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00:16I've travelled to an ancient kingdom, a land once ruled by a desert people.
00:30They're called the Nabateans, and this is one of their finest cities.
00:36The ancient site of Hegra rose out of the deserts of northwest Saudi Arabia in the first century BCE,
00:44filled with homes, holy places and towering rock-cut tombs.
00:54Now Hegra is the frontline of research into the Nabatean world.
01:04Everything here was built on the trade of one of history's most luxurious treasures.
01:12Heady, potent, incense.
01:22I'm here to experience an ancient treasure that's been burnt in sacred rituals for thousands of years.
01:29It was worth so much, it sparked wars of conquest, it made merchants eye-wateringly rich,
01:38and it helped to build one of the most fascinating civilisations in the ancient world,
01:44right here in the deserts of Arabia.
01:52I'm on a mission, on the journey of a lifetime, to discover the Nabatean world.
02:00An epic quest, from the historic settlements of Al-Ula in Saudi Arabia,
02:07and the wonder of Petra in Jordan.
02:13To Greek islands like Kos, and the Bay of Naples in Italy.
02:23With a network of world-class researchers, we'll be analysing brand new evidence.
02:30Oh, look at this.
02:32Testing exciting theories, revealing new finds.
02:38You're making history, McKaylee, by what you're discovering here.
02:42And exploring uncharted territory.
02:46Oh, you can see it!
02:47All to start to reconstruct the Nabatean world.
02:51This is like a kind of postcard from the past.
02:56One in a million chance of finding a bit of pottery.
02:59That is awesome.
03:02They shared their world with some of the greatest characters in history.
03:07Queen Cleopatra, Roman emperors, Herod the Great.
03:12We'll learn from people whose heritage reaches back through the centuries,
03:16to this pivotal age.
03:18Oh, it's great to be back.
03:20You look well.
03:21Yeah.
03:22Still alive.
03:22Still alive.
03:28I'm going to rediscover this overlooked culture,
03:32reveal how it still shapes our world,
03:36and try to solve the riddle of their mysterious fate.
03:41I want to bring them from the edges back to the centre of history,
03:46where they belong.
03:49These geniuses of history, who called themselves the Nabatu,
03:59are the key to a lost world.
04:22Now I'm on a real quest to explain the rise of the Nabataeans,
04:28from a resourceful, nomadic desert tribe, to a people who controlled one of the richest kingdoms in the ancient world.
04:38A culture capable of creating entire cities out of desert earth and rock.
04:49I started in the Nabataean city of Hegra, a hub of cutting edge archaeology, revealing new details about their world.
04:58An ancient settlement we've reimagined and reconstructed using the latest research,
05:04where I've explored fresh discoveries that reveal how they built their kingdom.
05:09This coin is for Cleopatra.
05:12She's one of the most famous women of all time, let alone the ancient world.
05:17And learned how their legacy endures.
05:21We changed the civilisation name, but still the people are here.
05:25Yes, yeah, amazing.
05:30Next, I want to trace their epic trade routes, crossing close on 4,000 miles across three continents.
05:39Desert odysseys through these lands nourished the Nabataean world.
05:45But their winding ways were never mapped.
05:57The Nabataeans can seem elusive, because they didn't write loads down.
06:03They didn't lionise themselves in epic histories.
06:07But do you know what? That can be a sign, not of weakness, but of strength.
06:12It's almost as though they felt they didn't need to define themselves against others.
06:17They have this kind of innate, charismatic confidence.
06:25Because their own texts are thin on the ground, evidence like graffiti, inscriptions,
06:32and the enduring monuments in sites like Hegra are key to deciphering Nabataean culture.
06:39Cities with incredible tombs like these don't pop up out of nowhere.
06:45For this oasis hub to flourish, there had to be a bustling, thriving economy.
06:51Roman texts mention huge Nabataean trade caravans.
06:56Camels laden with precious cargo crossing these endless sands.
07:03So I want to understand what life was really like for nomadic traders arriving at an outpost like Hegra.
07:13My team and I have been delving into the latest research, and I'm keen to find out more from Nabataean
07:19expert,
07:21archaeologist Leila Naimi.
07:23It's an incredible place, this.
07:25I mean, it's just, it's so exciting to explore.
07:28But I'm just trying to imagine what it's like for ancient visitors who come in.
07:33You know, do you think there's a kind of system of passage?
07:36Do they have to pay to get in? Do they have to meet the authorities?
07:39How does that work?
07:41First, one has to be aware that the animals did not go inside the city.
07:47They would be parked outside.
07:49And the five gates of the city, we identified them, and they were certainly guarded.
07:56Imagine you've been traveling for eight days, okay, in the desert, eating dates and drinking she-camel milk.
08:04And you get to a city with palm trees, it's green, it's clean, you have people around.
08:10It gives a feeling of, wow.
08:13Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, like a relief.
08:15I guess so, also, it's fresh blood, it's fresh people.
08:19You know, you might be there chatting, sharing news, exchanging ideas.
08:23Yes, and the traders would meet in places like this, which are major caravan stops.
08:27What a place! And I've got to ask you one thing.
08:30Yes.
08:30So, we've got these caravans, we've got the traders, we've got the businessmen.
08:33What about the women?
08:35Because if a lot of the men are away trading, do you think they've got a kind of particular status
08:40or standing here?
08:41I mean, I would compare it to the rule women had during the First World War, when most men were
08:48at war.
08:48So, they had to take things in charge.
08:50We have the evidence for the fact that they could own tombs, they could own palm groves,
08:57and what is even more important than just owning them, they could have their children inherit from them.
09:04The fact that a woman can have her children inherit from her is a step much more important than the
09:12possibility of owning.
09:14Yeah, you've got accumulated wealth.
09:16It's so exciting, because what you're painting a picture of is this really cosmopolitan place.
09:22It's not remote.
09:23You know, you can sort of think it was in the desert, so it's a remote place, but it's almost
09:26the opposite.
09:26You know, that's the opposite, and I mean, the Nabateans are exactly a symbol of the opposite of secluded people.
09:34The number of scripts and languages that one can see in Hegra.
09:38You've got Nabatean, you have ancient North Arabian, which is something completely different.
09:43You've got Greek, you've got Latin, so that's already quite a lot.
09:47Yeah, it is, it is. What a place.
09:51Ten different languages have been identified from ancient inscriptions throughout the region of Alula,
09:58which must mean merchants passing through Hegra were coming from right across the ancient map.
10:06But I want to know exactly what they're trading and how they're travelling through this epic landscape.
10:17The rolling desert wadis are notoriously difficult to navigate. Endless arteries of sandy trails.
10:28To get a glimpse into the lives of the ancient peoples who passed through here, I need some local knowledge.
10:35Hamat al-Anazi was born and raised in Al-Ula.
10:39With the help of his sons, he's identified and documented over 50,000 clues carved into the rock.
10:49Many predating the Nabateans.
10:52Proof that the deep human history on these trails goes back thousands of years.
11:08Well, that was a pretty extraordinary journey. I mean, we've been going for miles.
11:13I have absolutely no idea how Hamat directed us here, but he's buzzed off because I think this is what
11:22he's wanting to show me.
11:23And I can see them. Look, I can see. They're inscriptions. This is incredible.
11:33There's Hassan's story here, isn't there? What's that happening here? They're more...
11:39There's Hassan's story here, isn't there? What's that happening here?
11:41There's Hassan's story here, isn't there?
11:43There's Hassan's story here, isn't there?
11:44Yes.
11:45It is.
11:46Uh-huh.
11:51Oh.
11:57Oh.
11:57Oh.
11:58Oh, this is brilliant.
11:59Oh, I know what this is.
12:01Hamat, you have made my mirror.
12:04Are you sure?
12:04Yeah.
12:05So this is like a game.
12:07OK.
12:07So we can imagine them sitting here, playing a game.
12:10They've done their incredible art on the wall.
12:12And now they're just hanging, doing...
12:14It's a kind of...
12:15It's almost a version of a thing that's called mankala now,
12:19that you still get a lot in different places, in Africa particularly.
12:22So this is them hanging out, enjoying themselves.
12:26I've seen this game across the Nabataean world, even at Petra.
12:31It suggests that we're on some kind of an ancient desert superhighway.
12:39Nearby is one of the most extraordinary sites in the Arabian Peninsula.
12:45This is Jabal Ikhmah.
12:51An open-air library, stuffed with clues left by ancient travellers.
12:59All astonishingly preserved.
13:05It's just amazing round here.
13:08Because it's not only the rock on that leaves a trail.
13:12Some of these surfaces are thick with inscriptions,
13:17with prayers, with heartfelt thanks to the gods,
13:21and with records of some of the journeys that carve their way through this land.
13:27These are travellers, just like me,
13:31speaking to us from the past.
13:34More than 300 inscriptions
13:38in several different ancient languages,
13:40dating back over two and a half thousand years.
13:50And I've had a new lead come in.
13:53The latest evidence from a nearby site called Um Jadiah.
13:58More carved messages, this time in the Nabataean script.
14:05So we sent a researcher off to scout for some inscriptions there.
14:11And they've sent back something quite incredible.
14:14So just listen to this.
14:16May any man who went to Hegra and any camel be safe,
14:21and may Judayu, the son of Gab, son of Hayu, be safe.
14:26So not only is this telling us that people are going there
14:29and wishing for the safety of camel drivers and their caravans of camels,
14:33but also one generation after the other are going
14:37and leaving their mark on these rocks.
14:42And there's something else.
14:43So see this lovely, curving, looping script that's used in the inscriptions.
14:49It might seem familiar, and that's because it is.
14:53Because the Nabataean script that was used
14:56became the basis of all Arabic writing.
15:00So a script that's used by many hundreds of millions around the world today.
15:22If we take a map of all the carvings
15:25found by research teams in this region so far,
15:28and then if we place all the Nabataean inscriptions
15:32uncovered on that map,
15:34a pattern becomes clear.
15:36An ancient trail leading south to north.
15:40This is the Darb al-Bakra,
15:43connecting Hegra to the Nabataean capital of Petra.
15:48Routes like this were the backbone of the Nabataean's wealth.
15:52An ancient trail for merchants trading
15:56one of antiquity's most expensive goods,
15:59frankincense.
16:00It starts 3,000 kilometres from Hegra,
16:04on the southern corner of the Arabian Peninsula.
16:07And that's the next stop on my journey.
16:14I'm going deep into the heart of Arabia,
16:17and right through a place that's still called the Empty Quarter.
16:31I'm uncovering the Nabataean world.
16:34The Greek historian Diodorus Siculus wrote that,
16:39while many Arab tribes use a desert as pasture,
16:43the Nabataeans far surpass the others in wealth.
16:47So I'm heading from their outpost in modern-day Al-Ula, Saudi Arabia,
16:52following the trail of merchants' inscriptions south,
16:57to Oman,
16:59to discover the secret of their desert economy.
17:08I've travelled to the Dufar Mountains to find what the Romans described
17:14as the treasure of Arabia.
17:19It feels like you're in miles and miles of empty, hostile desert,
17:24until you see this hardy tree.
17:27It's the Boswellia sacra, the frankincense tree.
17:34They've grown here in Oman and neighbouring Yemen
17:38for thousands of years.
17:41The rich tree sap is harvested and dried
17:45using painstaking techniques barely changed since antiquity.
17:51It was produced here by the people of the kingdom of Sabea.
17:58But it was the Nabataeans
18:00who controlled the export of this rare treasure
18:04right across the ancient world.
18:10This helped to change the fortunes of the Nabataeans.
18:19The mountains here provide the exact climatic conditions
18:23to produce the finest frankincense.
18:27Romans even called this region
18:29Arabia Felix.
18:32Happy Arabia.
18:34Because this fertile landscape
18:36produced such a rich, highly desired luxury.
18:41Aside from its sweet perfume,
18:43incense had an array of intriguing uses.
18:49Now, frankincense smells gorgeous,
18:52and the clouds of smoke it produces almost look as though
18:56it's taking messages up to the heavens.
18:58But there's something else too,
19:00and our clue comes from ancient sources.
19:04One of the oldest medical tracts in the world,
19:08the Ebbers Papyrus from Egypt,
19:11tells us that incense was recommended in the treatment of eye diseases.
19:15So it says,
19:16a pellet of incense is to be put in the medicine unbroken,
19:20the eyes are to be rubbed with it.
19:23There's a Greek pharmacologist, for instance,
19:25who says that frankincense resin can be used to plug the holes of ulcers,
19:31and also to treat bloody wounds.
19:34So for the ancients, this stuff clearly had a really, really practical purpose.
19:42Modern science is backing up this ancient wisdom.
19:45Frankincense contains terpenes, which are anti-inflammatory,
19:49and it even has antibacterial properties.
19:53With so many uses for a product in such short supply,
19:58incredible riches were a guarantee for whoever could control the incense trade.
20:04Now, just think about it.
20:06So the Nabataeans are controlling the land routes,
20:10all the way from the mountains of Defar,
20:14right the way up to the Mediterranean.
20:17Look at this map.
20:19Here's the Red Sea, with some coastline controlled by the Nabataeans.
20:24The only possible trade route, avoiding the stormy and pirate-infested Red Sea,
20:30was on foot through the arduous desert interior,
20:34right across Nabataean-held territory.
20:38Roman writer, Pliny the Elder, tells us the huge 1500-mile land journey was punctuated by 65 caravanserai,
20:49fortified outposts where travellers paid a handsome price for protection and supplies.
20:55And the next leg of my journey is taking me to a prime example of one of these caravanserai.
21:05Temer is over 120 miles north-east of Hegra,
21:10a lush oasis on the edge of the desert,
21:14first mentioned by the Assyrians in the 8th century BCE.
21:26Welcome to Temer,
21:28an ancient oasis town and trading post on the incense route
21:32for thousands of years before the Nabataeans
21:36and somewhere that became an essential part of their supply chain.
21:42Larger stops like this one on the commercial trail
21:45had to host possibly thousands of camels
21:48and the people that made up the convoys.
21:55Huge camel caravans might offer safety,
21:58but they also raise serious logistical issues.
22:03Camels can survive for days,
22:05sometimes even for a week or so without food or water,
22:08but their human owners certainly can't.
22:18Temer's built around this beautiful, abundant natural oasis,
22:23so at last those thirsty camel caravans
22:26could access life-giving supplies here.
22:33And you can still see the evidence today.
22:40Isn't this brilliant?
22:42So I've read about this place, but I had no idea of the scale of it.
22:46So what you're looking at here is the oldest well
22:50that's been in continuous use anywhere in the Arabian Peninsula
22:54and possibly in the world.
22:59A version of the well of Hadaj is said to have been dug in the 6th century BCE,
23:04but it's thought its origins date back even earlier.
23:10It's nearly 20 metres from one side to the other.
23:15As recently as the 1950s,
23:17the well was still the main source of irrigation for local farmland.
23:23And there was room for 100 camels at any one time.
23:44So this specific well is actually mentioned in the Bible.
23:48In the book of Isaiah, we hear about the inhabitants of the land of Temer,
23:54the caravans who camp in the thickets of Arabia,
23:57who bring water for the thirsty and food for fugitives.
24:01So this is the very definition of timelessness.
24:13This clever engineering doesn't come cheap and the Nabataeans charged a high price.
24:20Merchants had no alternative but to come here for water, food, security and lodging.
24:27It was a Nabataean monopoly.
24:32Now, on top of everything, the Nabataeans were charging a flat rate of tax.
24:37We're told on the good authority of the Roman author Pliny,
24:40of a whopping 25% on all the goods that came in and out of their kingdom.
24:46So no wonder they were becoming super rich
24:49and no wonder they were becoming the object of serious envy.
25:01And the most envious eyes belonged to the ruler of the Empire of Rome.
25:08In 25 BCE, Augustus, Rome's first emperor,
25:14decided he no longer wanted to pay the 25% premium
25:18on moving incense through Nabataean towns like Tamar.
25:22Instead, he planned to grab the entire industry for himself.
25:30Under the command of the prefect of nearby Rome, Egypt, Gaius Ilius Gallus,
25:37an expedition was sent out to attack the ancient kingdom of Surveya
25:42in order to seize the source of the incense.
25:47A Roman force of 10,000 left Egypt and sailed to Luque Come, a port in Nabataean territory.
25:57But to get to Surveya, to cross this merciless desert, Ilius Gallus needed help.
26:04And so Rome commandeered a local minister called Sileus.
26:09A Nabataean might know the safe routes and where to get water and supplies in this wilderness.
26:18It's a huge undertaking to keep even a small army on the march, especially in conditions like this.
26:28The journey was unrelenting, and the soldiers had to take detours to find essential provisions.
26:40Finally, after six months on the road, six months exhausted and wracked with disease,
26:47the Romans reached their target.
26:50The fortress city of Mareb, gateway to frankincense country.
27:02After six days of fruitless assault on the city, the weary Romans admitted defeat
27:08and began retreating back to their ships on the Red Sea coast.
27:17But Gaius Ilius Gallus had a disconcerting surprise awaiting him.
27:22The journey back to Luque Come took only 60 days,
27:28which must have meant that Sileus had double-crossed him
27:32and that he led the Roman troops on a long way round
27:35to prove that the Nabataeans were indispensable
27:39and that you could never, ever cut the Nabataeans out of a deal.
27:47Sileus returned home to Nabataea a hero.
27:52His king, Obadas II, rewarded Sileus by making him chief advisor,
27:59ensuring that the wily politician remained a crucial figure
28:02in their continuing struggle with the superpower of Rome.
28:06A battle for supremacy that would take them to a new theatre,
28:11the highways of the sea.
28:16I'm on a journey, tracing the Nabataean kingdom's ancient trade routes.
28:21It's become clear the Nabataeans were champions of the desert,
28:25skilled at crossing thousands of miles of wilderness
28:28and creating cities in rock and sand.
28:41Now my investigation's leading me to the Red Sea
28:44to find out how the Nabataeans also became masters of waves.
28:53Infuriated by his expedition having been outwitted by Sileus in 25 BCE,
28:59Emperor Augustus refused to admit defeat.
29:03This time, he planned to route the goods out of Arabia
29:07onto ships in the Red Sea via friendly Roman-controlled ports,
29:12once again showing that the Romans were not to be trusted.
29:20The Nabataeans were right to be outraged.
29:23They'd sided with Augustus against Mark Antony and Cleopatra
29:28in the fight for the rule of Rome,
29:30actually double-crossing Queen Cleopatra
29:33and burning her fleet in the Red Sea in 31 BCE.
29:39Cleopatra, betrayed by the Nabataeans,
29:42famously took her own life.
29:44But if they expected any special favours
29:48from the newly victorious Augustus,
29:51they were very much mistaken.
29:59After Cleopatra's death, Rome controlled Egypt's ports
30:04of Meos Hormos and Berenice.
30:06So frankincense could travel by sea from the Dophar Mountains
30:11to Roman territory directly across the water.
30:17So I'm setting out to sea to discover how the Nabataeans
30:21turned the tables on the Romans once again.
30:29And there's plenty of evidence to suggest they were expert sailors.
30:35Greek historian Strabo mentions them using rafts
30:39and living on islands off the coast.
30:42The Nabataeans sometimes used their mastery of the sea
30:46to pretty nefarious ends.
30:49So they would often board ships as pirates
30:53and then sometimes, in an even more sinister move,
30:56if they heard that there was a shipwreck,
30:58they would travel out to the shipwrecked sailors
31:01like kind of sharks circling a bleeding corpse
31:04and pick the cargo clean.
31:06And we're also told in the historical accounts
31:10that there was a particular sting that they managed to pull off
31:12where they collaborated with a mainland tribe.
31:15They got the tribe to float out,
31:18illicit stashes of incense on inflated animal skins.
31:23So a bit like the kind of ancient world equivalent of dinghies.
31:26To an island, the Nabataeans then went and picked up their loot
31:30and traded it across the Red Sea right the way up to northern Egypt.
31:36I want to know if there's any material evidence that backed up these ancient accounts.
31:43This relatively unexplored stretch of the Red Sea is now a hub of new archaeological research.
31:50I've been invited to join a geophysical survey team
31:54who are scanning and mapping the seabed of these ancient waterways.
31:58It's time to dive into the water and take a closer look.
32:12I'll just use the opportunity while the divers are down there.
32:16So get in and have a little dip. I mean, you couldn't resist it, could you?
32:19But it is amazing swimming in here, thinking of the thousands of years' worth
32:24of history that are being looked at underneath me right now.
32:35And there are some new team members keen to help.
32:38Dolphins! There's a dolphin! There's a dolphin, it's a good sign.
32:43Dolphins! They're right underneath here.
32:45Hey!
32:46Hiya! Hi, beautiful!
32:50The Nabataeans loved dolphins as well,
32:53and they put dolphins on decorative freezers,
32:56so I feel the spirit of the Nabataeans are with us right now.
33:00The dolphins bring good luck.
33:05Archaeologist Julian Janssen van Rendsburg has a discovery I have to see.
33:11Sometimes. So the dolphins came?
33:13Yeah, you saw some dolphins here.
33:15I can't believe it. I know.
33:17I do like a dolphin. But this island,
33:19it's my new found joy.
33:22Why?
33:23It's late Roman to early Islamic period.
33:25It's lovely. You have to go with it, but honestly,
33:27it's something to be held with.
33:29Aw, thank you. Really kind.
33:32Great to meet you guys.
33:33Bye. Be safe.
33:36Adventures to come.
33:46The remote island that Julian explored looks like exactly the sort of base
33:51that Nabataean seafarers might have used to target passing ships
33:55and stash smuggled goods.
33:59While underwater camera specialists, Sean Ruggieri and Donovan Hastings,
34:04search the water, I'm field-walking the coastline,
34:07looking for archaeological clues.
34:17A guide to navigating this treacherous coast, written in the first century CE,
34:23offers a stark warning to anyone carrying precious cargo on the waters.
34:29If a vessel is driven from her course upon this shore, she is plundered.
34:34And if wrecked, the crew on escaping to land are reduced to slavery.
34:44It is just incredible landing here because it's so quiet now.
34:50Completely deserted is literally a desert island.
34:54But this would have been this absolute kind of hub of exchange
34:57and people trading frankincense and myrrh and gold and silk
35:02and they've left these tiny little fragments of their lives.
35:09It doesn't take long to find something special.
35:14Hey, how did you get on?
35:16Yeah.
35:16Hiya.
35:18Did you get any?
35:19We did. We left ours there for now.
35:21We definitely found something at four shards.
35:23I'd say the biggest one was about hand size.
35:25Uh-huh.
35:26I don't know, I mean, you can't tell until you analyse it.
35:28You don't know what would be in it.
35:30It's going to be wine.
35:32Could you kind of see the shape of the shards?
35:34What caught my eye immediately was the right angles of the pieces,
35:38you know, like kind of square blocks and the colour.
35:42Yeah.
35:42It's what immediately, okay, amphora.
35:44Yeah.
35:44And so kind of followed along with that.
35:45The most interesting one I saw was right next to what looked like a rib bone.
35:50Might have been whatever they were eating at the time.
35:54Sometimes they carried animals with them.
35:56You'd certainly carried your dinner with you alive.
35:59So obviously you'd take goats and stuff on the boat rather than carrying meat around.
36:03So if they'd been some kind of shipwreck, you often do get animal carcasses
36:06washed up with the amphorae, so it could be that.
36:09I mean, this is pretty basic stuff, to be honest.
36:12It's just like, almost like kind of throw away cardboard boxes today.
36:14That's just what they carried the stuff around in.
36:17Just no doubt, the fact that you've got this,
36:19it shows that there are people here involved in really serious hardcore trade.
36:23There are people here at the time of the Romans,
36:26and that means that the Nabataeans were definitely here.
36:29So this is them reaching out to us across 2,000 years.
36:33It's all thanks to the dolphins.
36:35They led us here. They actually led us here.
36:37Right.
36:37They did.
36:42These are all small clues, which point to just how vibrant this stretch of coast must have been.
36:49This amount of pottery means serious numbers of cargo ships here.
36:54And there's an incredible source for Red Sea commerce from the first century CE.
37:03It's called the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea.
37:08Periplus means sailing around, and ancient Erythraean waters included the present-day Arabian Gulf, Indian Ocean and Red Sea.
37:19It details how the Nabataeans excelled in maritime trade, refusing to be cut out of the market.
37:29You get the most amazing detail from Periplus, so just listen to this.
37:33To the left of Berenike, if you sail eastward from Mios Hormos, so that's over there in Egypt,
37:40for two days you arrive at a place called Luque Come, the point of communication with Petra.
37:48It's an emporium of trade.
37:50Small vessels come to it laden with merchandise from Arabia.
37:56So this is direct evidence of all the trade that's happening on these seas.
38:03Archaeologists have found compelling proof to back this up.
38:07Nabataean pottery remains like the fragments I found on the island are spread right across the ancient map.
38:13In Asia Minor, in the east, in Greece, and, incredibly, as far west as the Bay of Naples in Italy.
38:22And now I'm on the trail of that trade network, heading to a new continent and to the heart of
38:30the Roman Empire.
38:41I'm following the trail of evidence left by the Nabataeans across the ancient world.
38:47And now that story's leading me somewhere a little bit unexpected.
38:52Right to the doorstep of their great rivals in Rome.
38:58On my way, I'm stopping at the Greek island of Kos in the Aegean Sea.
39:02In the early first century CE, this was part of the Roman Empire.
39:08And along with other islands like Delos and mainland Miletus in modern-day Turkey,
39:14Kos was a key stopover for merchant ships heading from the east into the Mediterranean and beyond.
39:22Now I've been told there are intriguing clues to Nabataean presence on this island and on some of its neighbours.
39:34I'm heading to a sacred site neighbouring the harbour at Kos, a magnet for sailors on merchant ships who visited
39:42the island.
39:52This sanctuary is sacred to the Greek goddess Aphrodite, who comes to be called Venus by the Romans.
39:59And here she was worshipped as Aphrodite, who looked after people, and as Aphrodite Pontia, Aphrodite the guardian of the
40:11sea.
40:17Aphrodite was the goddess of love and desire, born from the waves.
40:22And in its heyday, this would have been a bustling place of worship, people giving offerings and making dedications.
40:36A wonderful inscription was found here that is definitive proof of Nabataean presence on the island.
40:50My team's enhanced the 2,000-year-old writing to make it more legible.
40:56So, this was dedicated right here by a Nabataean called R. Salahi.
41:04Now, it's written both in Greek at the bottom and up here in Nabataean Aramaic, which was sort of the
41:13official formal language that the Nabataeans used.
41:16And it's dedicated to the great goddess Al-Utza.
41:21Now, this is really fascinating because Al-Utza was basically the Nabataean equivalent of the Greek goddess Aphrodite.
41:30She was also incarnated as the planet Venus, and she also protected sailors in ports and out at sea.
41:39So, what's happening here is the Nabataeans are harnessing the power of the goddess Aphrodite, who's sanctuary this is, and
41:47melding it with that of their own mighty deity,
41:51who looked after their men and their precious goods out on the oceans and high seas.
42:04Five other Nabataean inscriptions have been found in the Aegean.
42:11There's a brilliant connection between two of them because they feature Silas,
42:17that wily Nabataean operator who led Roman forces on a wild goose chase through the deserts of Arabia.
42:29Silas' next posting was to Rome.
42:31He was dispatched to the imperial court of Emperor Augustus to plead the Nabataean case in a dispute with Judea.
42:39Because Silas' name and the date were inscribed,
42:43we can precisely track his island-hopping journey through the Aegean on his way to the Roman capital.
42:56Silas' story has a pretty dramatic ending.
43:01The old Nabataean king died and Silas decided that he wanted to seize the throne.
43:09But someone else had already got there first.
43:11The man who would become Aratas IV married the old king's widow, Huldu, and took the crown for himself.
43:22Silas was promptly arrested on charges of treason and then the Romans beheaded him.
43:35The inscriptions on Kos are proof that Nabataean trade reached this far.
43:42But at my next destination, there's evidence of something more substantial.
43:49And it's right in the heart of the Roman Empire.
43:58I'm heading about 900 miles west along the ancient shipping route from the Aegean to the Italian mainland.
44:09This is the Bay of Naples.
44:12Not only home to Pompeii, but also the infamously hedonistic resort town of Baia.
44:18Often dubbed the Las Vegas of the Roman Empire and the largest Roman port on the Italian mainland, Putioli.
44:29Silas might have lost his life, but it seems that some Nabataeans were doing really well right here.
44:38By the time Silas arrived in Rome to plead his case with Emperor Augustus, Putioli was the major Roman entry
44:46point for luxury goods, like frankincense.
44:51The Egyptians and the Greeks adored incense, but the Romans seem to have been obsessed with it.
44:59I think they kind of loved its exotic Eastern lore and the fact it was great at perfuming their sprawling,
45:07stinking cities, as well as providing a mood-lifting messenger to the gods.
45:13And this is where most of the supplies were pouring into the Ale Empire.
45:22This was the major entrance point for silk from Asia, grain from Egypt and pearls from the Indian Ocean.
45:32It was also the major export hub for wines, ceramics and marble.
45:42So we really shouldn't be surprised if the Nabataeans found their way here.
45:49And my friend, underwater archaeologist Michele Stefanile, has been hunting for ten years to find proof they were here.
46:04The whole coast is on a fault line.
46:08Beneath the waves are the remarkable sunken remains of both Baia and Putioli, all submerged due to tectonic activity in
46:19the 16th century.
46:21There are Roman pleasure palaces, mosaics.
46:27And today, this 437-acre underwater site, that's approximately 250 football pitches, is a special marine protected zone.
46:40So Michele and his team are taking cameras down to show me something truly game-changing.
47:14How did it go?
47:17fantastic did you get some good shots down there using McKayley's footage we can discover just how
47:30rooted the Nabataeans presence was here McKay but you always have treats for me what are you
47:37finding here you can see the inscription those are is sacrum those artists and in Latin Dushara
47:49in their original language the Supreme Court of the Nabataeans is we found a temple a temple and the
47:56water it's the only one we know in the Mediterranean
48:08you've got a kind of slow down this thing unbelievably exciting this so if there's a
48:12whole temple here then that means people are permanently living here because you might do
48:18like a sort of altar or a mini sanctuary if you're passing through but but it shows that there's a
48:23Nabataean community who are residents here yeah the inscriptions are the evidence of the origin of the
48:31people using this building and these people is coming from far far away he's coming from from
48:36the deserts of Arabia yeah I love the idea of them coming here because you know they've come from
48:43the desert with their camels and then they're in this incredibly lush fertile volcanic place with
48:50Mount Vesuvius just over there I mean it must be an amazing for them to be here absolutely absolutely
48:55the run the Nabataeans that culturally speaking are so far from the Romans when they arrived here they
49:01start a very quick process of romanization yeah the temple appears to us as Roman building so what I
49:08thought so they're coming here they're mixing with Romans they're as you said they're using Latin they're
49:14showing that they fit in but they must also be making a lot of money because if they can fold
49:19the
49:20very best marble to build this this temple they are coining it in here absent you're making history
49:26Michele discovering here I mean that is cool that's really impressive and Michele has found evidence
49:34underwater of where all the money to build this temple came from this part yeah these buildings are
49:42not just the storage room on the harbor so this is storage we know we've got Nabataeans here so it's
49:49probably incense yeah absolutely absolutely and we know that this kind of goose arrived in Rome so
49:56probably the fourth of arrival was put early look at all those storerooms I mean that's that's serious
50:02amounts of goods that are coming in here yeah these are incredible thank you for coming and I hope you
50:12always come back when ridiculous try and keep me away I'll definitely come back you know it's genuinely
50:24exciting being here and imagining the Nabataeans here too so far from home and yet still being cunning and
50:33courageous and carving out a life themselves on a whole new continent and as we get to know them a
50:41bit better it seems that that is how they operate but they're very successful and they're very strategic and
50:49also that their story is always full of surprises
50:58next time I find out how it almost ended how the Nabataeans rolled the dice one last time with the
51:05most
51:05powerful Empire in history Rome yeah there's loads of it never thought we would find that
51:22so
51:30so
51:32so
51:46Transcription by CastingWords
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