Sinai Was for Traveling, Not Settling In
Published: June 3, 1991
To the Editor:
Your May 21 article from Nuweiba, Egypt, on the lost secrets of Sinai describes the Nabateans as "an industrious people who populated much of the area for a few hundred years before and about 200 years after the birth of Christ."
If "populated much of the area" means they lived in settled communities in the Sinai, there is no historical evidence for such an assertion. In A.D. 105, the Roman emperor Trajan had reduced Petra and broke up the Nabatean nationality.
Aside from their established base in or near Petra, the Nabateans were a nomadic people whose main occupation (other than some agriculture in the Petra area) was transporting merchandise from Arabia to the Red Sea together with some trading on their own. They traveled by camel caravan across the Sinai. The writings referred to in your article are no more than graffiti in the mode of "Kilroy Was Here."
There are other such petroglyphs in the Sinai. Fifteen years ago I took a picture of one that had a menorah scratched on it. This petroglyph has raised speculation among some scholars that at times Jewish traders joined Nabatean caravans traveling back and forth across the Sinai.
For the Nabateans, the Sinai was an important and well-traveled trading route, but not a settled or populated area. HY GROBER Teaneck, N.J., May 21, 1991