The Mystical and Luxurious Kingdom of Nabataea: Traces Left Along the Mediterranean Coast
According to Live Science, the ruins discovered by archaeologists near the coast of Italy reveal an ancient temple established by people from the Nabataean Kingdom on the Arabian Peninsula around 2,000 years ago.
A publication in the scientific journal Antiquity reported that the remains of the temple include two ancient altars and marble slabs inscribed with text, buried under rubble of concrete and broken pottery.
Traces of a large city where the ancient Arabian temple was discovered near the coast – (Photo: LIVE SCIENCE).
“For me, this is one of the most surprising discoveries” – said Michele Stefanile, the lead author of the study and a maritime archaeologist at the Southern University Institute (Scuola Superiore Meridionale – Italy).
The temple is located off the coast of Pozzuoli, a town approximately 16 kilometers east of Naples.
During the Roman era, this area was home to a city named Puteoli, which had a significant trading port.
Volcanic activity over the centuries has dramatically altered the coastline at Pozzuoli, submerging and preserving about 2 kilometers of Roman warehouses and other buildings related to the ancient port.
Artifacts recovered from the sea since the 18th century indicated that a temple was buried, but its exact location remained unknown.
A study that began in 2023 aimed at mapping the seafloor in the area discovered two submerged rooms with walls in the Roman style.
Two white marble altars were found leaning against the walls of one room, both featuring several rectangular niches, which may have previously held sacred stones.
Each room also contained a marble slab inscribed with Latin text “Dusari sacrum,” meaning “dedicated to Dushara,” the chief deity in ancient Nabataean religion.
The Nabataean Kingdom stretched from northern Arabia to the eastern Mediterranean, with its capital at Petra, one of the New Seven Wonders of the World.
From the 4th to the 2nd century BCE, the Nabataeans controlled an increasingly prosperous trade network dealing in luxury goods such as spices, perfumes, gold, and ivory. Consequently, life in this ancient kingdom was extremely opulent.
