Nabataeans, so-called Umayyads, and the Lycians

by Damien F. Mackey “… it is not surprising to postulate that the Nabataeans reached Lycia which is located within the Mediterranean basin, an area which had close links with the Nabataeans”. Zeyad al-Salameen The so-called Umayyad Caliphate, which is customarily dated to c. 660-750 AD, has been exposed by genuine archaeology as belonging, instead, to the approximate time of Jesus Christ. On this, see e.g. my article: Dumb and Dumbfounded archaeology (5) Dumb and Dumbfounded archaeology This is also the era of the highly influential Nabataeans, whom professor Gunnar Heinsohn (RIP) had actually identified as Umayyad. On this, see e.g. my article: Supposed C7th-C8th AD Umayyads belong to the Roman Nabataean era (5) Supposed C7th C8th AD Umayyads belong to the Roman Nabataean era The implications of this Umayyad revision, if correct, are mind-bogglingly enormous. In one stroke, stratigraphical archaeology will have wiped out (1) the traditional Mohammed (as a C7th AD character); (2) the closely associated Rashidun Caliphate; and, of course, (3) the Umayyad Caliphate: Oh my, the Umayyads! Deconstructing the Caliphate (5) Oh my, the Umayyads! Deconstructing the Caliphate Obviously this is sufficient to take out traditional Islam at its very roots! Money had nothing to do with the Fall of the Golden Age of Islamic intellectualism, because there never, ever, was such a Golden Age. THE FALL OF THE GOLDEN AGE OF ISLAM – It’s All About the Money. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8P6V_AXqCMU On this, see e.g. my article: Melting down the fake Golden Age of Islamic intellectualism (2) Melting down the fake Golden Age of Islamic intellectualism Whoops, there goes the famous Abbasid Caliphate (c. 750-1260 AD, conventional dating) as well! And there goes Baghdad Madinat al-Salam (“City of Peace”) along with it: Original Baghdad was Jerusalem (2) Original Baghdad was Jerusalem From I Maccabees 5:24-25 we learn that the Nabataeans were contemporaneous with the Jewish Maccabees: Judas Maccabeus and his brother Jonathan crossed the Jordan and made three days’ journey into the wilderness. They encountered the Nabateans, who met them peaceably and told them all that had happened to their kindred in Gilead. Though the Maccabees are conventionally dated to c. 170 BC, significantly before the time of Jesus Christ, I, however, would have Judas Maccabeus as an older contemporary of the Christ Child: Shepherds of Bethlehem and the five Maccabees (3) Shepherds of Bethlehem and the five Maccabees Lycian connection Zeyad al-Salameen has written about “THE NABATAEANS AND LYCIANS” as follows: (3) The Nabataeans and Lycians …. In 2003 the author had the opportunity to discuss the Nabataean relations with other people with professor John Healey who hinted that there was a possible link between the Lycians, who inhabited the southwestern parts of Anatolia by the early first millennium and spoke an Indo-European language and the Nabataeans, who had settled in the northern part of Arabia around the fifth-fourth centuries B.C. (for the geographical locations of Nabataea and Lycia, see, Map 1). This paper will try, therefore, to comprehend this possible link archaeologically. Before we proceed we should identify the Lycians and Nabataeans. WHO WERE THE LYCIANS? The "Lycians" is a name given to the people who inhabited Lycia which is located on the southwestern coast of Asia Minor in Anatolia. It is mentioned in many historical sources. Herodotus states that the Lycians came from Crete under Serapedon, probably through Miletus (Histories 1). They were named after Lycus, the son of Pandion II, king of Athens who was exiled by his brother Aegeus and settled among the Termilae (The Geography of Strabo 14:3.10). Homer states that the Lycian contingent fighting at Troy was said to have been led by two esteemed warriors: Sarpedon and Glaucus (Iliad II). I Macc. 15:23 mentions that Lycia was among the recipients of a letter from the Roman consul Lucius Piso in the second century B.C. regarding the Roman alliance with the Jews. Lycia was under the control of the Persian Empire in 546 B.C. when one of the generals of Cyrus II conquered Asia Minor and they ruled Lycia until 468 BC. Later, it was conquered by Alexander the Great in 333 BC. In 309 BC Ptolemy took over Lycia and during this period Greek culture, art and language were adopted by the Lycians. In 197 B.C. Antiochus III conquered Lycia and the Lycians were granted freedom in 169 BC. Lycia became a Roman province in 46 A.D. Under the Roman rule, Lycia enjoyed relative independence until the time of Augustus (for more details see, Childe 1981: 55-80). The remaining ruins include many rock-cut tombs and dating from the 5th Century B.C. The Lycians cut their tombs in the rock and these tombs bear inscriptions (see for example Schweyer 2002). Almost all the tomb inscriptions are written in two different languages: Greek, which can be dated to the first three centuries of the Roman Empire and Lycian, which are older that the Greek and can be dated to the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. (Pembroke 1965:218). WHO WERE THE NABATAEANS? They were a group of Arabian tribes who settled in Northern Arabia and the southern parts of the Levant during the fifth-fourth centuries B.C. During the period between the second century B.C. and the first century A.D. they established a kingdom that covered modern Jordan, northern Arabia, southern Syria and southern Palestine. Their kingdom came to an end in A.D. 106 when it was annexed to the Roman Empire by Trajan (Bowersock 1970: 37-47) Mackey’s comment: But see my proposed earlier dating of Trajan: Hadrianus Traianus Caesar - Trajan transmutes to Hadrian (3) Hadrianus Traianus Caesar - Trajan transmutes to Hadrian Zeyad al-Salameen continues: Petra, the Nabataeans' capital, was an active commercial metropolis receiving goods from various producers such as Arabia, India, East Africa and China. These commodities were then to be distributed to other nations. Archaeological fieldworks in Nabataea provide ample evidence for international and regional interaction. Pottery, coins and inscriptions have been found outside Nabataea including Southern Arabia, the Arabia Gulf, the Mediterranean basin and Italy (For more details see al-Salameen 2004: 45ff). Eastwards the Nabataeans probably reached India, China and Charax. Westwards they reached Greece and Rome and northwards they seem to have reached Phoenicia and Anatolia, as we shall discuss below. Nabataeans are known as merchants who worked as middlemen who controlled and monopolized the trade of aromatics, which were highly prized by the ancients. These commodities were highly esteemed by the Romans, Greeks, Chinese, Charecenes and possibly the Lycians. The location of Nabataean and Lycia both help to flourish this trade. Nabataea’s strategic location made it a bridge between the "producers" and the "consumers" of these merchandises. Additionally, the main incense trade passed via these territories. Lycia, on the other hand, was located on the main trade routes between Cyprus and the Levant in the east; Greece and the Anatolian coast in the west; and Egypt to the south (Keen 1998: 31-33). It is located also close to the Greek islands which witnessed Nabataean activities (see map 1). A bilingual inscription was found in Miletus which is not far away from Lycia and dedicated by Syllaeus the Nabataean Minister during his visit to Rome during the last decade of the first century B.C.(Figure 1) (Cantineau 1978:46) Another dated Nabataean inscription was found in Cos island and dedicated the construction of a temple to the goddess al-‘Uzza (Roche 1996:79). Traces of a bilingual Nabataean-Greek inscription have also been discovered in Delos (Schmid 2004: 415-426). The letters of this inscription are somewhat unclear and only a few words can be read and refer to the Nabataean minister Syllaeus of Obodas and probably mention the Nabataean god Dushara (Figure 2) (Roche 1996:83-84). …. In the light of the aforementioned evidence it is not surprising to postulate that the Nabataeans reached Lycia which is located within the Mediterranean basin, an area which had close links with the Nabataeans. The legacy of the Nabataeans is mostly represented in religious heritage. Nabataean tombs and temples are scattered in many areas of their cities which indicate that religion and afterlife played an integral role in their belief. In this article I am not going to go into these aspects but will try to shed some light on the Nabataean tomb inscriptions and their similarities to the Lycian sepulchral inscriptions. Additionally, this paper will try to measure the range of Nabataean-Lycian architectural influence especially in terms of tomb architecture. ….