Humeima

 Now a little-visited area just west of the busy Desert Highway, Humeima (Hawara) was a major Nabatean agricultural and trade-route provisioning settlement made possible because of the Nabatean hydrology mastery. The settlement relied on a system of aqueducts carrying water from the springs in the escarpments above the site, as well as a typical Nabatean channeling system to capture the run-off from infrequent rains. Through the Roman occupation, Humeima remained an important fortress along the Via Trajana, and the settlement had continued occupation through the Byzantine and early Islamic periods, although with shifting trade routes its strategic importance was greatly diminished. In this “white city” (the sandstone formations are noticeably paler than in the nearby red desert of Wadi Rum), you can spend an interesting morning poking around the area tracing the complex channeling systems.