Incense Route – Desert Cities in the Negev, Trade route heritage in Negev Desert, Israel
The Incense Route connects four ancient cities across the Negev Desert, with preserved remains of trading posts, fortifications, and residential structures from the Nabataean period. The archaeological sites include Avdat, Haluza, Mamshit, and Shivta, linked by pathways that reveal building foundations, stone structures, and defensive walls spread across the landscape.
Between 300 BCE and 200 CE, this route served as the primary path for transporting frankincense and myrrh from the Arabian Peninsula to Mediterranean ports. The cities flourished during this period under Nabataean control and later came under Roman and Byzantine influences that reshaped their structures and purpose.
The Nabataean people left traces of how they lived in these settlements, visible in the ruins of homes, temples, and marketplaces scattered across the sites. These locations reveal how traders and craftspeople organized their daily lives in the desert and maintained their communities across generations.
Visitors can explore the four archaeological sites on foot, with well-marked paths guiding them through the ruins and across the open terrain. The desert climate can be extreme, so bring plenty of water, sun protection, and comfortable walking shoes to manage the conditions.
The sites contain an ingenious system of dams, channels, cisterns, and storage tanks that enabled farming in the desert despite minimal rainfall. These water-management technologies reveal how the Nabataeans turned barren land into productive agricultural areas through careful engineering.
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