The Religion of the Nabataeans: A Conspectus

The history of the Nabataean Kingdom of Hellenistic-Roman times is centered on Petra. The Nabataean religion is known principally from inscriptions in Nabataean Aramaic, iconography, archaeology and Greek literary texts. After a critical survey of the sources, the author analyzes systematically the information on the individual gods worshipped by the Nabataeans, including a detailed illustrated account of temples and iconography. A further major section discusses religious themes: aniconism, henotheism, death-cult and the divinization of kings. In a final chapter, Nabataean religion is considered in relation to Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The book should be of particular interest to historians of religion in the Graeco-Roman Near East and to Semitic epigraphists.