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Petra and Nabataean Foodways

Historical period

⚠ THE MOST CAREFULLY QUALIFIED ROW IN THIS FILE. The NABATAEANS built Petra and grew rich on the incense and spice caravans between southern Arabia, the Mediterranean and Egypt — FRANKINCENSE and MYRRH above all, and with them pepper and eastern spices transhipped through Gaza. Their documented achievement is WATER: dams, cisterns, rock-cut channels and terraced runoff farming that made agriculture possible on a few inches of rain, evidenced archaeologically across the Petra basin and the Negev. Archaeobotany and faunal remains record wheat, barley, grape, olive, fig, date, almond, sheep, goat and some pig; wine presses and pressing installations are excavated; and Strabo describes their dining customs, which is a Greek outsider’s account and is recorded as such. ⚠ AND THE RULE, WHICH THE SPEC STATES AND THIS ROW OBEYS: NO MODERN JORDANIAN DISH IS CALLED NABATAEAN. Mansaf is not Nabataean. Zarb is not Nabataean. Continuity of a PLACE and of some CROPS is not continuity of a cuisine, and no evidenced chain connects the two. What can honestly be said is that people have grown grapes, olives and barley in this landscape for two thousand years.

Atlas — where and when

Where in the world

Communities and languages

  • Nabataeans community documented

Languages: South Levantine Arabic

What is recorded

  • Nabataean prosperity rested on the incense and spice caravan trade, principally frankincense and myrrh, transhipped toward the Mediterranean. Their documented achievement is water management: dams, cisterns, rock-cut channels and terraced runoff farming evidenced archaeologically across the Petra basin and the Negev. Archaeobotany and faunal remains record wheat, barley, grape, olive, fig, date, almond, sheep, goat and some pig, and wine presses are excavated; Strabo’s account of their dining is recorded as an outsider source. No modern Jordanian dish is recorded as Nabataean: continuity of place and of crops is not continuity of cuisine and no evidenced chain connects them. documented
  • Nabataean Petra: caravan trade in incense and spices, and the water management — dams, cisterns, rock-cut channels and runoff terracing — that made agriculture possible on a few inches of rain. documented

Related foodways

This foodway relates to

  • related to Jordanian Cuisine possible

    ⚠ NO MODERN JORDANIAN DISH IS NABATAEAN. Continuity of a place and of some crops is not continuity of a cuisine, and no evidenced chain connects them.

Recipes

No recipes are filed under this cuisine yet.