Nitzana, Israel

Nitzana (Nessana) was a Byzantine desert city, located on the south-west frontier of the Holy Land. It was founded as a Nabatean fortified station along the Incense route, and later developed as a fortified city in the Byzantine period with three churches. It is the best documented of all Byzantine settlements in the Negev desert, thanks to the discovery of a cache of documents known as the Nessana papyri.