In ancient Eurasia, there were two well-known trade routes, the Silk Road and the Spice Route. For the latter, there was a people who had ruled the spice trade for a thousand years, and that nation was the Nabataeans.
The Nabataeans, like the Edomites, were one of two proto-Arab groups that settled in Palestine before the Persian era.
As early as 800 BC, the Nabataeans were able to travel farther away than other tribes because a genius discovered and learned how to use and store drinking water in a harsh living environment. This laid the groundwork for them to create an amazing trading network, the "Spice Route." The Nabataeans extended their trade routes from south to India, Ethiopia, and Yemen, and north to their warehouses in the Gulf of Naples, Italy, in the south.
The backbone of The Nabataean trading empire was the Dead Sea, a natural chemical plant that produced asphalt, grass alkali, bleached earth and other toxic ingredients. They used Jerusalem as a free port, or a warehouse like amazon.com. For goods imported from further afield, the city is a hub.
When the Nineveh were replaced by the Babylonian regime, a new city called Tayma rose up in the desert with the sole purpose of blocking the Nabataean trade routes.
Tayma ruins
Taxing the Nabataeans was not an additional subsidy or a marginal benefit: the entire empire was built on the wealth of the Nabataeans.
At the end of the 8th century BC, the governor of Jerusalem, Hezekiah, rebelled, and he was supported by Nabataean warriors.
According to the Neo-Assyrians, an Arab army in the Jerusalem garrison fought alongside Hezekiah's "mercenaries." The word "Arab" then referred exclusively to the Nabataeans.
In the 6th century BC, the Nabataean kingdom, with Petra as its capital, began to take shape. However, their network of trade routes is quite ancient, dating back to the 8th century BC.
The ancient city of Petra
The Nabateans were not only merchants, they enjoyed an unparalleled reputation as engineers: archaeologist Abraham Nagaif believed that the word Nabatean meant "water-finder."
Nabataean aqueducts and cisterns have been found in the Arabian Peninsula, the Negev, Jordan and Palestine. Its signature ingredient is a lime-based water-based hard cement that is a mixture of quicklime and silica. When this mixture comes into contact with water, a chemical reaction occurs, creating a waterproof barrier.
The Nabataeans smeared this stucco on the interior of cisterns they dug in remote, arid deserts, and then began to paint on the waterways and aqueducts they built to fill the cisterns.
The Aqueduct of the Nabataeans
Nabatai's chemists have found a way to make quicklime at relatively low temperatures, a big leap made with a pure, natural silica found in remote desert areas.
The key reason why few civilizations can master the manufacturing technology of water-hard cement is the need to produce highly pure silica.
The Greeks crushed clay pots to make them, which made their stucco uneven, like the Greek red caviar mud salad. The Romans ground The volcanic ash of Mount Etna, rich in silica, into powder.
Only the Nabataeans have readily available resources, and they are pure enough to make cement.
The Nabataeans kept their technology a strict secret, and their influence would not have been known today if it were not for the discovery of ancient cisterns.
During the Assyrian period, cisterns began to appear in Palestinian cities. In Beit Shemesh, for example, we see the construction of a well-connected reservoir system from the 8th century BC.
Around the same time, The fortress of Hezekiah was connected to a spring in Silwan via an underground pipe.
The presence of the Nabataean army in Jerusalem shows that they, as contractors, not only sell the latest municipal water supply systems, but also insist on implementing the technology as consultants.
To make effective use of reservoirs, it is not enough to dig them into the ground and paint them with waterproof stucco. It also requires a new approach to urban space, ensuring that surface runoff is channelled into reservoirs for storage. Every drop of rainwater that hits a city's roof, skims the sidewalk, and splashes into a ditch must flow into a cistern, requiring a fundamental rethinking of the city. That's why it makes sense to think of the Nabataeans as contractors, salesmen, or warriors.
So whenever a Palestinian city begins to structure its urban structure around reservoirs and water conservation, we see the Nabataeans.
In 106 AD, the Roman Emperor Trajan conquered Nabataë and incorporated his region into the Roman Empire, and the Nabateans subsequently disappeared into the long river of history.