Travel and Religion in Antiquity

XI: Religion and the Nomadic Lifestyle: The Nabateans

215 XI Religion and the Nomadic Lifestyle:The Nabateans Michele Murray BISHOP’S UNIVERSITY, SHERBROOKE, QUEBEC If you have visited a Middle Eastern country, you likely have seen them, their skin leathery from the sun, leading their flocks to fertile pasture. Off in the distance, perhaps you noticed their tents dotting the hills, serving as temporary shelter from the elements. Nomads, “indigenous people who under[take] regular, cyclical migrations in order to pursue pastoralism ,” are a prominent feature of Middle Eastern life today, and they were a significant presence in the past as well (Donner 1989: 75). Their influence on Near Eastern society has been profound. Transient and often evasive figures whose mobile lifestyle creates around them a mysterious, romantic aura, they have had a considerable impact on economic, social, political, and religious spheres of life in the Near East. “Nomadic life” may entail a “rhythmic, even predictable nature of movement in response to seasonal changes in pasture” and a “lack of a permanent , fixed habitation, and regular contact with settled people, especially villagers, in the course of their annual migratory cycle” (75). Nomads’ 216 M A K I N G A L I V I N G lives need to be portable, but within this portability there is great diversity in terms of lifestyle. In fact, “contemporary observation demonstrates that there are varieties of mobile pastoralism. Many households may combine it with agriculture or hunting or fishing, and those who spend the summer in tents may return to solid houses in winter” (West 2002: 449). Indeed, if we think of “nomadic” and “sedentary” as the opposing ends of a lifestyle spectrum , many modern groups fall somewhere in between (Donner 1989: 75). This wide spectrum of lifestyles was likewise manifested among nomadic peoples living in the ancient world. It is now understood that certain nomadic groups of late antiquity experienced changes in their lifestyles, at times falling closer to the “nomadic” end of the spectrum and at times closer to the “sedentary” end. Scholars also recognize that relations between nomads and settled peoples were far more variegated than earlier thought; for example, the two often depended on each other for economic sustenance. Indeed, the understanding of the relationship between nomads and settled peoples as one of constant tension and competition between “the desert and the sown” is now considered far too simplistic . Nomads’ travels and interactions with other peoples within the ancient world brought them into contact with a variety of cultures and traditions , leading to an exchange of traditions and styles that affected every aspect of life, including how they interacted with the gods. This chapter focuses on these religious aspects of life among the Nabatean peoples. The Nabateans were a Semitic people on the Arabian Peninsula during the Greco-Roman period. Their lifestyle as caravaneers, and the remarkable beauty of their capital city of Petra, have stirred scholarly interest and imagination. Two features of Nabatean existence have received particular attention: their nomadic lifestyle as traders, on the one hand, and their religious behaviour, on the other, especially as reflected in the archaeological data that continue to be uncovered at Petra. For the most part, however , scholarship has focused on these issues separately. This study proposes bringing these two foci together by addressing the following question: “How is the mobile lifestyle of the Nabateans reflected in their religious behaviours?” We begin our exploration by discussing what is known about the Nabateans and their origins from ancient writers and from archaeological remains. Using these same resources, we will then describe artifacts and activities associated with Nabatean interactions with their gods. Here I highlight the ways in which their nomadic– – more accurately, semi-nomadic – –lifestyle affected their religious behaviours and is reflected in those behaviours. R E L I G I O N A N D T H E N O M A D I C L I F E S T Y L E / M U R R AY 217 Nabateans As Jane Taylor (2002) suggests, the origins of the Nabateans “remain as hazy as a desert sandstorm” (14). The consensus among scholars is that they were Arabs whose earliest settlements were in southern Jordan and Palestine. There are a variety of theories, however, regarding their geographic origins prior to arrival in Jordan and Palestine. Some scholars argue that they came from southwest of theArabian Peninsula, from modern -day Yemen. The problem with this is that the Nabatean...