Avdat
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The remains of the city of Avdat (Arabic Avda), prominently situated on a hill, lie 65km/40mi south of Beersheba, immediately to the left of the road to Elat. Now partly rebuilt, they are one of the most important sites of the Nabataean, Roman and Byzantine periods in the Negev.
History
The first excavations, begun in 1870, were followed from 1953 onwards by systematic archeological investigation of the site under the direction of Michael Avi-Yonah and Abraham Negev. They showed that the town was not founded, as had been thought, in the reign of the Nabataean king Obodas or Obidath II (30-9 B.C.) but dated from the third century B.C., when the nomadic Nabataeans, coming from northwestern Arabia and first recorded in 312 B.C., had taken to a settled life. Their capital of Petra, famed for its rock-cut monuments, lay to the east of the Arava depression. The Nabataeans owed their wealth to trade along the old caravan routes, and in order to protect the route from Petra to the Mediterranean port of Gaza they established a number of settlements - Nizzana, Subeita, Obodas (Avdat) and Mampsis - and a series of guard posts along the way.
History
The first excavations, begun in 1870, were followed from 1953 onwards by systematic archeological investigation of the site under the direction of Michael Avi-Yonah and Abraham Negev. They showed that the town was not founded, as had been thought, in the reign of the Nabataean king Obodas or Obidath II (30-9 B.C.) but dated from the third century B.C., when the nomadic Nabataeans, coming from northwestern Arabia and first recorded in 312 B.C., had taken to a settled life. Their capital of Petra, famed for its rock-cut monuments, lay to the east of the Arava depression. The Nabataeans owed their wealth to trade along the old caravan routes, and in order to protect the route from Petra to the Mediterranean port of Gaza they established a number of settlements - Nizzana, Subeita, Obodas (Avdat) and Mampsis - and a series of guard posts along the way.
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