Think outside the road: Negev connectivity beyond the ‘Nabatean incense route’

Abstract

This article examines the Negev road-economy from the rise of the Nabatean civilization to the Early Islamic period (3rd C. BCE – 9th C. CE), focusing on the region's complex commerce networks, which connected between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean basin and, more broadly, between east and west. We discuss the economy of goods-transportation within the system of Negev connectivity, and we propose to update the limiting boundary lines imposed by the title ‘The Nabatean Incense Route’ on the medium connecting between Aila, Petra and Gaza. Our main aims are: to emphasize the longevity of the system, which functioned long before and after the floruit of the Nabatean society; to highlight the wide and colorful array of participants – other than the Nabateans themselves – who were acting within the system for their respective commercial purposes; to demonstrate the wealth of goods which was transported by means of the system in both directions – far beyond incense or even spice and aromatics more broadly; and to show how transportation itself was carried out throughout the system along networks of roads and hubs, rather than through a single, linear road.