Women in Pre-Islamic Arabia: Nabataea

In addition to feminist studies, this work uses epigraphy, archaeology and classical sources, as well as recent developments in historiography, to understand Nabataean society and Nabataean women in particular. The author has highlighted to main study areas. The first is to investigate whether Nabataean women enjoyed a high status that was particular to their society and history. The second related enquiry is to investigate what made it possible for Nabataean women in the first century BCE-CE to become visible in inscriptions and numismatics (i.e. prominent in that period, place and time)? In other words what are the factors that allowed women such status? And were they factors particular to Nabataean women, their society or history? A further interesting objective of this book is to question the assumption of subordination of women in pre-Islamic Arabia.