, Isbayta , the Arabic name for a settlement in the Negev [see al-nakb ] region of southern Palestine, which had the Nabataean name, rendered in Greek sources as Sobata (whence the Arabic one), Hebrew Shivta.

Its ruins lie 43 km/27 miles to the southwest of Beersheba at an altitude of some 350 m/1,150 feet. First described by E.H. Palmer in 1870, it has been extensively excavated since the 1930s. The town flourished in Late Nabataean, Late Roman and Byzantine times as an unwalled, essentially agricultural centre, it being away fro…