the Great permits Judahites to return to Jerusalem. Led by Zerubbabel, they reconstruct the Temple by 515 BCE, despite opposition from local Samaritans.

Linguistic Developments and Cultural Influences

During this era, languages such as Lydian and Lycian begin to be recorded using the West Greek alphabet. Additionally, Egypt's influence significantly impacts Cypriot artistic practices, evident in surviving limestone sculptures.

Moab’s Disappearance and Edomite Migration

Moab disappears from historical records during Persian domination, with Arabian tribes like the Nabataeans infiltrating its territory. Edomites, pressed by Arab incursions, migrate into southern Judah, becoming known in later Roman periods as Idumaeans.

Samaritans and Religious Identity

The Samaritan population, regarded by Judahites as a mixed group originating from Assyrian colonists and native Israelites, adheres strictly to the Pentateuch, worshiping Yahweh and honoring Moses as their sole prophet. Their contentious relationship with returning Judahites becomes a defining cultural dynamic in post-exilic Judah.

Cultural and Philosophical Flourishing

The period concludes with the philosophical contributions of Heraclitus of Ephesus, who emphasizes the constant flux of reality and the unity of opposites, advancing ideas about change, identity, and the logos, influencing subsequent Greek philosophy and Western thought profoundly.

This age thus encapsulates an era of profound political transformations, religious realignments, and intellectual flourishing, setting the stage for enduring cultural legacies throughout the Near East.

Most of the Judahite inhabitants of Hebron had been exiled after the destruction of the First Temple.

The conventional view, unsupported by archaeology, is that Edomites, escaping from Arab pressure, now took their place.

The history of the region now called Jordan under the Neo-Babylonians and Persians is scanty.

The brief Babylonian captivity of the Hebrews that began in 586 BCE opened a minor power vacuum in Judah (prior to the Judahites’ return under the Persian King, Cyrus), and as Edomites moved into open Judaean grazing lands, Nabatean inscriptions began to be left in Edomite territory as the Nabataeans, an Arabian people whose settlements lie in the borderlands between Syria and Arabia, from the Euphrates River to the Red Sea, infiltrate Edom.

The Edomites move into southern Palestine, where they will become known in Roman times as Idumaeans.

Three peoples—Jews, Greeks, and Nabataeans—decisively affect the history of Jordan between the third century BCE and the first century CE.

Jews, many of whom are returnees from exile in Babylonia, settle in southern Gilead.

Along with Jews from the western side of the Jordan and Jews who had remained in the area, they establish closely settled communities in what will later become known in Greek as the Perea.

The Greeks are mainly veterans of Alexander's military campaigns who fight one another for regional hegemony.

The Nabataeans are Arabs who had wandered from the desert into Edom in the seventh century BCE.

Shrewd merchants, they monopolize the spice trade between Arabia and the Mediterranean.

By necessity experts at water conservation, they also prove to be accomplished potters, metal- workers, stone masons, and architects.

They adopt the use of Aramaic, the Semitic lingua franca in Syria and Palestine, and belong entirely to the cultural world of the Mediterranean.

The Jordan region comes under the control of the Ptolemies in 301 BCE.

Greek settlers found new cities and revive old ones as centers of Hellenistic culture.

Amman is renamed Philadelphia in honor of the pharaoh Ptolemy Philadelphus.

Urban centers assume a distinctly Greek character, easily identified in their architecture, and prospered from their trade links with Egypt.

The East Bank is also a frontier against the rival dynasty of the Seleucids, who in 198 BCE displace the Ptolemies throughout Palestine.

Hostilities between the Ptolemies and Seleucids enable the Nabataeans to extend their kingdom northward from their capital at Petra (biblical Sela) and to increase their prosperity based on the caravan trade with Syria and Arabia.

The new Greek rulers from Syria institute an aggressive policy of Hellenization among their subject peoples.

Efforts to suppress Judaism spark a revolt in 166 BCE led by Judas (Judah) Maccabaeus, whose kinsmen in the next generation reestablish an independent Jewish kingdom under the rule of the Hasmonean Dynasty.

The East Bank remains a battleground in the continuing struggle between the Jews and the Seleucids.

Roman legions under Pompey methodically remove the last remnants of the Seleucids from Syria
by the first century BCE, converting the area into a full Roman province.

The new hegemony of Rome causes upheaval and eventual revolt among the Jews while it enables the Nabataeans to prosper.

Rival claimants to the Hasmonean throne appeal to Rome in 64 BCE for aid in settling the civil war that has divided the Jewish kingdom.

The next year Pompey, fresh from implanting Roman rule in Syria, seized Jerusalem and installs the contender most favorable to Rome as a client king.

On the same campaign, Pompey organizes the Decapolis, a league of ten self-governing Greek cities also dependent on Rome that includes Amman, Jarash, and Gadara (modern Umm Qays), on the East Bank.

Roman policy here is to protect Greek interests against the encroachment of the Jewish kingdom.

Rome makes Herod king of Judah when the last member of the Hasmonean Dynasty dies in 37 BCE.

With Roman backing, Herod (37-4 BCE) rules on both sides of the Jordan River.

The Jewish kingdom is divided among his heirs after his death and is gradually absorbed into the Roman Empire.

Emperor Trajan formally annexes the satellite Nabataean kingdom in 106, organizing its territory within the new Roman province of Arabia that includes most of the East Bank of the Jordan River.

Petra serves for a time as the provincial capital.

The Nabataeans continue to prosper under direct Roman rule, and their culture, now thoroughly Hellenized, flourishes in the second and third centuries.

Citizens of the province share a legal system and identity in common with Roman subjects throughout the empire.

Roman ruins seen in present-day Jordan attest to the civic vitality of the region, whose cities are linked to commercial centers throughout the empire by the Roman road system and whose security is guaranteed by the Roman army.