- Introduction: One of the outstanding features of the hyper-arid region of the Negev Highlands is evidence of widespread cultivation and the construction of numerous terrace walls and related installations used for run-off and flood farming. In spite of overwhelming evidence for agriculture in the Byzantine period, the late Prof. Avraham Negev proposed that in the Negev, agriculture was adopted by the Nabataeans in the Early Roman period before the Roman annexation in 106 CE. Negev posited that inscriptions from the time of the last Nabataean king, Rabbel II, discovered in and near Oboda contained references to the existence of agricultural dams (Negev, 1961: 133e136, 1963: 112e124, 2003: 18*). The Byzantine period (4the7th cent. CE) witnessed a tremendous population growth in a number of towns and villages and the administrative center of the region in that period was the city of Elusa (Halutza) (Fig. 1).
Map:
Spring-water agriculture:
Water procurement in the Negev Highlands:
Agricultural expansion in the Byzantine period:
