Nabataean kingdom · 312-30 BC

The Nabataeans: Petra and the incense road

Deep in the desert of Jordan, Arab traders carved a city of tombs into pink cliffs and grew rich carrying frankincense from Arabia to the Mediterranean. Students follow the incense road to Petra, work out how a desert city found water, and watch a nomad people turn into a kingdom.

Teach it live New Open on the map
Length
45 minutes
Ages
11–14
On the map
3 steps, 305 BC to 30 BC
Live lesson
7 rounds, 3 on the map
Worksheet
Two A4 pages, with Classroom
You need
A projector; phones for live

Live lesson · new in Classroom

Teach it live. The class answers on their phones.

Put the board on the projector. Students join with a six-digit code, no account needed, and tap the map: where was the frontier, where did the grain come from. Their pins drop in together when you reveal, and the closest student takes the round.

€19 per month: every lesson live, every worksheet, cancel anytime. Rome at its height runs live for free.

A live lesson on the projector: the class's pins on the map around Alexandria, the closest students listed beside it A student's phone: the question and a map to tap
7 rounds
3 places to find on the map, quiz questions, a class vote and a one-line answer.
About 15 minutes
Run it as the map step, or to open the discussion. You move on with the space bar.
A report
Every answer, per student and per round, to read back or print after the lesson.
1

Introduction

5 min

Read aloud

Deep in the desert of Jordan, Arab traders carved a city of tombs into pink cliffs and grew rich carrying frankincense from Arabia to the Mediterranean. Students follow the incense road to Petra, work out how a desert city found water, and watch a nomad people turn into a kingdom.

By the end of the lesson, students can

  • Locate Petra, Gaza and southern Arabia and trace the incense route between them.
  • Explain what frankincense and myrrh were used for and why they were so valuable.
  • Describe how the Nabataeans collected and stored water in the desert.
2

Explore the map

12 min

Project the map, or let students follow on their own devices. Each step opens the map at the right year and place.

a

305 BC

Nomads with a secret

Open the map in 305 BC and find the Nabataean Kingdom east of the Dead Sea. In 312 BC a Greek army sent by Antigonus had tried to raid the Nabataeans' rock stronghold and failed; the Greeks reported nomads with no houses who hid their goods in the rock. Find Petra south of the Dead Sea.

Open this view on the map
b

100 BC

The incense road

Jump to 100 BC and turn on the Trade Routes layer. Find the Incense Route running from Saba in Yemen up the west side of Arabia to Petra and on to the port of Gaza. Zoom out to see the whole length. Frankincense trees grow only at the southern end. How many weeks might a camel caravan need?

Open this view on the map
c

30 BC

A city in the cliffs

Go to 30 BC and zoom in on Petra. The city is entered through a crack in the cliffs, the Siq, over a kilometer long. By now the Nabataeans had settled down, carved temples and tombs into the rock, and built dams and channels to catch the winter rain. Why build a capital in a place like this?

Open this view on the map
3

Class discussion

14 min

Pick two or three. They run from what happened to why it mattered.

  1. Frankincense was burned in every temple from Egypt to Rome, and myrrh was used in medicine and for embalming. Why did religion make the desert rich?
  2. The Nabataeans charged tolls, guarded wells and guided caravans. How can a people become rich from goods they neither grow nor use?
  3. In 312 BC the Nabataeans had no houses and lived from their flocks; by 30 BC they had a capital with temples and theaters. What makes nomads settle down?
  4. Petra gets under 20 cm of rain a year, mostly in a few winter storms. The Nabataeans caught it with dams, channels and cisterns cut into the rock. What does that tell you about desert engineering?
  5. The Nabataean script developed into the Arabic alphabet. Why might a trading people's writing outlast their kingdom?
4

Game round

9 min

Rule History has no Nabataean king. Play one round as Cleopatra VII, whose kingdom bordered the Nabataeans and competed with them for the Red Sea trade, then ask: should a rich trading neighbor be a partner or a target?

Open Rule History
5

Worksheet

5 min

This worksheet comes with Classroom

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