Nitzana is an ancient Nabaten city located in the Negev desert in Israel  close to the Egyptian border. It may have been a station on the eastern branch of the ancient Incense Route, serving pilgrims and merchants traveling to Sinai or central Egypt. The Nabatean towns of the Negev were typically founded around the first century BC, conquered by Romans  two centuries later, and inhabited by Byzantine Christians since the 4-th until the wars and the Arab conquest of the 7th century.