Petra, originally known to its inhabitants as Raqmu or Raqēmō, is a historic and archaeological city in southern Jordan. Famous for its rock-cut architecture and water conduit system, Petra is also called the "Rose City" because of the colour of the sandstone from which it is carved; it was famously called "a rose-red city half as old as time" in a poem of 1845 by John Burgon. It is adjacent to the mountain of Jabal Al-Madbah, in a basin surrounded by mountains forming the eastern flank of the Arabah valley running from the Dead Sea to the Gulf of Aqaba. Access to the city is through a famously picturesque 1.2-kilometre-long gorge called the Siq, which leads directly to the Khazneh.
The Nabataeans or Nabateans were an ancient Arab people who inhabited northern Arabia and the southern Levant. Their settlements—most prominently the assumed capital city of Raqmu —gave the name Nabatene to the Arabian borderland that stretched from the Euphrates to the Red Sea.
Syria Palaestina, or Roman Palestine, was a Roman province in the Palestine region between the early 2nd and late 4th centuries AD. The provincial capital was Caesarea Maritima.
Praeses is a Latin word meaning "placed before" or "at the head". In antiquity, notably under the Roman Dominate, it was used to refer to Roman governors; it continues to see some use for various modern positions.
Bilad al-Sham, often referred to as Islamic Syria or simply Syria in English-language sources, was a province of the Rashidun, Umayyad, Abbasid, and Fatimid caliphates. It roughly corresponded with the Byzantine Diocese of the East, conquered by the Muslims in 634–647. Under the Umayyads (661–750) Bilad al-Sham was the metropolitan province of the Caliphate and different localities throughout the province served as the seats of the Umayyad caliphs and princes.
Arabia Petraea or Petrea, also known as Rome's Arabian Province or simply Arabia, was a frontier province of the Roman Empire beginning in the 2nd century. It consisted of the former Nabataean Kingdom in the southern Levant, the Sinai Peninsula and northwestern Arabian Peninsula. Its capital was Petra. It was bordered on the north by Syria, on the west by Judaea and Egypt, and on the south and east by the rest of Arabia, known as Arabia Deserta and Arabia Felix.
Palestine is a geographical region in West Asia. Situated in the Southern Levant, it is usually considered to include Israel and the State of Palestine, though some definitions also include parts of northwestern Jordan. Other historical names for the region include Canaan, the Promised Land, the Land of Israel, or the Holy Land.
Roman Syria was an early Roman province annexed to the Roman Republic in 64 BC by Pompey in the Third Mithridatic War following the defeat of King of Armenia Tigranes the Great, who had become the protector of the Hellenistic kingdom of Syria.
Consularis is a Latin adjective indicating something pertaining to the position or rank of consul. In Ancient Rome it was also used as a noun to designate those senators who had held the office of consul or attained consular rank as a special honour. In Late Antiquity, the title became also a gubernatorial rank for provincial governors.
The ancient city of Halasa or Chellous, Elusa (Ελουϲα) in the Byzantine period, was a city in the Negev near present-day Kibbutz Mash'abei Sadeh that was once part of the Nabataean Incense Route. It lay on the route from Petra to Gaza. Today it is known as Haluza, and during periods of Arab habitation it was known as al-Khalūṣ and Al-Khalasa.
Al-Khalasa, was a Palestinian village, located 23 kilometers southwest of the town of Beersheba. The village stood at the site of an ancient town from the Nabatean, Roman, Byzantine, and the beginning of the Early Muslim period. The ancient city, founded by the Nabateans, is known from Greek and Roman sources as "Halasa" or "Chellous", and later as "Elusa", one of the Byzantine administrative centers in the Negev Desert. Still important in the century of the Muslim conquest, it was deserted not long after. The site was repopulated by Bedouin in the early twentieth century, after western archaeologists took an interest in it. In October 1948, it was captured by Israel during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. The population of al-Khalasa is unknown, but all of the inhabitants were Muslims, from the al-Azizma tribe.
The Diocese of the East, also called the Diocese of Oriens, was a diocese of the later Roman Empire, incorporating the provinces of the western Middle East, between the Mediterranean Sea and Mesopotamia. During late Antiquity, it was one of the major commercial, agricultural, religious and intellectual areas of the empire, and its strategic location facing the Sassanid Empire and the nomadic tribes gave it exceptional military importance.
Palaestina Prima or Palaestina I was a Byzantine province that existed from the late 4th century until the Muslim conquest of the Levant in the 630s, in the region of Palestine. It was temporarily lost to the Sassanid Empire in 614, but re-conquered in 628.
Palaestina Secunda or Palaestina II was a province of the Byzantine Empire from 390, until its conquest by the Muslim armies in 634–636. Palaestina Secunda, a part of the Diocese of the East, roughly comprised the Galilee, Yizrael Valley, Bet Shean Valley and southern part of the Golan plateau, with its capital in Scythopolis. The province experienced the rise of Christianity under the Byzantines, but was also a thriving center of Judaism, after the Jews had been driven out of Judea by the Romans in the 1st and 2nd centuries.
The Nabataean Kingdom, also named Nabatea, was a political state of the Nabataeans during classical antiquity.
Judea or Judaea is a mountainous region of the Levant. Traditionally dominated by the city of Jerusalem, it is now part of Palestine and Israel. The name's usage is historic, having been used in antiquity and still into the present day; it originates from Yehudah, a Hebrew name. Yehudah was a son of Jacob, who was later given the name "Israel" and whose sons collectively headed the Twelve Tribes of Israel. Yehudah's progeny among the Israelites formed the Tribe of Judah, with whom the Kingdom of Judah is associated. Related nomenclature continued to be used under the rule of the Babylonians, the Persians, the Greeks, and the Romans. Under the Hasmoneans, the Herodians, and the Romans, the term was applied to an area larger than the historical region of Judea. In 132 CE, the Roman province of Judaea was merged with Galilee to form the enlarged province of Syria Palaestina.
The administration of Judaea as a province of Rome from 6 to 135 was carried out primarily by a series of Roman Prefects, Procurators, and Legates. These administrators coincided with the ostensible rule by Hasmonean and Herodian rulers of Judea. The Roman administrators were as follows:
The Bostran era was a calendar era with an epoch corresponding to 22 March 106 AD. It was the official era of the Roman province of Arabia Petraea, introduced to replace dating by regnal years after the Roman annexation of the Nabataean Kingdom. It is named after the city of Bostra, which became the headquarters of the Sixth Legion stationed in the province.
