During the Hellenistic period, an inter-tribal group of Arabian-Aramean elements consolidated themselves under the name of Nabatu and made the transition from nomadic to sedentary life. The vigorous and independent culture that emerged reached its zenith in the 1st century BCE, and it is at this time that the Nabateans began to mint their own distinctive coins. Nabatean numismatic history, studied here in detail according to reigning monarchs, reflects the vicissitudes of the kingdom and its abrupt termination in 106 CE, when the Romans annexed the Nabatean kingdom to the empire as Provincia Arabia.