Underwater archaeologists looking simply off the western Mediterranean coast of the town of Pozzuoli in central Italy found the stays of a submerged 2,000-year-old Nabatean temple devoted to their god Dushara. What they discovered particularly have been two Roman marble altars, which linked the temple to the interval when Nabataeans have been residing freely on the Phlegrean Peninsula 125 miles (200 km) south of Italy’s capital metropolis, in territory absolutely managed by the Roman Empire. 

The Nabataeans have been an Arab tribal group who lived as wandering nomads within the deserts of the Arabian Peninsula within the first few centuries of the primary millennium. However as soon as they’d shaped sufficient alliances amongst themselves to determine their very own kingdom, they started to quiet down and commit themselves to commerce and commerce.

The Nabataean Kingdom shaped a voluntary alliance with Rome within the late first century BC, formally launching an affiliation that might final for the subsequent a number of centuries (though the Nabataeans misplaced their independence to the Roman Empire within the early second century).

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It’s identified {that a} thriving neighborhood of Nabataeans may very well be discovered within the now submerged historical metropolis of Puteoli, which was situated adjoining to modern-day Pozzuoli. Throughout Rome’s Imperial period the Nabataean Kingdom selected to determine a base of operations on the Italian coast, and Puteoli was most engaging to those trade-minded folks as a result of it was the most important industrial port within the Roman Mediterranean.

The invention of the spiritual complicated within the sunken ruins of previous Puteoli helps confirm that the Nabataeans continued to honor their god Dushara as soon as they’d settled on Roman territory, at the very least for a time.

The traditional Macellum or market constructing of the Roman metropolis of Puteoli, the place a Nabatean temple has been found below the ocean. (Maurizio De Mattei / Adobe Inventory)

The Origins and Historical past of the Nabataeans

The Nabataeans first emerged as an identifiable folks with a sophisticated tradition between the fourth and second centuries BC. They’d lived within the desert areas of Arabia and the southern Levant for a number of centuries earlier than this, surviving as an untamed nomadic group that someway thrived in an impossibly arid atmosphere.

They have been identified to, and had interactions with, each the Babylonians and the Neo-Assyrian Empire within the first millennium BC. However they weren’t conquered by both of those kingdoms, protected as they have been by an inhospitable desert the place others feared to tread.

As they started to extend in inhabitants within the third century BC, they shaped a free confederation of varied teams that in the end turned the Nabataean Kingdom. This kingdom, which grew affluent by means of the vigorous commerce networks it created and nurtured within the area, ultimately prolonged its vary of management and affect all through the Arabian and Sinai Peninsulas and deeply into the Levant. Its capital Petra was situated in what’s now southern Jordan, and that metropolis’s inhabitants grew to over 20,000 as a consequence of its improvement into a significant regional buying and selling middle.

The Nabataeans have been identified for his or her fierceness and dedication to stay impartial, and so they proved to be a tricky opponent to defeat in battle. Whereas they initially clashed with the Romans, by the primary century AD they’d shaped a robust alliance with the Roman Empire, which boosted their industrial prospects and made them extra affluent than ever.

Sadly, the Romans proved to be a treacherous ally in the long term. In 106 AD the Roman emperor Trajan despatched his armies in to annex all Nabataean Kingdom lands, which he was in a position to do as a result of the Nabataeans had turn out to be much less warlike and nomadic, and extra settled and centered on agricultural and industrial improvement, over the previous three centuries.

For the primary time in 1,000 years, the Nabataean folks have been not impartial. Their cultural practices have been profoundly impacted by Roman affect from that time on, a lot in order that they first deserted their language in favor of Greek, and later rejected Dushara utterly after they transformed to Christianity.

The Nabateans gained a popularity as a gifted and proficient folks, with a wealthy tradition and the talents essential to provide a bounty of engaging items for buying and selling. Their painted ceramic pottery was particularly prized, and was distributed all all through the area alongside the commerce routes they’d arrange. Even after their lands had been seized by Trajan and their kingdom had been changed into the Roman province of Arabia Petraea, the Nabateans continued to dominate commerce within the area.

Stays of the Nabatean temple which was found underwater in historical Puteoli. (The Ministry of Culture of Italy)

Puteoli’s Nabatean Temple: A Legacy Found Beneath the Sea

The invention of the Roman marble altars represents the fruits of a joint archaeological analysis challenge that started in late 2021. Underwater archaeologists from two universities in Naples (the College of Campania Vanvitelli and Scuola Superiore Meridionale), supported by the Superintendency of Archaeology, Nice Arts and Panorama for the Metropolitan Space of Naples, have now been looking for artifacts from Roman instances within the sunken metropolis of Puteoli ever since.

The newest discovery represents their most fun discover but. “Historic Puteoli reveals one other of its treasures, which testifies to the richness and vastness of business, cultural and non secular exchanges within the Mediterranean basin within the historical world,” declared Italy’s Minister of Tradition Gennaro Sangiuliano, in an announcement of the invention of the Nabataean temple put out by his company. 

This isn’t the primary proof of the Nabataean presence in Puteoli that has been discovered. Within the 18th century, searchers discovered an altar and two cult bases whereas exploring the underwater ruins of the submerged metropolis.

On the bases they discovered an inscription that recognized the location as “Holy to Dushara.” This deity was completely worshipped by the Nabataeans, which revealed the reality about their presence within the historical Roman port metropolis. Additional affirmation of Nabataean residency was found at across the similar time, when archaeologists unearthed a big bust of Dushara close to Pozzuoli.

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Underwater ruins believed to have belonged to a Nabataean temple have been initially noticed in aerial pictures taken within the Nineteen Seventies. However solely with this new discovery has it been potential to put the temple at a exact location within the sunken metropolis, exhibiting the place precisely folks congregated to worship a god that no different folks acknowledged.

Along with pinning down the true location of the underwater Nabataean temple, the most recent explorations have additionally enabled the identification of different constructions relationship to Roman instances. This contains warehouses, administrative buildings, smaller constructions that served unknown functions and the axes of roads constructed inside Puteoli. Conceivably, extra Nabataean ruins may very well be situated in the identical common space. If they’re, future explorations will undoubtedly discover them.

Prime picture: Underwater archaeologists throughout excavations of the sunken Nabatean temple. Supply: The Ministry of Culture of Italy

By Nathan Falde