Del Rio Sánchez Francisco. Nabatu: The Nabataeans through their inscriptions

Barcelona: Publicacions i Edicions de la Universitat de Barcelona, 2015. — 192 p.This book presents some of the most signiicant aspects of Nabataean history and culture using a rather original methodology: we invite the readers to explore some of these inscriptions, which have been conserved by good fortune and time, so that they can have a direct involvement in history as it unravels. In most museums, it is generally accepted that written texts can only be enjoyed by the specialists who are able to read them; everyone else has to stay on the edges of the information that they offer and restrict themselves to visiting architectural monuments of past cultures, or viewing pieces that are more accessible and less complicated to interpret, such as tools or figurative images. The aim of this book is therefore to explore the history and culture of the Nabataeans using the inscriptions not just as a complement to illustrate the text but as a primary source of information. The receiver of that information is the reader, motivated by curiosity and a wish to experience the satisfaction of obtaining first-hand data written by this ancient people. We are not thinking of providing readers with the thousands of known inscriptions, but a selection that we think are among the most interesting or significant. We used different criteria to choose them: the information that the text provides to understand Nabataean history, culture and institutions, the formal beauty of the piece itself and the state of conservation of the graphemes, so that they can be readily identified.