Jason Dodge
They carved a rose-red city out of the desert rock, controlled the incense roads between Arabia and the Mediterranean, and kept water flowing where no one else could. The Nabataeans traded with Greeks and Romans, dealt with Herod and Cleopatra, and ruled from Petra and Hegra until Rome annexed their kingdom in AD 106.This illustrated history follows the evidence from desert camps to Roman province: caravans and cisterns, tombs and temples, homes and food, gods and sacred stones, inscriptions in a script that became Arabic, and the rediscovery of Petra. It treats competing theories fairly and keeps them separate from what inscriptions, outside writers and excavations can prove.Each of its sixty chapters ends with The Historian’s Verdict, which grades what is well established, probable, disputed or unknown. Appendices give a timeline, the people in the book, a reader’s guide to the evidence, a glossary, Nabataean words and names, and places to visit.The evidence is laid out. The reader decides.
