A caravan city is a

city A city is a human settlement of a substantial size. The term "city" has different meanings around the world and in some places the settlement can be very small. Even where the term is limited to larger settlements, there is no universally agree ...

located on and deriving its prosperity from its location on a major trans-desert

trade route A trade route is a logistical network identified as a series of pathways and stoppages used for the commercial transport of cargo. The term can also be used to refer to trade over land or water. Allowing goods to reach distant markets, a singl ...

. The term is believed to have been coined by the scholar of antiquity, Michael Rostovtzeff, for his work ''O Blijnem Vostoke'', published in English as ''Caravan Cities'' in 1932. The English translation of the work dealt principally with

Petra Petra (; "Rock"), originally known to its inhabitants as Raqmu (Nabataean Aramaic, Nabataean: or , *''Raqēmō''), is an ancient city and archaeological site in southern Jordan. Famous for its rock-cut architecture and water conduit systems, P ...

, Jerash,

Palmyra Palmyra ( ; Palmyrene dialect, Palmyrene: (), romanized: ''Tadmor''; ) is an ancient city in central Syria. It is located in the eastern part of the Levant, and archaeological finds date back to the Neolithic period, and documents first menti ...

and Dura in the "

near east The Near East () is a transcontinental region around the Eastern Mediterranean encompassing the historical Fertile Crescent, the Levant, Anatolia, Egypt, Mesopotamia, and coastal areas of the Arabian Peninsula. The term was invented in the 20th ...

", after Rhodes, Cyprus and Mycenaean Greece were removed from the translation as not being caravan cities. Dura, too, has been later considered to be more than a caravan city.Pierre Leriche, D. N. MacKenzie
"Dura Europos"
''

Encyclopaedia Iranica An encyclopedia is a reference work or compendium providing summaries of knowledge, either general or special, in a particular field or discipline. Encyclopedias are divided into articles or entries that are arranged alphabetically by artic ...

'', December 15, 1996, last updated December 2, 2011. Other caravan cities include Aroer in Jordan,

Hatra Hatra (; (); ) was an ancient Arab city in Upper Mesopotamia located in present-day eastern Nineveh Governorate in northern Iraq. The ruins of the city lie northwest of Baghdad and southwest of Mosul. It is considered the richest archaeologi ...

in Iraq, Oualata in Mauritania,

Damascus Damascus ( , ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in the Levant region by population, largest city of Syria. It is the oldest capital in the world and, according to some, the fourth Holiest sites in Islam, holiest city in Islam. Kno ...

in Syria, and

Samarkand Samarkand ( ; Uzbek language, Uzbek and Tajik language, Tajik: Самарқанд / Samarqand, ) is a city in southeastern Uzbekistan and among the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest continuously inhabited cities in Central As ...

in Uzbekistan. The caravan cities of the Near East declined as the small trade states between the Roman and Persian empires were gradually absorbed by the two, and the "wall mentality" became dominant, that is, construction of defensive systems (Roman limes and Persian defense lines) and implementation of trade through a single point, the city of

Nisibis Nusaybin () is a municipality and Districts of Turkey, district of Mardin Province, Turkey. Its area is 1,079 km2, and its population is 115,586 (2022). The city is populated by Kurds of different tribal affiliation. Nusaybin is separated ...

See also

References

Further reading