The Nabataeans or Nabateans were ancient Arab people who inhabited northern Arabia and the southern Levant. Their settlements—most prominently the assumed capital city of Raqmu (present-day Petra, Jordan). The Nabateans emerged as a distinct civilization and political entity between the 4th and 2nd centuries BCE, with their kingdom centered around a loosely controlled trading network that brought considerable wealth and influence across the ancient world. Described as fiercely independent by contemporary Greco-Roman accounts, Emperor Trajan annexed the Nabataeans into the Roman Empire in 106 CE. Nabataeans’ culture, easily identified by their characteristic finely potted painted ceramics, was adopted into the larger Greco-Roman culture. They converted to Christianity during the Later Roman Era. Jane Taylor describes them as “one of the most gifted peoples of the ancient world”.
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