Nabataean Tomb Inscriptions of Hegra
A rock-cut tomb belongs to its named owner and named heirs alone, and the inscription over its door exists to fix that ownership in fixed legal formulas, dated by regnal year and backed by curses and fines against anyone who buries an outsider or sells the tomb without authorization.
- a fixed legal formula naming owner, heirs, and penalties
- precise regnal-year dating used to reconstruct Nabataean chronology
- curses and royal fines enforcing tomb ownership
- one of the largest surviving bodies of dated Nabataean legal text
Around three dozen securely dated Nabataean Aramaic inscriptions carved over the entrances of rock-cut tombs at Hegra, the Nabataean kingdom's southern city, concentrated in the 1st century AD and among the largest surviving bodies of dated Nabataean legal text. Each follows a recognizable formula: the tomb's owner, the persons entitled to burial within it (family members by name, sometimes specific descendants only), the year of the reigning Nabataean king, and penalty clauses, curses invoking the god Dushara alongside Manotu (Manat) and her Qaysha, the deity pairing characteristic of Hegra's own curse formula, or fines payable to the crown, against violation, resale, or unauthorized burial. Because so many are precisely dated by regnal year, the corpus is a primary source for reconstructing Nabataean royal chronology as well as for Nabataean inheritance and property law.
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