Shivta National Park
The well-preserved ruins of Shivta are in a remote location and not as frequently visited as other Nabatean sites. Shivta, previously called Sobata, was established by the Nabateans as a station in the Roman period in the 1st century BCE. This was not on their main Incense and spice trading route from Petra to Gaza, but on a side route to the port of El Arish, passing by Nitzana. With competition from the Romans, the Nabatean trading monopoly came to an end and they, like other Nabatean cities, turned to agriculture, which they did extremely successfully, transforming the desert into an oasis. The Nabateans converted from paganism to Christianity in the Byzantine period. Shivta has been recognized as a UNESCO world heritage site together with Haluza/Elusa, Avdat and Memphis.
After the Muslim conquest the city gradually declined and residents began deserting their home, and the city was totally abandoned after the 9th century. It is usually suggested that this was due to the Muslim conquest and their ban on alcohol products. But Wikipedia quotes an interesting reference from Ha’aretz that it was rather the sharp decline of the market for luxury goods in Europe due to the bubonic plague in the 540s and extreme cold weather conditions that led to the collapse of the market for “Gaza wine.” The inhabitants were then forced to go to subsistence farming with barley and wheat.
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​Directions: Enter “Shivta” into Waze.
Admission: This is a site of the Israel Parks and Nature Authority. There are restrooms near the entrance to the park There is a shaded picnic area. This is their website.
Public transport: There is a 5.5 km/ 1 hour 8-minute walk from the nearest bus stop at Machane Shivta, which will make it inaccessible for most public transport users.
Shivta contained some 170 dwellings and about 2,000 people lived here. Unlike other desert settlements, Shivta was not surrounded by a wall and there were no fortifications. The street entrance served as a gate, although it would not have been locked. There was never any Roman construction.
1. The Colt Expedition Building. Before you enter the city, you will see a building south of the parking lot set up by the largest scale archeological expedition here under the direction of Dunscomb Colt from 1934 to 1936. A fire during the Arab Revolt of 1936 burned their finds and logs and their results were never published. Some artifacts though did reach the Hecht Museum in Haifa in a suitcase.
3. The Stable House. This was a spacious dwelling around an interior courtyard. One of the rooms has feeding and watering troughs into the walls and was used as a stable.
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Shivta houses were usually 2 or 3 level buildings, made of stone without cement. The lower level of the exterior wall used large, square, undressed hard limestone blocks, the middle level smaller, smoothed and dressed limestone, and the upper level and roof were usually made of soft, lighter chalk. No wooden beams were used in these private structures, except for the churches. Cracks between the stones were filled by sand with gravel. The interior side of the walls was made of a thin layer of stone and a thin layer of plaster. All this served to keep the house relatively cool during the summer and warm during the winter.
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3. Troughs of animals in "The Stable House"
6. The Southern Church. This was built atop a cultic structure from the Nabatean period, and was built in a basilica style with a nave and two rows of columns separating it from the side aisles. Side apses were decorated with paintings of saints. A fresco was found showing the transfiguration of Jesus. This is also present in St Catherine’s Monastery, which may have been the destination of many of the pilgrims. All that remains now is red paint.
6. The Southern Church
7. The Mosque. There was a mosque north of the baptistery with a hall and two rows of columns. A prayer niche or mihrab faced to the south towards Mecca. The church and mosque presumably functioned simultaneously.
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7. The Mosque
11. The Northern Church. This is the largest church in the site. Like the Southern Church it is built in a basilica style. The surrounding rooms served as a monastery. There is a picture of how the church would have looked in the brochure.
11. The Northern Church
14. Western wine press. This consists of a large treading floor with stone slabs, which is where the grapes were pressed. The juice flowed through a narrow opening and clay pipes towards jugs placed in a large settling tank. The size of the wine press indicates the large scale of wine production here.
The Western Winepress
There is a reconstructed orchard some 700 m to the north of Shivta. It can be reached on foot along a clear path, leaving from the Northern Church. The orchard reconstructs an ancient agricultural farm, and the trees planted in it – carob, fig, almond, plum, olive, pomegranate, pistachio, peach, apricots and grapevines. It receives all the water needed from rainwater diverted to the orchard, just as in ancient Shivta.