On a low hill behind the Rest House in Rum village, about 400 metres from the main road, sit the remains of a Nabataean temple dating to around the 1st century BCE. Follow the line of telephone poles and you will find it.
The ruins are modest — low walls, column bases, and scattered carved blocks — but they are a reminder that Wadi Rum was an important waypoint on Nabataean trade routes long before T.E. Lawrence arrived. The Nabataeans, the same civilisation that carved Petra, maintained a presence here to control the incense trade passing between Arabia and the Mediterranean.
An information board explains the layout, though your imagination has to do most of the work. The setting is the real draw: the temple sits against the backdrop of towering sandstone cliffs, and on a quiet morning with no tour groups around, it is easy to feel the weight of the centuries.