Nessana , Modern Hebrew name Nizzana , 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. It was first used by Nabataean merchants, and later also by Christian pilgrims.
10-581: Nitzana (Hebrew: נִצָּנָה ) may refer to: Nessana , a city of the ancient Nabataeans located in the Negev desert in Israel Nitzana, Israel , a communal settlement near the ruins of the Nabataean city Nitzana Border Crossing , a border crossing between Israel and Egypt See also [ edit ] Ashdod Nitzanim Sand Dune Park Nitzan ,
20-514: A communal settlement in southern Israel located among the Nitzanim sand dunes north of Ashkelon Nitzanei Sinai , a communal settlement also known as Kadesh Barne'a after the Exodus station of that name. Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Nitzana . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change
30-515: The Negev desert . On the Christian woman's stone named Maria, these words were written: 'Blessed Maria who lived an immaculate life'. Phylarch A phylarch ( Greek : φύλαρχος , Latin : phylarchus ) is a Greek title meaning "ruler of a tribe", from phyle , "tribe" + archein "to rule". In Classical Athens , a phylarch was the elected commander of the cavalry provided by each of
40-468: The centuries. During excavations in 1935–37, a major trove of sixth- and seventh-century papyri in Greek, Latin, Arabic, Nabataean , and Syriac 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
50-566: The city's ten tribes . During the Hellenistic period , the term had its literal meaning as head of a tribe. It seemed to apply to Arabs who commanded tribes, essentially the equivalent to " sheikh ". This usage continued in the later Roman Empire of the 4th to 7th centuries, where the title was given to the leading princes of the Empire's Arab allies in the East, both those settled within
60-449: The link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nitzana&oldid=1255204866 " Categories : Disambiguation pages Place name disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Articles containing Hebrew-language text Short description is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Nessana Nessana
70-548: The old Nabataean sites in the Negev. 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 "George, son of Patrick", on
80-476: The one hand, and the archives of the military unit, "Numerus of the Most Loyal Theodosians" on the other. 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 . Many names of ancient cities in the Negev come only from these documents. One of the last of
90-628: The papyri describes coinage struck and soldiers employed by 'Abd al-Malik , replacing the Roman institutions with a new Umayyad power structure. 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
100-603: Was among the earlier Nabataean towns of the Negev, established as caravan stations in the late the 4th or the early 3rd century BCE, 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
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