Nessana

Nessana,[1] Modern Hebrew name Nizzana,[2] also spelled Nitzana (Hebrew: ניצנה), is an ancient Nabataean city located in the southwest Negev desert in Israel close to the Egyptian border. It started by being a caravan station on the ancient Incense Road, protecting a western branch of the road which allowed access to Egypt to the west via the Sinai, and to Beersheba, Hebron and Jerusalem to the northeast.[1] It was first used by Nabataean merchants, and later also by Christian pilgrims.[1]

Nessana
ניצנה
Tel Nizana
Nessana is located in Israel
Nessana
Shown within Israel
LocationSouthern District, Israel
RegionNegev
Coordinates30°52′34.03″N 34°25′58.20″E
TypeSettlement
History
Founded1st century BCE
Abandoned7th century CE
CulturesNabataean, Roman, Byzantine

Nessana was among the earlier Nabataean towns of the Negev, established as caravan stations in the late the 4th or the early 3rd century BCE,[1] annexed in 106 CE by the Romans, who garrisoned the site, and inhabited by Byzantine Christians from the fourth century at the latest, until after the Arab Muslim conquest of the seventh century. Relatively few stones remain at the site because most were recycled into buildings in Gaza throughout the centuries.

Nessana papyri

During excavations in 1935–37,[3] a major trove of sixth- and seventh-century papyri in Greek, Latin, Arabic, Nabataean, and Syriac[4] was discovered at this site, revealing a wealth of information about day-to-day life in Nabataean society between 505 and 689 CE, the last phase of Byzantine administration and the earliest phase of Arabic Islam. The papyri make this the best-documented of all the old Nabataean sites in the Negev.[5] The find sites were two store rooms in the ruined Church of Mary Mother of God and of the soldier saints Sergius and Bacchus. Private documents, such as wills, greatly outnumber official ones: a fragmentary text of Virgil and a Latin-Greek glossary of the Aeneid, fragments of the Gospel of John and early seventh-century church archives and the personal papers of a "George, son of Patrick", on the one hand, and archives of the military unit, "Numerus of the Most Loyal Theodosians" on the other.[6] Onomastics show that the largely Nabataean inhabitants of the city had become Christianized and Romanized in the early centuries CE, as well as documenting the arrival of a Byzantine phylarchate.[7] Many names of ancient cities in the Negev come only from these documents. One of the last of the papyri describes coinage struck and soldiers employed by 'Abd al-Malik, replacing the Roman institutions with a new Umayyad power structure.[8]


Nitzana (Nabataean city) - aerial view

Byzantine tombstone inscription

In January 2021, archaeologists from the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) announced the discovery of a tombstone dating back 1,400 years with a Greek inscription by an employee of the Israel Nature and Parks Authority at Nitzana National Park in the Negev desert. On the Christian woman's stone named Maria these words were written: 'Blessed Maria who lived an immaculate life'.[9][10][11]

  • German-Turkish hospital (1906-1917) built on ruins of Byzantine fort at Nizana. Note battle damage.
    German-Turkish hospital (1906-1917) built on ruins of Byzantine fort at Nizana. Note battle damage.
  • Remains of a Byzantine church at Nizana.
    Remains of a Byzantine church at Nizana.
  • Ancient petroglyphs near Tel Nizana.
    Ancient petroglyphs near Tel Nizana.

See also

References
  1. Negev, Avraham; Gibson, Shimon (2001). Nessana; Auja el-Hafir. pp. 367–368. ISBN 0-8264-1316-1. Retrieved 25 July 2021. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
  2. "Byzantine Tombstone Discovered in Negev". 11 January 2021.
  3. Excavations recommenced in 1987 under the direction of Dan Urman of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. Contents of Excavations at Nessana, I (Harris Dunscombe Colt, ed. London, 1962); II, Literary Papyri (Lional Casson and Ernest L. Hettich, eds. Princeton, 1950.
  4. Stroumsa, Rachel. Greek and Arabic in Nessana. In: Documents and the History of the Early Islamic World, pp. 143–157. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004284340_010. Full text, accessed 25 July 2021.
  5. Irfan Shahîd, Byzantium and the Arabs in the Fifth Century, 1989:143: "III The Nessana Papyri".
  6. Contents of Excavations at Nessana, I (Harris Dunscombe Colt, ed. London, 1962); II, Literary Papyri (Lional Gasson and Ernest L. Hettich, eds. Princeton, 1950); III, Non-Literary Papyri Caspar J. Kraemer, ed. (Princeton, 1960); very brief summaries in Jodi Magness, The Archaeology of the Early Islamic Settlement in Palestine, vol. I: "Agriculture in the Nessana papyri" 2003:90f and Shahid 1989:143.
  7. Shahîd, Irfan (1989). Byzantium and the Arabs in the fifth century. Dumbarton Oaks. p. 143. ISBN 9780884021520.
  8. Hoffman, Eva Rose F. (2007). Late antique and medieval art of the Mediterranean world. Wiley-Blackwell. p. 91. ISBN 9781405120715.
  9. staff, T. O. I. "'Blessed Maria who lived immaculate life': Ancient tombstone found at Negev park". www.timesofisrael.com. Retrieved 2021-01-22.
  10. Gershon, Livia. "A Tombstone Inscribed in Ancient Greek Is Found in Southern Israel". Smithsonian Magazine. Retrieved 2021-01-22.
  11. "Archaeologists find Byzantine tombstone inscribed 'Blessed Maria' in Israel". Haaretz. Retrieved 2021-01-22.
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