city
Petra (Nabataea)
Petra, Wadi Musa, Jordan · Arabia & Arab frontier
30.345, 35.383
The bridge run's place_id 'nabataea' uses Petra's coordinates; treat 'nabataea' as an alias of this record.
Attested. The Byzantine bishopric, church and papyri are attested. Petra's relevance to Paul's 'Arabia' is a separate, disputed question (see arabia-galatians).
Petra was the capital of the Nabataean kingdom, whose king Aretas IV controlled Damascus-region politics in Paul's day (2 Cor 11:32). After Rome annexed it in 106, Petra became a bishopric of Palaestina Tertia. A 6th-century church with mosaics was excavated in 1990s, and a cache of carbonised papyri found there in 1993 records local Christian family life.
Added from later research
abrahamic
Petra (Raqmu)
Petra was the Nabataean Arab capital of a caravan kingdom that Rome annexed in 106 CE as Provincia Arabia. Nabataean gods included Dushara and al-'Uzza. In the Byzantine period Petra was a bishopric, and the Petra Church yielded carbonized papyri of the 6th century. Paul's 'Arabia' (Gal. 1:17) and the ethnarch of Aretas (2 Cor. 11:32) belong to this kingdom.
attested. The Nabataean and Byzantine history is attested. That Paul's 'Arabia' meant the Petra region specifically is a scholarly hypothesis.
Source stance: neutral. Archaeology and documentary papyri.
People and groups named here
- Aretas IV (Nabataean king)
- Theodore (archdeacon, Petra papyri)
Sources
- Pleiades place 697725: Petra
Pleiades Gazetteer (ISAW, NYU). Accessed 2026-11-11.
- Petra (UNESCO World Heritage List no. 326)
UNESCO World Heritage Centre. Accessed 2026-11-11.
- Petra papyri (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia contributors. Accessed 2026-11-11.
- "Petra", Jewish Encyclopedia (1906)
Jewish Encyclopedia / Funk & Wagnalls (public domain). Accessed 2026-11-11.
- "Nabatæans", Jewish Encyclopedia (1906)
Jewish Encyclopedia / Funk & Wagnalls (public domain). Accessed 2026-11-11.
- "Petra", Catholic Encyclopedia (1913) — confessionalConfessional source
New Advent. Accessed 2026-11-11.
Further reading
Councils here
None in this list.