Petra and the Nabataeans: A Bibliography.

Joukowsky, Martha Sharp

Petra and the Nabataeans: A Bibliography. By GREGORY A. CRAWFORD. ATLA Bibliography Series, vol. 49. Lanham, Md.: THE SCARECROW PRESS, 2003. Pp. xxii + 275. $65.

The forty-ninth publication of this bibliographic series captures the extraordinary wealth of Petra and Nabataean research. Published by the American Theological Library Association (ATLA), this work posed a tremendous challenge of organization for the listing of books and articles primarily related to Petra and Nabataean archaeological discovery and analysis. One of the additional values of this work is that it includes references to publications from outside the Nabataean era, including the early Stone Age and later Roman, Byzantine, Crusader, and Islamic periods.

The retrieval of information is organized in various ways with the listing of 2413 references (the cut-off date for inclusion was 2000, but a few entries date from 2001). While it is aimed primarily at scholars, this small, comfortable book--over 221 pages in length--also offers intriguing possibilities for the general public to reference Nabataean sites, history, and culture in ways that had not been possible before. Moreover, it is a most comprehensive source of archival knowledge. It opens with a "classified subject scheme" which, as its heading implies, includes a numbered list of historical periods, an index of sites and subjects such as agriculture, archaeology, and photogrammetry. It continues with references to architecture (including specific architectural examples), and moves through commerce, economics, and trade to geology, language, military affairs, numismatics, pottery, and a wide range of other topics.

This is followed by the bibliography--an alphabetical listing by author consisting of articles published by date. At the end of each entry is the numeric code for reference to the classified subject scheme. If the researcher wants to find which sites meet specific criteria, for example, Nabataean-period capitals found at Petra, the relevant listing is the reference, followed by (Petra) 2.063, (Capitals) 5.3. In the appendix is given the Nabataean King List, with dates slightly differing from those commonly in use. (What is the reference for these suggested dates?)

This volume is an extensive source of information, and is where researchers should look first if they want to answer a specific question--for example, Nabataean fortification systems by location.

Nabataean researchers, however, also maintain up-to-date bibliographies. From my own tabulations there are more than 150 important entries absent from this work, and an occasional inaccuracy of listings and names, i.e., no. 1847 was not authored by Retzlerr, but Retzleff. Such errors are not surprising given the enormous amount of detailed information packed into this volume, but they are unfortunate. One hopes that these infelicities will be cleared up in later versions.

Now that this bibliography has been published, it should be corrected, maintained, brought up-to-date, and further annotated--possibly as an online database? Additionally one would hope that in future editions there would be period maps of Petra and regional maps showing patterns of sites by period (particularly Nabataean sites) in Petra, Jordan, the Negev, the 'Arabah, Syria, and Saudi Arabia, and references to web sites. Dozens of new archaeological sites and ideas are being actively researched, and, if updated, this bibliography's usefulness would only increase with time.

This work is impressive both for its quality and its usefulness. (Despite the fact that the user should be alerted to check the accuracy of the original sources!) These problems aside, this is a valuable and welcome reference tool and is a most useful source for Nabataean archaeological research.

MARTHA SHARP JOUKOWSKY

BROWN UNIVERSITY