#nabataean

Monetary Transformation: The Shift from Seleucid to Nabataean Currency Systems

King Obodas I of the Nabataeans fought and defeated two major enemies. First, he defeated King Alexander Janneaus of Judea, who had taken control of Gaza, an important trade port for the Nabataeans. Obodas successfully drove out the Jewish forces, and Janneaus barely escaped with his life. Later,King Antiochus XII of the Seleucids attacked the Nabataeans, hoping to gain an advantage, but Obodas I achieved a stunning victory, killing Antiochus XII in battle. These victories greatly enhanced the Nabataean kingdom's status as a powerful force in the region. A silver drachm coin was minted during Obodas I’s reign, likely in his final year, featuring his name, though it’s worth noting that there were several Nabataean kings named Obodas. And  when the war put down , Nabataeans used the coins of trading partners, particularly Ptolemaic Egypt and Phoenician Tyre  or Seleucid especially the eagle . and that one scripted  (BAΣIΛEΩΣ OBOΔA,)  Dated RY 11 (86 BCE), instead of

#Obodas # Jewish #Gaza #Nabataeans  #Antiochus_XII #archaeology #ancient #ancienthistory #museum #numismatics #numismatist #numismatica #rarecoins #oldcoins #worldcoins

#coincollecting #coincollection #metaldetecting #silvercoins

#coin #ancientcoins #money #history.

While today people are mostly thinking about the area traditionally known as "the Holy Land" in terms of Jews and Palestinians, there once were other significant people living there, leaving their marks of the lands.

One of those people was the Nabataeans, an Arab people known for being in control of the incense route and particularly to have been the people building the amazing desert city Petra.

Another fascinating city they built, in the middle of the desert in Negev, is Ovdat. I'm working on a project about this amazing place and I'd like to invite you to take a look at it and get to understand it better. This is a crucial part of the history of this place, which helps us to better understand the evolution of how things became as they are today eventually, even if it happened 2000 years ago!

https://samuelkoltov.com/project/notes-on-ovdat/

The Ancient Nabataean city of Hegra

The ruins of ancient Hegra reflect Nabataean architectural accomplishments, advanced hydraulic expertise, the development of oasis agriculture, and widespread literacy and wealth.  Nabatean women had higher status than women in Europe.  They owned land and held political power as priestesses and queens.  Inscriptions from Hegra make references to a solar Goddess indigenous to pre-conquest Saudi Arabia.  

By the 3rd century however, Nabataeans stopped writing in Aramaic and began writing in Greek, and by the 5th century they were converted to Christianity.  Commerce deteriorated under desertification, and the once prosperous Nabataeans lost economic power and fell into obscurity.  

In her study, “Women In Pre-Islamic Arabia”, Saudi scholar Hatoon Ajwad al-Fassi reveals that pre-Islamic Arab women had more rights and freedoms in the Nabataean era than Saudi Arabia today.  Discriminatory restrictions on women originated in late Greco-Roman traditions that were later fused into Islam. Prior to European influence, Nabataean women conducted legal contracts in their own name with no male guardian.

The Wahhabi interpretation of sharia requires a father, husband, brother or son to chaperone women in public, allow them to travel and attest legal contracts, effectively treating women as legal minors.  “With Nabataean women the legal status and self representation was stronger and more evident than with Greek women who needed always a ‘tutor’, or representative, in order to conclude any contract,” Fassi said. “An adaptation of Greek and Roman laws was inserted in Islamic law,” she said. “it’s an ancient adaptation, that (Muslim) scholars are not aware of, and they would really be shocked.”

2,000 years ago things were not so strict. Coins and inscriptions on Nabataean tombs and monuments point to women’s independent status. Nabataean queens had coins minted in their name and showing their face. Today, male Saudi clerics expound at length on the complex rules over when women can and cannot reveal their faces.

Fassi was banned from teaching at King Saud University in 2001 for her research on pre-Islamic history, and arrested in late June 2018 as part of a crackdown on women's activists.  While in jail, she was awarded the Middle East Studies Association Academic Freedom Award for 2018, and released from jail in 2019.  

Sources:

Saudi Scholar Finds Ancient Women’s Rights - Reuters

The once-prosperous Arabian trading hub of Hegra (also known as Madain Saleh) has been abandoned and virtually untouched for the past 2,000 years. You might notice that it looks remarkably similar to another rock-cut city of Petra. That's because they were part of the same Nabataean kingdom. Petra was its main city and capital, and Hegra was its second most important city, its southern trading city.

The Nabataeans were desert nomads who leveraged their importance in trading routes to eventually control the incense and spice trade routes through Arabia and Jordan to the Mediterranean, Egypt, Syria and Mesopotamia. The Nabataeans used their wealth to build stupendous rock-cut buildings and tombs. Unfortunately they were an illiterate people. We have occasional comments on them from their literate neighbors, and scanty archaeological investigations. But we simply do not know that much about the mysterious people who built Hegra and Petra.From the 300s BCE to the 1st century CE, the Nabataeans remained wealthy and powerful in their desert kingdom, until the expanding Roman Empire annexed the kingdom and took over their trading routes.

Nabataean Women