Seminar for Arabian Studies

Abstracts - 2010 Seminar

The 2010 Seminar for Arabian Studies will be held at the British Museum in London from Thursday 22nd - Saturday 24th July 2010.

All lectures will be held in the BP Lecture Theatre and the Stevenson Lecture Theatre in the Clore Centre within the British Museum.

This will be supported by the MBI Al Jaber Foundation. Visit their website at: www.mbifoundation.com.

All the abstracts below are for papers which will be orally presented at the Seminar, except where otherwise stated.

ABSTRACTS

THURSDAY JULY 22nd 2010

Session 1: Late pre-Islamic Period
Chair: St John Simpson (British Museum, UK)

09:55 - Thursday 22 July 2010 (BP Lecture Theatre)

PHILLIPS, Carl
CNRS, UMR 7041, 'Village à l'État au Proche et Moyen-Orient', Nanterre, République Française

Carl Phillips is an associate researcher with CNRS UMR 7041 and has been responsible for a number of archaeological projects in the UAE, Oman and Yemen.

The 1st century AD fort at ed-Dur (al-Dawar), UAE

A small square fort with four circular corner towers occupies a central position at the coastal site of ed-Dur (al-Dawar) in Umm al-Quwayn (UAE). It was first excavated in 1973 along with a small enigmatic building located nearby. Both were more thoroughly excavated in the late 1980s and the immediate surrounding area was also investigated. In this fresh look at the excavation data it is hoped that a convincing date for the construction of the fort can be determined, based largely on the dating of ceramic finds and other imported objects. The relationship of the fort to surrounding houses and burials will also be examined so as to obtain an impression of the layout of the site of ed-Dur. This will be compared with other contemporary sites in Arabia as well as with more recent historical settlement patterns in the UAE and Oman.

10:20 - Thursday 22 July 2010 (BP Lecture Theatre)

CHARBONNIER, Julien
CNRS, UMR 7041, Maison René Ginouvès, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, Nanterre, République Française

Julien Charbonnier is a PhD candidate at the University Paris I -Panthéon-Sorbonne. His researches concern irrigation systems in southern Arabia.

The distribution of retaining dams over the western mountains of South Arabia

At the beginning of the Christian era, the appearance of retaining dams represented a turning point in the history of landscape in the mountains of South Arabia. They enabled the irrigation of the valley floors for a long period of time by allowing water storage. In this paper, we will propose a preliminary study of the distribution of these barrages over the high plateaus. We will point out that they were not randomly distributed but clustered around some Himyaritic sites. The territory was intensively cultivated around those sites: along valleys, several dams were usually built and were sometimes associated with monumental terrace walls and others hydraulic infrastructures. Inscriptions help to date some of these dams to the beginning of the first millennium AD, while the proximity of the pre-Islamic sites could help us give a chronological attribution to the others.

Session 2: Ancient South Arabia and the Red Sea

10:45 - Thursday 22 July 2010 (BP Lecture Theatre)

FEDELE, Francesco G.
Laboratory of Anthropology, Università degli Studi di Napoli 'Federico II', Napoli, Repubblica Italiana

Francesco Fedele is Professor of Anthropology and Prehistoric ecology at the University of Naples 'Federico II', Italy. His chief research interests focus upon human palaeoecology (faunal studies, sediments, ecosystem reconstruction) and the archaeological correlates of cultural behaviour. He has conducted fieldwork in Yemen as a member of the Italian Archaeological Mission since 1984, initially on the later prehistory of the highlands and currently at Baraqish. He had previously worked on Mesopotamian faunas in eastern Iraq.

The wall and talus at Baraqish (al-Jawf, Yemen): a Minaean stratigraphy

In 2005-2006 a stratigraphic excavation was carried out by the Italian Archaeological Mission across the outer tell and talus at Baraqish, ancient Yathill, outside the famous Minaean enclosure wall. A sedimentary and cultural sequence spanning a long interval from the Sabaean (9th century BC) to the Islamic period was examined. Here the author will focus on the Minaean segment in order to provide detailed information on its archaeology, activity indicators, sediment accumulation, and radiocarbon dating. The Minaean sequence was investigated by a 20-m-long radial trench through the tell and talus, and a deep sounding down the wall was also taken. This latter revealed the base and foundations of the wall, cut into Sabaean deposits, and a locally complete stratigraphy for the Minaean characterized by secular debris (as opposed to cultic) and marked environmental interaction (6th/5th century BC to about AD 1). Stratified pottery and animal bones were retrieved. This is the first such occurrence in al-Jawf. Construction details of the Yathill wall and its counter-fort will be discussed, as well as stratified structures, small finds, and camel and donkey dung layers over the talus, which jointly suggest specialization in trading and caravan activities. Together with the Italian work in the temple precinct (A. de Maigret, submitted to this Seminar) such evidence allows inferences for a broader understanding of the Minaean period at Yathill and in its region.

11:10-11:40 COFFEE

Chair: Alex Porter (British Museum, UK)

11:40 - Thursday 22 July 2010 (BP Lecture Theatre)

DE MAIGRET, Alessandro
Dipartimento di Studi Asiatici, Università degli Studi di Napoli 'L'Orientale', Napoli, Repubblica Italiana

Alessandro de Maigret is a full Professor in archaeology and history of art of ancient Near East at the Oriental University of Naples; director of the Italian Archaeological Missions in Yemen and in Saudi Arabia.

The two Minaean temples of Yathill, Baraqish (Yemen)

The paper will illustrate the architecture, findings and stratigraphy of the two temples (temple of Nakrah and temple of ?Athtar dhu-Qabd) which have been excavated respectively in 1990-1992 and 2004-2006 by the Italian Archaeological Mission in the so-called Sacred Area of Baraqish. The particular hypostile structure of the two Minaean monuments (V6th to 1st century BC) will be examined in the general frame of Ancient South Arabian religious architecture and with respect to the different populations who settled in pre-Islamic Yemen.

12:05 - Thursday 22 July 2010 (BP Lecture Theatre)

PHILLIPSON, David W.
University of Cambridge, UK

David W. Phillipson retired in 2006 from the University of Cambridge, where he had been Professor of African Archaeology and Director of the Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology. He is a Fellow of the British Academy, an Emeritus Fellow of Gonville & Caius College, and a past-President of the British Institute in Eastern Africa. He directed major archaeological excavations at Aksum in the 1990s and has recently published a study of early Ethiopian churches.

Relations between southern Arabia and the northern Horn of Africa during the last millennium BC

Changing views have been held of the relations that prevailed during the last millennium BC between the inhabitants of southern Arabia and those in the northern Horn of Africa (modern south-central Eritrea and Tigray region of Ethiopia). Frequently, these views did not take account of the latest research in either field and, being based more on epigraphic evidence than on the broader archaeology, they tended to place undue emphasis on élite aspects of past society. Recent archaeological investigations have shown the population of the northern Horn to have been much more diverse than was previously recognised. Re-evaluation of the African epigraphic evidence indicates that the existence of a single 'pre-Aksumite' state (whether or not it was called 'D'MT') can no longer be upheld. These conclusions lead to a radical re-evaluation of the nature and chronology of connections between the northern Horn and southern Arabia, the implications of which extend into both earlier and later times.
Note on significance: This re-evaluation is particularly timely in view of the recent discovery of a 'Sabaean-style' temple near Wukro in Tigray (described by P. Wolf at the 2009 Arabian Studies Conference) and of the resumption of research at Yeha. The paper will attempt to integrate archaeological, epigraphic and more broadly linguistic evidence, and to view the question of trans-Red-Sea connections from a wider African perspective.

10:45 - Thursday 22 July 2010 (BP Lecture Theatre)

JAPP, Sarah
Deutsches Archäologisches Institut (DAI), Orient-Abteilung, Sanaa Branch (Yemen), Berlin, Bundesrepublik Deutschland

Sarah Japp is a researcher in classical and South Arabian archaeology with the Deutsches Archäologisches Institut. Since 1991 she has conducted fieldwork at Pergamon, Alexandria Troas and Kibyra (Turkey), Ma'rib, Sirwah and Zafar (Yemen) and recently Yeha and Hawelti (Ethiopia). At present she concentrates on Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine pottery in the Eastern Mediterranean, South Arabian material culture (Sabaean pottery and stone reliefs from Himyar) and inter-cultural connections between South Arabia, East Africa and the Mediterranean.

GERLACH, Iris
Deutsches Archäologisches Institut (DAI), Orient-Abteilung, Sanaa Branch (Yemen), Berlin, Bundesrepublik Deutschland

From 2000 Iris Gerlach has been head of the Sanaa branch of the Orient Department (http://www.dainst.org/abteilung.php?id=291&sessionLanguage=en). Field director of different research projects in Yemen: Sirwah (Province of Ma'rib); cemetery of the Awam Temple (oasis of Ma'rib); Wadi Ghufaina: dam and Early Sabaean settlement (oasis of Ma'rib); settlement of Darbas (province of Shabwa), cemetery of Sha'ub (Sana'a); survey in the oasis of Ma'rib; survey along the LNG-pipeline from Safir to Bal-Haf; Hawelti and Yeha, Ethiopia.

HITGEN, Holger
Deutsches Archäologisches Institut (DAI), Orient-Abteilung, Sanaa Branch (Yemen), Berlin, Bundesrepublik Deutschland

Researcher at the Sanaa branch of the Orient Department (DAI, Yemen) and a consultant in South Arabian archaeology. From 1994 he took part in numerous field projects of the DAI, mainly at Ma'rib, on the Jabal al-'Awd and recently at Yeha, Ethiopia. Today his scientific interest is focusing on questions of the archaeology of the historic periods, the history of art and on intercultural contacts of South Arabia to the Mediterranean world and East Africa.

SCHNELLE, Mike
Deutsches Archäologisches Institut (DAI), Orient-Abteilung, Sanaa Branch (Yemen), Berlin, Bundesrepublik Deutschland

Building historian and architect at the Sanaa branch of the Orient Department (DAI, Yemen). Responsible for the documentation and the research of architecture. From 2001 attended numerous field projects of the DAI, mainly at Sirwah, at Ma'rib and recently at Yeha, Ethiopia. His scientific interest focuses on sacral architecture, city-walls and the development of masonry techniques and ancient half-timber constructions

Yeha and Hawelti - cultural contacts between Saba and D'mt: New research of the German Archaeological Institute in Ethiopia

From prehistoric times till the 6th century an intense political and cultural contacts between northern Ethiopia and ancient South Arabia can be detected. Especially in the 1st half of the 1st millennium BC a widespread influence of South Arabia on the region of Tigray and areas in south-eastern Eritrea is evident. There are numerous settlements which - from the 8th century BC - reflect South Arabian trait in part in their material culture, architecture and art but also writing, language and religion.
In the paper, two projects of the German Archaeological Institute Sana'a conducted at Ethio-Sabaean sites will be presented. The aim of the new investigations is to carry out systematic studies on the basis of recently obtained information on Sabaean culture in South Arabia and to work out cultural and historical commonalities and differences. Yeha is considered to be the centre of the kingdom D'mt showing monumental architecture as well as a settlement and cemeteries. The much smaller site of Hawelti is characterized by a stele field of Ethio-Sabaean character. Stone sculptures influenced by South Arabian elements are standing next to a unique indigenous art production.
New archaeological results as well as architectural observations will be presented, proving the close connection of the Ethio-Sabaean culture in northern Ethiopia to the kingdom of Saba.

12:55-14:00 LUNCH

Session 3: Sasanian-Islamic
Chair: Derek Kennet (Durham University, UK)

14:00 - Thursday 22 July 2010 (BP Lecture Theatre)

ULRICH, Brian
History-Philosophy Department, Shippensburg University, USA

Brian Ulrich is an Assistant Professor of History at Shippensburg University in Shippensburg, Pennsylvania, United States of America. His interests include early Islamic history, comparative empires, and preindustrial social and political relations.

'Uman and Bahrayn in Late Antiquity: lhe Sasanians' Arabian periphery

For at least 40 years, the conventional wisdom on eastern Arabia during the Sasanian period has been that it was a time of great prosperity due to settlement, investment, and commerce from Gulf trade. Recently, however, a challenge to this perspective has come from reassessments of the archaeological evidence. In addition, new understandings of agrarian empires highlight their internal variability, understandings which seem readily applicable to the Sasanian case. Work specifically on the Sasanian empire has also improved our knowledge of its social, economic, and political structure. Against this background, this paper will reconsider the relationship of eastern Arabia with the Sasanian empire, taking account of the archaeological evidence while considering a broad range of literary evidence such as the works of Hamza al-Isfahani, Abu 'Ubayd al-Bakri, and pseudo-'Awtabi. It will argue that, aside from Oman ('Uman), the region served primarily as a defensive frontier rather than a key part of the Sasanian economic structure, and that the economic decline noted archaeologically is consistent with most evidence from the written sources.

14:25 - Thursday 22 July 2010 (BP Lecture Theatre)

PETERSEN, Andrew
Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Wales, Lampeter, UK

Andrew Petersen is Director of Research in Islamic Archaeology at the University of Wales, Lampeter. He has carried out fieldwork in many parts of the Islamic world including Iraq, Oman, Jordan, Palestine, UAE and Qatar. His current research interests include Islamic urbanism, pilgrimage routes and fortifications. For the last two years he has been working on the archaeology of coastal settlement in northern Qatar in collaboration with the Qatar Museums Authority and the Qatar Islamic Archaeology and Heritage project.

Research on an Islamic period settlement at Ra's al-Shairig in northern Qatar

This paper will discuss the results of an intensive season of fieldwork at the Islamic site of Rubaigha (al-Rubayqah) located on the western side of the Ra's al-Shairig peninsula in north western Qatar. The site which measures more than 300 m north to south includes a number of structures which have been identified as a fort, a mosque and at least three large courtyard houses as well as a number of smaller ancillary buildings. In addition to the structures there are a large number of burnt mounds or middens containing pottery glass, animal, bones and shell. Preliminary examination of pottery suggests that the settlement ceased to be occupied in the mid to late eighteenth century.
Mapping of the site suggest two distinct areas of settlement a southern area comprising the fort and adjacent structures and the northern area containing the mosque and the large courtyard houses. The mosque and courtyard houses are built on the same alignment which together with the complex architecture of the structures suggests some form of planned settlement. On the other hand, the fort is built on a different alignment which together with the fact that some of the stonework appears to have been robbed out suggests that it predates the main part of the settlement.

14:50 - Thursday 22 July 2010 (BP Lecture Theatre)

WALMSLEY, Alan
Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies, Københavns Universitet, Københavns, Kongeriget Danmark

Alan Walmsley is Professor of Islamic Archaeology and Art at the University of Copenhagen. Currently he has two major field projects, one in north Qatar and the second at Jarash in Jordan. His research analyses material culture to document social and economic change in formative periods in the history of Islam, focusing on Syria-Palestine between the sixth and eleventh centuries CE and the central Arabian Gulf in the second millennium.

RICHTER, Tobias
Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies, Københavns Universitet, Københavns, Kongeriget Danmark

Tobias Richter is Deputy Director of the Qatar Islamic Archaeology and Heritage Project, a joint project between the Qatar Museums Authority and the University of Copenhagen. He received his PhD in prehistoric archaeology from UCL in 2009, and holds an MPhil and BA from the University of Wales Lampeter. His PhD research focused on the Early and Middle Epipalaeolithic occupation of the 'Azraq Basin in eastern Jordan.

WORDSWORTH, Paul
Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies, Københavns Universitet, Københavns, Kongeriget Danmark

Paul Wordsworth currently works as a GIS and CAD specialist for the Qatar Islamic Archaeology and Heritage Project, under the auspices of the University of Copenhagen. As part of the project team he is currently co-ordinating the spatial mapping of the excavation and survey data, creating a platform to investigate the late-Islamic town of al-Zubarah in the setting of its wider hinterland. His background is in the archaeology of medieval Islamic landscapes, through which he has studied a number of regions, focusing chiefly on the early-mid Islamic cultures of Central Asia.

with contributions by: COLLIE, Tom; HOUSE, Michael; HUMPHREY, Richard and PANTOS, Alexis

Pearl fishers, townsfolk, Bedouin and shaykhs: economic and social relations in Islamic al-Zubarah

From the mid 18th to the early 20th century AD, pearl fishing and the pearl trade was the single most important economic activity in the Gulf. An appetite for pearls in Asia and Europe had a critical effect on the social and economic constitution of the Gulf, reshaping the relations between different constituents of society. Pearl fishing and trade operated on the basis of a series of intertwined economic dependencies between fishers, nakhodas (sg. nakhuda) (captains), boat owners, merchants, admirals and shaykhs. This paper asks what archaeology can contribute to our understanding of the genesis of this crucial period in the economic, social and political formation of the Gulf States, using the joint Qatar Museum Authority's and University of Copenhagen excavations at al-Zubarah as a case study.
Excavations at al-Zubarah in 2009 and 2010 have uncovered the remains of merchant's houses, a commercial district, and a palatial, fortified compound that likely housed the ruling elite. Yet fine-grained archaeological investigations have also produced evidence of the lives of the seasonal labourers who served as crew on the pearling dhows. Al-Zubarah therefore preserves what is perhaps the single most complete town plan of a pearling settlement from the 18th to the beginning of the 20th century, and provides a snapshot image of how the social and economic relations between different members of the community became physical realities.

15:15 - Thursday 22 July 2010 (BP Lecture Theatre)

VOSMER, Tom
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Muscat, Sultanate of Oman & Jewel of Muscat Project, Muscat, Sultanate of Oman

Maritime archaeologist Tom Vosmer has worked in Oman for many years, undertaking maritime ethnographic and archaeological research, helping in the creation of a maritime exhibition hall in a new museum, and reviving interest in traditional boats of Oman and the region. He is Project Director for the Jewel of Muscat, in charge of research and construction.

BELFIORETTI, Luca
Jewel of Muscat Project, Muscat, Sultanate of Oman

STAPLES, Eric
Jewel of Muscat Project, Muscat, Sultanate of Oman

Eric Staples is currently the documentation manager for the Jewel of Muscat Project, a joint Oman-Singapore initiative to build a reconstruction of a ninth-century sewn-plank ship and sail it from Muscat to Singapore. He received his PhD in Islamic History in 2008 from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and his research interests include seafaring and shipbuilding in the Islamic world, pre-modern Arab navigation, underwater archaeology and cross-cultural interaction in maritime contexts.

GHIDONI, Alessandro
Jewel of Muscat Project, Muscat, Sultanate of Oman

The Jewel of Muscat Project: reconstructing an early ninth-century CE shipwreck

The Jewel of Muscat Project focuses on the maritime material culture that linked the medieval Islamic world with the Indian Ocean and East Asia. Specifically, the project is building a reconstruction of an early ninth-century shipwreck excavated in 1998-1999 off Belitung Island, Indonesia. Analysis of the surviving structure indicates that the ship was originally from the western Indian Ocean, and likely from the waters around the Arabian Peninsula. The project has assembled the few Omani and Indian shipbuilders who know how to sew a vessel together without nails. The project has built and accurately, comprehensively documented this vessel in Oman, and is now sailing it to Singapore.
This paper will address the technical aspects involved with building the 18 m vessel from the inevitably incomplete excavated remains, and will compare the archaeological evidence with the modern reconstruction. The paper will also address the methodological issues involved with creating a conceptual bridge between the fields of archaeology and ethnographic boatbuilding.
The paper will also provide an overview of the navigation and sailing performance of the vessel, documented by modern instruments.
The project deepens our understanding of early Islamic maritime technology and seafaring, while simultaneously documenting ancient shipbuilding and navigation traditions of the Arabian Peninsula that are rapidly becoming extinct.

15:40-16:10 TEA

16:10 -Thursday 22 July 2010 (BP Lecture Theatre)

KANA'AN, Ruba
Department of Humanities, Faculty of Arts and Liberal Studies, York University, Toronto, Canada

Visibly Ibadi: theological discourses in the mosque architecture of Oman

This paper examines a group of Ibadi mosques in Oman to determine the extent to which Ibadi theology is visibly expressed in mosque architecture. Studies of mosque architecture in Muslim societies identify the mihrab (pl. maharib; niche identifying the direction of prayer), the minbar (pl. manabir; pulpit for the delivery of the Friday prayer) and the minaret (tower for the call of prayer) as major architectural elements in mosque architecture. These elements have been variously interpreted and understood, but their study has predominantly focused on the stylistic differences across specific geographies and historical periods. For the mosques of Oman, recent studies have also focused on stylistic differences, and mostly, in relation to a distant geographical or ideological 'centre'. The paper focuses on the meaning and symbolism of the mihrab, minbar, and minaret in the mosques of Oman. Rather than a stylistic analysis of these architectural elements, the paper proposes a methodological shift that approaches the mosques of Oman through a combination of stylistic analysis and a close reading of the Ibadi religious literature dealing with prayer. More specifically, the paper demonstrates how the different forms and functions of Ibadi mosques can be clearly understood as visual markers of Ibadi theological debates concerning religious and political authority.

16:35 - Thursday 22 July 2010 (BP Lecture Theatre)

DE BLOIS, François
Department of the Study of Religions, School of Oriental and African Studies, London, UK

Professor François de Blois has published widely on Semitic and Iranian languages and the history and history of religions in the Near East in pre-modern times. He served as Professor of Iranian Studies at Hamburg University from 2002 to 2003. Currently he is employed as a research fellow at University College London where he is engaged in a major project on al-Biruni's Chronology and other Arabic texts on non-Islamic calendars; simultaneously he is employed as a teaching fellow for Aramaic and Middle Iranian languages at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. His Catalogue of the Arabic, Persian and Gujarati manuscripts in the Muhammad 'Ali Hamdani collection will be published later this year.

Some rare historical manuscripts relating to Islamic Yemen

François de Blois is currently completing a descriptive catalogue of the Muhammad 'Ali Hamdani collection of Arabic manuscripts recently donated to Institute of Ismaili Studies in London, a rich library collected over seven generations by a distinguished family of scholars from the Ismaili (Tayyibi) community in the Yemen and India. The author has already reported on one of these codices in my paper 'The oldest known Fatimid manuscript from Yemen' delivered at this Seminar in 1984 and subsequently published in the PSAS for that year. In the present paper the author will report on two other important manuscripts.
One is a collection of four works on South Arabian genealogies copied in 1621, among them an epitome of the first two books of the Kitabu l-Iklil by Abu Muhammad al-Hasan b. Ahmad al-Hamdani, extracted from a version different from, and older than, the extant and published recension by Muhammad b. Nashwan al-Himyari. The author can demonstrate that the present epitome was compiled in the Sulayhid period.
The second is an otherwise unrecorded collection of letters by a poet and secretary in the service of the Sulayhids by the name of al-Husayn b. 'Ali b. Muhammad, with the nisbah al-Qummi or Ibn Qumm. This unique collection of ten letters contains two written 'on behalf' of 'Ali b. Muhammad al-Sulayhi (died 1067), two in the name of his successor Ahmad b. 'Ali (died 1084), and one letter addressed to the cousin of the latter, al-sultan Saba' b. Ahmad (d. 1097).

17:00 - Thursday 22 July 2010 (BP Lecture Theatre)

ROBERTSON, Paul
Department of Modern and Applied Languages, University of Westminster, London, UK

Paul Robertson is Head of the Department of Modern and Applied Languages at the University of Westminster. A professional translator and interpreter by training, he is currently working on symbolic and archetypal readings of early Islamic sources with special reference to the life of the Prophet, the history of Makkah and the rituals and mythology of the hajj.

Sa'i: a rite of 'Passage'?

There is no systematically convincing account of any of the rituals associated with Makkah, and sa'i, the second of the major rites of both hajj and 'umrah, is no exception. Caught between theology and history, 'explanations' of why pilgrims course seven times between the twin peaks of al-Safa and al-Marwah focus on the story of Abraham, who first journeyed to Makkah with Hagar and Ishmael only to abandon them there. An edifying example of unquestioning faith in divine providence and a return to the monotheistic principles of hanufa (sg. hanif) for the orthodox, this same script charts the assimilation of a problematic pagan ceremony as part of the grand 'myth' of Muslim ethnogenesis for the historian.
Common to both approaches is the separation of myth from ritual as if the two genres were unrelated and independent forms of expression. Apart from being philosophically problematic, this unquestioning acceptance of a distinction between word and deed obscures the symbolic/universal dimensions of the archetypal images embedded in the various articulations of myth and rite. Focusing on four of these images, The author examines how their symbolic forms cut across the conventional distinctions that separate mono-/polytheistic iterations of sa'i; and consider their significance for our understanding of the continuity of Arabian experience against the disjunction that is Makkah's 'original' moment.

Group Photograph of Participants in the Great Hall
Please could everyone gather on the Eastern Stairs of the Great Hall for a group photograph at 17:30 or after the last lecture

The MBI Al Jaber Public Lecture
Pearls and the shaping of the Persian Gulf
Dr Robert Carter (Oxford Brooks University, UK)
18:30 - BP Lecture Theatre

FRIDAY JULY 23rd
Parallel Sessions BP Lecture Theatre and Stevenson Lecture Theatre

BP Lecture Theatre
Session 4: Environment
Chair: Mark Beech (ADACH, UAE)

09:30 - Friday 23 July 2010 (BP Lecture Theatre)

MACUMBER, Phillip G.
Phillip Macumber Consulting Services, Donvale Victoria, Commonwealth of Australia

In Australia, Phillip G. Macumber worked on Kow Swamp aboriginal burials (1972. Nature) and the Cohuna Cranium site, Lancefield Swamp megafauna' extinction site (1978. Science). In Jordan from 1980-2000 he found and investigated Lower, Middle, Upper and Epi-Palaeolithic sites at Wadi al-Hammah (Pella), Wadi Hisban etc. He worked for Ministry of Water Resources in central Oman 1992-1995, and Head of Hydrogeology 1995-1998; investigated Palaeolithic sites at Haushi (Hawshi), and the Saiwan area beyond Biaggi's site, and regional palaeo-geography and palaeo-climatology. From 2009 he has examined the relationship between landscape, hydrology and occupation in northern Qatar for Copenhagen University.

A geomorphologic and hydrological underpinning for archaeological research in northern Qatar

Almost all of Qatar has a relief of less than 100 m, which together with an arid climate results in virtually no permanent surface water. This has been the situation at least since the last significant wet phase which ceased about 6000 years ago. Water is the one element that determines the possibility of permanent occupation, which in ancient Qatar was, by default, dependant on fresh groundwater. The distribution of permanent occupation sites such as villages and farms is therefore a function of groundwater availability and hence freshwater wells.
This paper examines the occupation in northern Qatar in terms of a physical (geomorphological and hydrological) and temporal (climatic and eustatic) framework, concentrating in the study area of Copenhagen University's Department of Archaeology. It shows why now abandoned sites across northern Oman from al-Zubarah to al-Fuwayrit and further inland are a product of this relationship.
The paper covers fieldwork carried out in the 2009 season, which examined the geology and hydro-geology of al-Zubarah and surrounding areas, examining both coastal and inland sites. It details, with new radiocarbon dates, the mid-Holocene marine transgression from which evolved the sabkhah and palaeo beach-ridge landscape on which al-Zubarah was founded, and the nature of the related well fields at Qal'at Murayr located 1.4 km distant on the Eocene limestone beyond the mid-Holocene shoreline.
The significance of this approach, is that it places the archaeological sites of northern Qatar in a physical and hydrological perspective which helps explain their location and ongoing operation.

09:55 - Friday 23 July 2010 (BP Lecture Theatre)

BREEZE, Paul
VISTA centre, Birmingham Archaeology, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK

Paul Breeze is a landscapes and GIS supervisor with Birmingham Archaeology, at the University of Birmingham. He has responsibilities in the use of GIS, aerial and satellite imagery, and geophysical survey in archaeological research. Recently his work has been largely devoted to an ongoing programme of remote prospection for potential archaeological sites within the terrestrial and marine environments of Qatar. Paul teaches on Birmingham University's postgraduate archaeology courses, and his primary research interests lie in developing methodologies in the complementary use of non-intrusive technologies in archaeological prospection.

CUTTLER, Richard
VISTA centre, Birmingham Archaeology, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK

Richard Cuttler is a senior project manager with Birmingham Archaeology at the University of Birmingham. He has particular expertise in measured survey, DGPS and associated software, and teaches on the undergraduate and postgraduate courses at the University of Birmingham. Richard directs Birmingham Archaeology's ongoing projects in Qatar, and has provided consultancy and survey for many seasons in Arabia, in collaboration with heritage agencies from The United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Kuwait.

COLLINS, Paul
Birmingham Archaeology University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK

RAMSEY, Ellie
Birmingham Archaeology University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK

KINCEY, Mark
Birmingham Archaeology University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK

CHALLIS, Keith
Birmingham Archaeology University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK

TETLOW, Emma
Headland Archaeology

Remote archaeological prospection in Qatar; results of the 2008-2010 seasons

The potential for remote archaeological prospection in Qatar has been examined over the past two years, as an on-going collaborative project between the Qatar Museums Authority and University of Birmingham. This project is investigating the application of QMA archive high resolution satellite data (IKONOS), Orthophotographs, and purchasable topographic and historical data to identifying potential sites of interest within Qatar.
The survey has identified substantial quantities of potential archaeological materials (640 features during the first year alone), which include former settlements of varying morphology and scale, enclosures, cairns, and networks of large intertidal fish-traps. Features have been characterised temporally where possible, using historical imagery to define termini ante/post quem. By the time of , c.40% of Qatar will have been assessed, and a random sample of the identified potential features examined in the field to assess statistically the effectiveness of the methodology in accurately identifying archaeological features.
The methodology, results, and research questions raised by the first two years work will be discussed and assessed in this paper.
The large volume of unexamined potential archaeological material identified during survey indicates the work to be of high national (Qatari) significance, and to have regional implications beyond Qatar.

10:20 - Friday 23 July 2010 (BP Lecture Theatre)

CUTTLER, Richard
VISTA centre, Birmingham Archaeology, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK

Richard Cuttler is a senior project manager with Birmingham Archaeology at the University of Birmingham. He has particular expertise in measured survey, DGPS and associated software, and teaches on the undergraduate and postgraduate courses at the University of Birmingham. Richard directs Birmingham Archaeology's ongoing projects in Qatar, and has provided consultancy and survey for many seasons in the Near East, in collaboration with heritage agencies from The United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Kuwait.

GEAREY, Ben
Birmingham Archaeology, Birmingham University, Birmingham, UK

AL-NAIMI, Faisal
Head of Antiquities, Qatar Museums Authority, Doha, Qatar

KRAWIEC, Kristina
Birmingham Archaeology, Birmingham University, Birmingham, UK

Assessing the value of palaeoenvironmental data for understanding the prehistoric landscape of north-eastern Qatar

The prehistoric burial mounds of Bahrain are well known and have been extensively documented over many years. However, two seasons of extensive survey in north-western Qatar have revealed significant numbers of previously unrecorded prehistoric burial cairns. These burial cairns are not always immediately apparent in the landscape as they are generally fairly deflated and often in areas of lithosoil. While any settlement associated with these mounds is absent, the high density must reflect an exponential growth in the population in the late prehistoric period. Understanding the dynamics behind these shifts in population, however, is difficult. While such population increases may have resulted from technological advances, the relationship between human communities and environmental change has been little investigated. In particular, it is possible that this growth in population may have resulted from small-scale climatic fluctuations, which may have influenced population density and changes between sedentary and nomadic lifestyles. This paper describes recent palaeoenvironmental assessment of deposits recovered from former intertidal flats and inland sediment basins south of the Ras Ashairiji (Ra's 'Ushayriq) peninsula and considers the value of such data for investigating the relationship between environmental changes and the archaeological record in an area for which little such information has been previously available.

10:45 - Friday 23 July 2010 (BP Lecture Theatre)

GALLETTI, Christopher
School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning, Arizona State University, Arizona, USA

Christopher Galletti is a PhD student and research Assistant at Arizona State University, School of Geographical Sciences. He conducts a wide variety of research on human environment relationships, geospatial technologies, global change, and paleoenvironments. He is currently engaged on two research projects: Late Pleistocene human environment relationships in Dhofar, Oman, and land change research in Phoenix, Arizona.

Water or geomorphology? Spatial analysis of prehistoric sites in Dhofar, Oman

Since the days of the much maligned environmental determinism, geography's contribution to archaeology has been primarily in the study of the paleo-environment and spatial analysis. Continuing with this theme, this paper offers a spatial perspective on some 63 Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene sites from the Dhofar (Zufar) region of Oman. The initial study was undertaken to assess the distance of these sites to hydrology, something easily accomplished in GIS models. The results showed statistically significant correlation with hydrology and typical distance decay histograms, which are ideal for predictive models. Further critical analysis, however, is necessary. Water resources are crucial to all living species and this can be a compelling factor for interpreting these results beyond mere corollaries.
Yet, associating these sites to hydrology simply for water access seems both limiting and invokes memories of the environmental determinism fallacy. This paper contends that the wider geomorphologic landscape, tempered by contributions from human-environment geography, can offer a fresh perspective that preserves the complex decision making capabilities of those that settled and lived in this region. The results as well as some ideas for future research will be discussed. The approach taken is a qualitative synthesis of remote sensing, GIS, and traditional statistical analysis of these sites as point data.
This paper will offer a unique perspective, along with cautionary tales, on regional GIS models of archaeological sites in Dhofar, Oman. The future research directions discussed will include mapping the chert outcrops and important discussion topics from modern geographic thought - such as sustainability themes, human ecology, and land use - that can be learned from the archaeology.

11:10-11:40 COFFEE

Chair: Robert Carter (Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, UK)

11:40 - Friday 23 July 2010 (BP Lecture Theatre)

MAGEE, Peter
Department of Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology, Bryn Mawr College, USA

Peter Magee is an Associate Professor of archaeology at Bryn Mawr College (Pennsylvania, USA) where he teaches Near Eastern archaeology and co-ordinates the programme in geo-archaeology. He is interested in the archaeology of human settlement in arid environments and, in addition to excavating in Yemen, Syria, Jordan and Pakistan has, since 1993, directed the excavations at the Iron Age settlement of Muweilah in the United Arab Emirates.

When was the dromedary camel first used for transport and trade in the ancient Near East?

It has long been recognized that significant economic, ecological and social effects resulted from humans' first use of the dromedary camel for trade and transport in the ancient Near East. Yet, there is still much debate and confusion about the chronology of this process, or event, and the first locale in which it occurred. Most scholarship on this issue still relies on sometimes anachronistic textual sources, visual representations that speak to the knowledge - rather than domestication - of dromedaries and a lack of relevant archaeozoological evidence.
The recent discovery of well-stratified archaeozoological remains and relevant coroplastic finds from southern Arabia provides an opportunity to look afresh at the question: 'When was the dromedary camel first used for transport and trade in the Ancient Near East?' In this paper, we contextualize these new data with a thorough analysis of archaeozoological, artistic and artefactual finds from the entirety of the Near East from c.1500 to 700 BCE. In doing so, we argue for a later date than is commonly accepted for both the domestication of the dromedary camel and its use for trade and transport in the ancient Near East.

Session 5: Neolithic

12:05 - Friday 23 July 2010 (BP Lecture Theatre)

DRECHSLER, Philipp
Institut für Ur- und Frühgeschichte und Archäologie des Mittelalters, Universität Tübingen, Tübingen, Bundesrepublik Deutschland

Philipp Drechsler finished his PhD. study in 2007. He is a senior research fellow at the Institute for Prehistory and Protohistory in Tübingen, Germany. His expertise covers the origin and development of the Neolithic on the Arabian Peninsula.

AL HASHASH, Abdulhamid
Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities, Dammam Archaeological Museum, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Abdulhamid al Hashash is head of the Dammam regional archaeological museum. With an excellent knowledge in regional archaeology, his responsibilities cover all archaeological excavations in the Eastern Province of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Beyond the surface. Results and perspectives of recent archaeological investigations at the Neolithic site of Dosariyah, Eastern Province, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Stone artefacts, potsherds and animal remains scattered on the surface over an area of more than 10,000 m2 indicate a substantial settlement at the site of Dosariyah (al-Dawsariyyah), located close to the present shore of the Arabian Gulf between Damman and Jubail (Jubayl) in the Eastern Province of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. During the early 1970s, archaeological investigations at the site revealed a succession of at least seven settlement horizons. Two radiocarbon dates obtained from the top and bottom layers placed the inhabitation of the site into the late 5th and early 4th millennium cal BC.
Foci of new archaeological investigations in a joint German-Saudi Arabian research project are economic and social developments in Eastern Arabia during the Neolithic within the context of local environmental adaptations and cultural contacts. The presentation will outline results of recent excavations and environmental studies based on remote sensing data. The stratigraphic sequence of lithic finds and ceramics is discussed in detail against the background of local cultural traditions and changing environmental conditions. Finally, the importance of Dosariyah in trade and exchange networks along the Arabian Gulf coast is reconsidered.

12:30 - Friday 23 July 2010 (BP Lecture Theatre)

MARCUCCI, Lapo Gianni
CNRS, UMR 7041 ArScAn du CNRS Maison de l'Archéologie et de l'Ethnologie, Nanterre, République Française

Lapo Gianni Marcucci is preparing for his doctorate at the University Paris 1 and the University of Bologna. From 1998 he has been working in Oman on the cultures of the Early Holocene and Bronze Age periods where he has led various excavations, the most important of which is directing excavation of the Ra's al-Hamra 5 (Ra's al-Hamra') Heritage Site Project. He is particularly interested in the spatial construction and reconstruction of coastal villages, the working of shells and reconstruction of production chains for the making of instruments and ornaments.

GENCHI, Francesco
Dipartimento di Archeologia, Alma Mater Studiorum Università di Bologna, Bologna, Repubblica Italiana

Francesco Genchi is preparing for his doctorate at the University of Bologna. From 2000 he has been working in Oman on the cultures of the Early Holocene and Bronze Age periods, and since 2005 he is responsible for archaeological documentation of excavation of the Ra's al-Hamra 5 Heritage Site Project. His work focuses mainly on the use of GIS as a support for management and analysis of excavation data, and he is primarily interested in the development of Neolithic settlements in the Mediterranean and Asia.

TOSI, Maurizio
Dipartimento di Archeologia, Alma Mater Studiorum Università di Bologna, Bologna, Repubblica Italiana

A full Professor since 1981, Maurizio Tosi holds the Chair: of Palaethnology at University of Bologna. His main field of study has been the formative processes of complex societies and the development of the methods for the definition of this process from the archaeological record. Beginning in 1967, he has directed field projects in Iran, Oman, Yemen, Pakistan, Turkmenistan and the Asian parts of the Russian Federation. From 1985 to the present, he is co-director of the Joint Hadd Project which aims to study the beginnings of navigation and long-distance trade in the Indian Ocean. Chiefly a student of palaeo-economics and social structure of early societies, he has directed, from 1985 most of his efforts to the study of the relations between population resources in the systematic reconstruction of past landscapes.

Recent investigations on the prehistoric site of RH-5, Muscat, Sultanate of Oman

After twenty years, the Italian Archaeological Mission in Oman has resumed excavations at the Middle Holocene site of Ra's al-Hamra 5 (RH-5) carrying out an intensive exploratory programme in three consecutive seasons, supported by the Ministry of Heritage & Culture, which aims to create an archaeological park. The resumption of the excavations at RH-5 has so far yielded new data that will give us precise details about the synchronic and diachronic dynamics of the area's population, and also about the economic and social dynamics of Neolithic societies in Eastern Arabia.
In this paper, we shall present the preliminary results of the recent excavations. In particular, we shall consider the spatial organization of the settlement, recovered by means of digital recording.
The 2008 excavation season has disclosed new evidence concerning the settlement sequence, while work carried out in 2009 has yielded new information on dwelling types and household installations, mostly from the earliest period of the sequence, dated around 3800 BCE.
Furthermore a comparison between the remains of the RH-5 settlement and those of contemporary sites so far investigated along the eastern shores of Arabia, along with the ethnohistorical study of different populations, is considered to provide a better understanding of the spatial organization of the village in view of the future construction of the Ra's al-Hamra Heritage Park.

12:55-14:00 LUNCH

Session 6: Surveys & Diachronic
Chair: Lloyd Weeks (University of Nottingham, UK)

14:00 - Friday 23 July 2010 (BP Lecture Theatre)

GIRAUD, Jessica
UMR 7041, 'Village à l'État au Proche et Moyen-Orient', Nanterre, République Française

Post-doctoral researcher associated to CNRS, UMR 7041 in the team 'du Village à l'État au Proche et Moyen-Orient'. She worked in the Ja'alan for her PhD, and is currently working in the region of Adam, in the centre of Sultanate of Oman where the author leads the survey and excavation.

Eastern Oman during the proto-historic period: report on five campaigns of survey in the Ja'alan

This paper presents the most significant results of the last five campaigns of surveys in the Ja'alan (Eastern Oman), lead by the French team of the Joint Hadd Project.
A few Neolithic sites have been discovered, but most sites can be dated to the Early Bronze Age. Fifty graveyards of the Hafit period (2000 graves) and a dozen of Umm an-Nar graveyards (100 graves) have been identified. The data of Wadi Suq, Late Bronze Age and Iron Age periods are poorer. Other discoveries are also presented, such as a rock shelter with wall paintings.
From these results, it is possible to determine the evolution of settlement patterns links to the social development and the environmental change.

14:25 - Friday 23 July 2010 (BP Lecture Theatre)

AL-JAHWARI, Nasser Said
Department of Archaeology, College of Arts and Social Sciences, Sultan Qaboos University, Muscat, Sultanate of Oman

Dr Nasser Al-Jahwari is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Archaeology at Sultan Qaboos University. His main interest is landscape archaeology of the Arabian Gulf, and has from 1993 participated in and conducted field surveys and excavations in Oman.

A model for the analysis of quantified long-term settlement trends in the northern Oman peninsula

This paper will set out a tentative quantified analysis of long-term trends in the settlement history of the northern Oman peninsula from the 3rd millennium to the late Islamic period, based on published archaeological evidence.
Although the data set used is undeniably problematic, it is argued that the sheer quantity of available evidence will have ironed out at least some of the specific and localised problems that exist, and will therefore give a broadly correct indication of general long-term trends. It is clear in any case, from conversations and published comments that implicit and unsystematic reviews of exactly this same data set are regularly being used by many scholars in an impressionistic and non-rigorous ways as the basis for the consensus opinion on trends in the relative density of activity and occupation in different periods. A chance is therefore taken here to put such comparisons on to a firmer footing and to make them explicit and testable. The robustness of the data can - and should - then be debated.
It is argued that the stability of some of the longer-term trends suggests that it probably is worth taking this data seriously when used for low-grade analysis such as that presented here. Nonetheless, caution must obviously still be applied until the conclusions can be more rigorously tested.
The paper will start by defining the geographical extent of the area under study and outlining the methodology used in populating a database of all published sites and its structure, and then reviews the reliability of the data. It will describe a preliminary analysis of the general trends in the evidence by quantifying the number of recorded sites according to period, region and type of evidence.

14:50 - Friday 23 July 2010 (BP Lecture Theatre)

SHEEHAN, Peter
Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage (ADACH), Al Ain, UAE

Peter Sheehan is an archaeologist who has been working in the Arab world since 1989. Much of this time has been spent in and around the Roman fortress of Babylon in Old Cairo but he has also been involved with a variety of archaeological survey, research and rescue projects in Egypt, Lebanon and Sudan. He is currently Historic Buildings Manager for the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage and is directing a programme of research and archaeological investigation at a number of sites within the Emirate.

POWER, Tim
Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage (ADACH), Al Ain, UAE

Tim Power is a field archaeologist at the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage, working mostly on the Islamic period forts and settlements of the al-'Ayn Oasis. He has excavated in the Eastern Desert of Egypt and at Zabid in the Yemeni Tihamah. His DPhil in Islamic Art and Archaeology at the University of Oxford examined the Red Sea in transition between Byzantium and the Caliphate. His wider interests include the Indian Ocean trade and its Arabian hinterlands.

Qattarah village: a prehistoric industrial site and the formation of the oasis landscape of al-?Ayn

This paper presents recent (Jan 2009-Feb 2010) archaeological work by ADACH at the Bin 'Ati house in Qattarah Oasis, al-'Ayn, UAE.
The earliest activity comprises a unique prehistoric rock-cut industrial installation, possibly Bronze Age in date and plausibly related to copper production, which constitutes a site of major archaeological significance for the region. Following the abandonment of the industrial installation, a significant Iron Age 2 occupation was noted. This phase included the excavation of a number of aflaj and culminated in the primary formation of the present mound, both features perhaps related to an agricultural land use and the creation of the present oasis landscape. Thereafter a long period of abandonment appears to have ended with a second period of mound formation and the reoccupation of the site from the Early/Middle Islamic period through to a major Late Islamic occupation associated with commercial date agriculture and widespread foreign contacts.
The paper will focus on the interpretation of the 5 m deep stratigraphic sequence provided by excavation of the mound and the information it has provided for the evolution of the historic landscape of al-'Ayn from the Bronze Age to the end of the pre-oil era in the 1960s.

15:15 - Friday 23 July 2010 (BP Lecture Theatre)

GLANZMAN, William D.
Department of Sociology & Anthropology, Mount Royal University, Alberta, Canada

William Glanzman is Director of and Principal Investigator for the Wadi Raghwan Archaeological Project in the Governorate of Ma'rib, Republic of Yemen. He is also Co-Director of the BYU Dhofar Project in Oman, and both Archaeologist and Ceramic Specialist for the University of Miami's Jurash Project in Saudi Arabia. His principal interests are ancient ceramics and their technology, ancient commerce, and especially the investigation of the evidence for camel caravans in antiquity.

Both young and old: genres of rock art in the Wadi Raghwan, and their significance

Numerous examples of rock art in the form of petroglyphs, all hitherto unreported, are found in the Wadi Raghwan, Ma'rib District, Republic of Yemen. Following a general classification approach, several different genres are isolated and include: abstract symbols, some likely representing wusum; abstract compositions, possibly maps; large animals in profile; mammals, with or without riders, all in profile; and human forms in different poses. Often, we could assign a relative date for these petroglyphs based on their proximity to other examples as well as inscriptions, and on the degree of patina they exhibit; most belong to the pre-Islamic era while others are certainly Islamic in date. This paper reviews the genres encountered and their classification, and attempts to assess their significance with respect to style, technique, approximate date, and location.
Following a review of the same genres within Arabia, a regional style assignment is possible for specific examples or variants, and analysis of all dating evidence demonstrates several trends in the corpus develop over time. Given the individual and combined exemplars, a special focus is placed on the assessment of the human form, both regionally and within Arabia as a whole.

Session 7: Bronze Age
Chair: TBC

16:10 - Friday 23 July 2010 (BP Lecture Theatre)

RIGHETTI, Sabrina
UMR 7041-Maison de l'Archéologie et de l'Ethnologie, Université de Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, République Française

Sabrina Righetti is a PhD student at Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. Her research concerns the Wadi Suq period and Late Bronze Age (2000-1300 BC) in the Oman peninsula. She is involved in a survey project in the region of Adam, Sultanate of Oman.

The transitional period of the 3rd to 2nd millennium BC in Oman: a new approach with an agent based model

It is generally agreed amongst archaeologists, based predominantly upon surviving material culture and funerary architecture that dramatic social changes occurred in the societies of the Omani peninsula at the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC. Of the few settlement sites that are known, some were still occupied, but these appear less substantial and less densely occupied than during the Umm an-Nar period. Mud-brick walls, mud-brick platforms, hearths and stonewalls have been uncovered and some of these appear to have had a defensive function.
Artefactual and environmental studies present clues and several hypotheses have been advanced to explain this transformation, such as the development of a more arid climate, a return to a more nomadic way of life with the abandonment of several oases, or even invasions. All these hypotheses have their merits but none offer an explanation that has convinced the majority of archaeologists.
There are many questions that need to be asked. What really happened at the end of the 3rd millennium BC? Why did such important transformations occur in the archaeological record? Should we really use the term 'collapse' to describe these changes? Can climatic variations alone be used to explain these changes?
This paper will provide some preliminary results and some elements of an answer to what is ultimately the most important question: What happened during the transition period of the 3rd-2nd millennia BC in the Omani peninsula?
The agent-based model (ABM) is a tool known and use for several years in the so-called 'hard-pure' and 'hard-applied' subjects such as science and statistics. It has also been utilized in some 'soft-applied' subjects such as sociology. Archaeologists have used this approach for some years and this has provided some interesting results. However, it is important to point out that this technique cannot provide absolute answers but it can be used as a tool to reduce the number of hypothesis. This paper will apply an ABM to the surviving evidence from the transitional period of the 3rd to 2nd millennium BC in Oman.

16:35 - Friday 23 July 2010 (BP Lecture Theatre)

LAURSEN, Steffen Terp
Department of Anthropology, Archaeology and Linguistics, Aarhus Universitet, Højbjerg, Kongeriget Danmark

Steffen Terp Laursen was awarded an MA from the University of Aarhus in pre-historic archaeology and computers for archaeologists. Currently working on a PhD dissertation on social complexity in early Dilmun based on the burial mounds of Bahrain. Main interests include social complexity, monuments, burial praxis, long-term structures, social networks, aerial photos, prehistoric landscapes and GIS.

Masters of the springs: new evidence of social organization in early Dilmun, c.2250-1750 BC

Moesgård Museum and The Bahrain National Museum are collaborators on The Bahrain burial mound project which currently has completed the first phase of its extensive mound mapping programme and carried out minor excavations in selected mounds. Analysis of this new and improved cartographic data has led to a number of insights into the social organization of the mound cemeteries that will be presented in the paper.
It is obvious that there existed a close spatial relation between freshwater springs and the compact mounds cemeteries that emerged c.2050 BC. The mound cemeteries appear to have been flanked by villages that relied on these water recourses for agricultural production. The springs emerged in the zone separating the cemeteries from the settlements. The freshwater springs were actively incorporated into the religious landscape of the dead, by consistently erecting mounds of a particular high status type right above the head of each spring. These tombs of the masters of the springs are distinguished by their larger size and vertical shaft entrance. It is argued that this particular strategy of power was employed after population growth had intensified conflicts over the rights for water - a process which perhaps also is evidenced by temple constructions at Barbar, Umm al-Sujur and Abu Zaydan.

17:00 - Friday 23 July 2010 (BP Lecture Theatre)

HØJLUND, Flemming
Oriental Department, Moesgård Museum, Højbjerg, Kongeriget Danmark

Dr Flemming Højlund has published extensively on the archaeology of Bahrain (Qal'at al-Bahrain, Barbar Temples, burial mounds) and Kuwait (Tell F3 and F6 on Failaka).

Between the temple and the palace in Tell F6, Failaka, Kuwait: Two seasons of excavation by the Kuwait-Danish Mission, 2008-2009

In Tell F6 two important buildings belonging to the Dilmun culture have been excavated, the Palace by the Danish expedition (1960-1963) and the Temple by the French Mission (1984-86, 88). Unfortunately, both buildings can only be broadly dated to the early part of the 2nd millennium BC. A five year programme of excavations has therefore been planned by the Kuwait National Council of Culture, Arts and Letters and Moesgård Museum in order to explore the relationship between these two buildings.
After the first two seasons the construction of the Palace as well as the temple has now been clearly related to a specific type of pottery and a specific style of stamp seal. The first use of the Palace and Temple has been documented by the excavation of a series of thin floor levels from which 25 samples of charcoal have been retrieved for radiocarbon dating, the results of which will be presented at the Seminar.
Besides, part of a house with a predominantly Mesopotamian inventory has been uncovered below the Temple, representing the oldest known settlement found so far on Failaka, dating to the late 3rd mill. BC.

17:25 - Friday 23 July 2010 (BP Lecture Theatre)

ABU-LABAN, Aiysha
Oriental Department, Moesgård Museum, Højbjerg, Kongeriget Danmark

Aiysha Abu-Laban holds an MA in Near Eastern Archaeology from the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. Her primary focus of her thesis was the aspect of exchange among Neolithic societies in the Southern Levant. She has participated in various projects in Jordan, Syria, and Egypt and recently in Kuwait. She is currently part of the Kuwait-Danish Archaeological Mission to Failaka, and her current research project focuses on stamp seals from the Bronze Age sites Tell F3 and F6 there.

New studies in Dilmun stamp seals from Failaka, Kuwait

Based on a corpus of 366 stamp seals excavated between 1958 and 1963 on Failaka (Faylakah), Kuwait, Poul Kjærum (1980) defined a series of styles: IA, IB, II and III, in sequence from the beginning to the middle of the 2nd millennium BC.
Recent excavations (2008-2009) of Tell F6 on Failaka have produced 30 new stamp seals almost all of which derive from stratified contexts. During this three-year project, new information will be used as a starting point to reappraise the entire corpus of seals.
Some preliminary results and considerations will be presented at the 2010 Seminar. In a large public building uncovered below the 'Palace', a magnificent stamp seal in style IA with a diameter of 5.2 cm was found in 2010. The normal diameter of Dilmun seals is c.2.4 cm, so this very large seal and a similar one found around 1960 demonstrate the existence of a hierarchy of seals which may reveal basic contours of a corresponding administrative hierarchy.
Style II seals were found in secure stratigraphic contexts and in direct relation to the 'Palace'. Style II is defined by the use of the point drill which was introduced in Mesopotamia during the late reign of King Hammurabi and his son Samsuiluna. The complete corpus of style II seals from Failaka will therefore be examined, and the character of the Mesopotamian influence in Dilmun glyptic will be considered.

FRIDAY JULY 23rd Continued

Stevenson Lecture Theatre
Session 8: Arabic Language & Literature
Chair: (TBC)

09:30 - Friday 23 July 2010 (Stevenson Lecture Theatre)

WATSON, Janet C.E.
School of Languages, University of Salford, United Kingdom

Janet Watson is Professor of Arabic Linguistics at the University of Salford. Until recently her research has focused on the description and documentation of Yemeni dialects of Arabic, in particular Sana'ani Arabic. Since 2006 she has been working on the Modern South Arabian language, Mehri, and examining areal linguistic features exhibited in the south-west corner of the Arabian Peninsula.

AL-AZRAQI, Munira
College of Arts, King Faisal University, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Munira Al-Azraqi is an Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics at King Faisal University, Saudi Arabia. Her research focuses on the description of the dialects of the south-west of Saudi Arabia. She is also interested in other areas in sociolinguistics such as koineization, and diglossia.

NAÏM, Samia
lacito-cnrs (umr 7107), Villejuif, République Française

Samia Naïm is a researcher at the CNRS-Paris. A linguist who has specialised in Semitic languages, she is specifically interested in the Arabic dialects of the Middle East and Arabia, which she studies from a historical, comparative and typological perspective. Samia has published many articles and books about the dialects of Sanaa (Sana'a) and Zabid such as 2009. L'Arabe yéménite de Sanaa (Leuven-Paris-Dudley: Peeters) and 1995 Yémen (Arles: Actes Sud). She has also contributed to, or directed, interdisciplinary works on contemporary Yemen, such as 2001. Yémen: d'un itinéraire à l'autre (Paris: Maisonneuve & Larose) and 1995. Sanaa: architecture domestique et société (Paris: CNRS Éditions).

Lateralised emphatics and lateralised fricatives in the Arabian Peninsula

Arabic was traditionally described as lugat al-Dad 'the language of Dad' due to the perceived unusualness of the sound. From Sibawayhi's description, early Arabic Dad was clearly a lateral or lateralised emphatic. Lateral fricatives are assumed to have formed part of the phoneme inventory of Proto-Semitic (Steiner 1977), and are attested in MSAL today. In Arabic, a lateral realisation of Dad continues to be attested in recitations of the Qur'an. For Arabic, the lateral Dad described by Sibawayhi was believed to be confined to dialects spoken in southern Yemen (Landberg 1901, El-Jindi 1983, Habtour 1989, Versteegh 2006). Recent fieldwork, by Asiri (2009) and Al-Azraqi (2007, 2010), however, has identified lateral and lateralised emphatics in dialects in southern 'Asir and the Saudi Tihamah. These sounds differ across the varieties, both in their phonation (voicing) and manner of articulation - sonorants and voiced and voiceless fricatives - in their degree of laterality, and in their phonological behaviour: the lateralised Dad in the southern Yemeni dialect of Gayl Habban, for example, has a non-lateralised allophone in the environment of /r/ or /l/ (Habtour 1989).
One linguistic feature often said to distinguish all modern Arabic dialects from classical or pre-classical Arabic is the merger of the classical sounds Dad and Dha - the merged sound is a backed alveolar stop in some dialects and a backed interdental fricative in others (Al-Wer 2004). However, several dialects spoken either side of the western Saudi-Yemeni border for which the reflex of Dad is a lateralised fricative and a few for which it is not contrast a reflex of Dad with a reflex of Dha, generally in terms of phonation (cf. Asiri 2009, Behnstedt 1987). In this paper, we will use sound files and video clips to present the different reflexes of lateral emphatics in southern 'Asir and Saudi Tihamah, provide an approximate geographical area for their occurrence, and compare the lateral emphatics here with the lateral fricatives and emphatics attested in the Modern South Arabian language, Mehri.

References
Al-Azraqi M. 2007. al-Dad in south-west Saudi Arabia as described by the old grammarians, in Between the Atlantic and Indian Ocean: Studies on contemporary Arabic dialects. Proceedings of the 7th AIDA conference, held in Vienna 5-9 September 2006. Vienna.
Al-Azraqi M. 2010.The ancient Dad in south west Saudi Arabia. Arabica 57: 57-67.
Al-Wer E. 2004. Variability reproduced: A variationist view of the [D]/[Dh] opposition in modern Arabic dialects. Pages 21-31 in K. Versteegh, M. Haak & R. de Jong (eds), Approaches to Arabic Dialectology. Amsterdam.
Asiri Y. 2009. Aspects of the phonology and morphology of the dialect of Rijal Alma?, spoken in south-western Saudi Arabia. PhD thesis, University of Salford.
Behnstedt P. 1987. Die Dialekte der Gegend von Sa'dah. Wiesbaden.
Habtour M. 1989. L'Arabe parlé à Ghayl Habban: Phonologie et morphologie. PhD thesis. Paris: University of the Sorbonne,
Landberg, conte de. 1901. Etudes sur les dialectes de l'Arabie méridionale, i, Hadramoût. Leiden.
Steiner R.C. 1977. The case for fricative-laterals in Proto-Semitic. New Haven.
Versteegh K. 2006. Dad. Pages 544-545i n K. Versteegh (ed.), Encyclopaedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics. i. Leiden.

09:55 - Friday 23 July 2010 (Stevenson Lecture Theatre)

ALZAHRANI, Adel Khamis
Arabic & Middle Eastern Studies, University of Leeds, UK

Adel Alzahrani, a Saudi PhD student at the University of Leeds under the supervision of Dr Zahia Salhi. The author is working on contemporary cultural criticism. With MA degrees from King Abdul Aziz University in Saudi Arabia and he focused on modern Saudi poetry and then from the University of Leeds, with a focus on the desire for innovation in Arabic poetry. He composes Arabic poetry, and have published my first collection of poems in 2009.

The desire for innovation in classical Arabic poetry

This paper attempts to explore the general phenomenon of innovation in classical Arabic poetry by examining how the desire for innovation affected the development of poetry from the pre-Islamic period to the end of the Abbasid era, taking into consideration the relationship between poets' attempts at innovation and their degree of desire for it in each stage.
The Arabic heritage constituted a pressure on pre-Islamic poets: on the one hand, its traditions came to be seen to be a criterion of good poetry and poets were expected to follow them; on the other, successive generations of poets who imitated those traditions felt that the achievements of their predecessors discouraged them from introducing major changes to Arabic poetry. This paper discusses why some pre-Islamic poets expressed the pressure of heritage in their poems, and outlines the clearest attempts to innovate in the pre-Islamic period. It also focuses on the impact of Islam and the Holy Qur'an on Arabic poetry, and how poets were influenced by Qur'anic language and were encouraged to imitate its language, dictions and images, and how because of this the pressure of the heritage on them decreased. The desire for innovation increased dramatically during the Abbasid period and many poets rejected some poetic traditions with reference to both form and content. This orientation reached its peak in the genre of muwashshah (plural: al-muwashshahat, which was invented in Andalus; this genre rejected the traditional prosodic system and developed its own forms and prosody.

10:20 - Friday 23 July 2010 (Stevenson Lecture Theatre)

ELMAZ, Orhan
Institut für Orientalistik, Universität Wien, Wien, Republik Österreich

Lecturer in Media Arabic and Data Processing Administrator at the Department of Near Eastern Studies of Vienna University. Studies in Arabic Studies, Computer Science in Medicine and Informatics Management at Vienna University, Vienna University of Medicine and Vienna University of Technology. MA dissertation in Arabic Studies on how the meaning of some Qur'anic hapax legomena is found. Dissertation in Arabic Studies on the history of interpretations of Qur'anic hapax legomena including a description thereof in 2008. MA dissertation in Informatics Management on frequency based teaching materials for Media Arabic.

Khushub Musannada (Qur'an 63:4) and ESA m{s1,s3}nd

This paper will enquire the possibility of a relation between musannada in Qur'an 63:4 and musnad which denotes Epigraphic Arabic scripts and inscriptions. Therefore ten Arabic thesauri and 20 exegeses as well as relevant secondary literature will be surveyed diachronically, i.e. from Farahidi's Kitab al-'Ayn to Zabidi's Taj al-'arus and from Mujahid's Tafsir to Shawkani's Fath al-Qadi'r respectively. Proposed etymologies of the term musnad and the discovery of the first Ancient South Arabian inscriptions by 'Orientalists' will be discussed together with descriptions in early sources as Hamdani''s Iklil, the G'ari'b literature, Hadith collections and history books like Jawad 'Ali's Al-mufassal fi ta'rikh al-'arab qabla l-islam. Based on these findings, the topic of 'writing', which becomes manifest e.g. in the roots KTB, QLM and STR, will be worked on in the Qur'an. Finally words stated to be of South Arabian origin in the first thesaurus compiled by Farahidi and the early exegesis of Mujahid will be reviewed.

10:45 - Friday 23 July 2010 (Stevenson Lecture Theatre)

RODIONOV, Mikhail A.
Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkamera), Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, Russian Federation

Mikhail A. Rodionov is the head of the South and South-West Asia Department in the Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkammer), Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, Russia, and a Professor of Arabian History at the Oriental Faculty of the St. Petersburg State University. He has published widely on his main research interests of South Arabian field ethnography, folk poetry and religion.

Tribal versions of local history in the Hadramawt today

Based on new printed sources and my field data, this paper tackles the recent phenomenon in present day Hahramawt (Yemen), i.e. historical accounts related to a certain local tribe and written by a native author. Some of these publications do not go much further than traditional genealogical revisions. Other works, however, aim to carry out more ambitious task. That is the case with the chronicles by 'Umar Ahmad Bin Sa'd al-Jawhi, Salim Ahmad al-Khanbashi, and Muhammad 'Ali Ba Miz'ab. The authors lay emphasis not only on the noble origin of their tribe but also stress its extreme importance in social, economical, political and cultural areas. To attest their point they bring into play early chronicles, classical and folk poetry, handwritten documents, various samples of oral tradition and ethnographic data. Worth mentioning that the apologist of the al-Jawhiyyin, which is an important part of the Sayban tribal union, ascribes all Saybani merits to his tribal group.
The author regards these publications as a fruit of social re-stratification which has been gaining momentum since the unification of the country in 1991 and the 1994 Civil War. Today the most active elements of the ex-underprivileged non-tribal strata in Hadramawt seek their origin within the tribal context.

11:10-11:40 COFFEE

Session 9: Artefacts & Architecture
Chair: Nadia Durrani

11:40 - Friday 23 July 2010 (Stevenson Lecture Theatre)

AL-SAYYED, Waleed
Director of Lonaard and Dar Mimar Group, London, UK

The spatial morphology of traditional houses of Sana'a in Yemen

This paper explores the spatial qualities of a sample of traditional houses of Sanaa (Sana'a) in Yemen using the space syntax method. The sample consists of six houses, chosen to investigate the morphological variety that can be found in the houses of Sanaa. The World of Islam Festival Trust sponsored the survey of the traditional architecture of Sanaa and published Sana'a: an Arabian Islamic city in 1988, from which the sample was obtained. Sanaa houses have an average height of five storeys ranging from two to eight. The houses are non-courtyard houses, with one main entrance, and in some exceptions have two or three entrances.
The procedure of this research is to examine the spatial structure of the houses through j-graphs, space types, and syntactic methods. The analysis thus shows that there are pervasive common themes underlying the spatial organisation even when there are substantial differences in the manifest morphology of the 'tower' houses of Sanaa. The results then suggest, within this sample, the broad parameters of a common structure within which significant local variation is allowed to happen, which amount to differences in local space culture. The research shows the unique spatial morphology of the tower non-courtyard houses of Sanaa. These are tree-like and deep from the outside with an average MD at 7.18.

12:05 - Friday 23 July 2010 (Stevenson Lecture Theatre)

LE MAGUER, Sterenn
UFR 03, Histoire de l'art et archeologie, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, Paris, République Française

Sterenn Le Maghuer is a PhD student in Islamic Archaeology in the Universite Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne under the direction of Professor A.E. Northedge (Universite Paris 1) and Dr Cl. Hardy-Guilbert (CNRS, UMR 8167). My PhD thesis relates to the incense trade from the collapse of the South Arabian kingdoms to the arrival of the Portuguese in the Indian Ocean (4th-15th centuries). The subject of my PhD thesis is the continuation of my master's degree dissertation, i.e. the question of the incense trade and the typology of incense burners in the Arabian Peninsula.

Typology of incense-burners of the Islamic period

Several typologies have been made concerning the pre-Islamic censers or altars, but this type of study has never been done for the Islamic incense-burners. We define as an 'incense-burner' any container used for burning with aromatic resins in a secular context. These objects are not only evidence of the use of incense, but also of its trade. In this paper the author presents a typology of pottery incense burners together with those made of soft-stone. The former are mostly made locally, and their shapes are generally linked to a limited area, whereas the latter are linked to trade networks because the soapstone mines are much localized. The typology is based on the features of material, shape and design. Catalogues and maps have been made in order to propose a chronological and geographical typology. Hopefully this typology will be useful to help publishing these neglected Islamic period objects.

12:30 - Friday 23 July 2010 (Stevenson Lecture Theatre)

UM, Nancy
Department of Art History, Binghamton University, Binghamton, USA

Nancy Um is Associate Professor of Art History at Binghamton University in New York. She recently published 2009. The Merchant Houses of Mocha: Trade and Architecture in an Indian Ocean Port. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press. Her current research treats Red Sea architecture, building in Yemen during the first Ottoman era and the Al Qasimi Imamate, and the exchange of commercial and diplomatic gifts in Yemen and the western Indian Ocean in the 17th and 18th centuries.

The Red Sea rawshan: picturing the projecting window in Yemen

Often elaborately carved with casement shutters, the rawshan (pl. rawashin), or projecting wooden window, appears as a major visual feature of the traditional houses of Yemen's Red Sea littoral, in port cities such as Mocha (al-Mukha), al-Hudaydah, and al-Luhayyah, as well as other neighbouring Arabian and African coastal cities. This paper explores the visual dimensions of the Yemeni raw?shin, but also questions the length of its history, which can be verified only through 19th and 20th century extant examples and historical photographs that capture buildings that no longer stand. For this purpose, visual representations of the rawshan outside of domestic architecture will be explored, such as its appearance in an illustration of the unique Yemeni Maqamat (held in Dar al-Makhtutat in Sana'a) and as a decorative sculptural motif in the early eighteenth-century tomb of Imam al-Mahdi Muhammad in the Yemeni highlands (which has never been previously published). By relying on evidence culled from a range of artistic media and architectural types, my paper proposes a chronology for the rawashin of Yemen's Red Sea coast and proposes a new understanding of its meaning. An assessment of this nearly lost domestic architectural tradition is increasingly important because of the poor survival rate of extant examples.

12:55-14:00 LUNCH

Session 10: History & Ethnography
Chair: Janet Watson

14:00 - Friday 23 July 2010 (Stevenson Lecture Theatre)

BARKER, Katherine
Bournemouth University, UK

Aldhelm of Malmesbury: the seventh century, Syria and the Saraceni

Papers given for the session given in 2009 entitled 'The Development of Arabic as a Written Language' presented unexpected parallels with the later seventh-century world of Aldhelm of Malmesbury. A scholar of Hiberno-Latin, heir to the oral, poetic tradition of the Latin carmen, his promotion of formally-approved Roman/Christian scriptura echoes that of the written Qur'an composed to supplant oral 'recitation'. Aldhelm's mentor, Theodore of Tarsus, Syriac/Greek-speaking scholar of Edessa, Antioch and Constantinople, was appointed archbishop of Canterbury (668-690) and charged with the (re-)establishment of the Roman church in Britannia. The immigration of Aldhelm's gens germanica presents parallels with that of the gens arabi in the east; late Roman land tax institutions facilitated the accommodation of both in the legal framing of their power and identity and in promotion of their respective faiths.
Aldhelm describes incense from Saba, composed a riddle on a camel which panicked the Roman cavalry, plagiarised a story by Jerome of a Syrian border heremita - and makes two references to the Saraceni, predating Bede by a generation. Aldhelm's poetic skills of allegoria and tropologia provide a unique insight into the way these peoples were seen. His words recall a 'deviant' burial excavated at Sutton Hoo, a site which itself presents evidence of significant trading contact with the seventh-century eastern Mediterranean.

14:25 - Friday 23 July 2010 (Stevenson Lecture Theatre)

AL-HAJRI, Hilal
Department of Arabic, College of Arts & Social Sciences, Sultan Qaboos University Sultanate of Oman

Hilal al-Hajri is Assistant Professor in the Department of Arabic, Sultan Qaboos University. He is currently a visiting scholar at the University of Cambridge. In both teaching and research, he is interested in travel writing, Orientalism, comparative literature, and Arabic prosody. Some of his published works include: 2006. British Travel-Writing on Oman: Orientalism Reappraised. Bern: Peter Lang. (In English); 2006. Lyric Prosody: A New Project For Teaching Arabic Meters. Muscat: Ministry of Heritage and Culture. (In Arabic.); and 2010. The Lure of the Unknown: Oman in English Literature. Amman: Dar al-Intshar. (In Arabic.).

Through evangelical eyes: American missionaries to Oman

This paper is concerned with American missionaries, who were in Oman from 1889 to 1986. They travelled widely and left a number of books and travel accounts about the country. The most prominent missionary among them was Samuel Zwemer, who published his book Arabia: The Cradle of Islam (1900), which included descriptions of his experience and travels in Oman. Another American missionary who published a book about his journeys in Oman was Dr Paul Harrison. His book Doctor in Arabia (1940) includes his medical tours in the country from 1909 to 1954. The most famous female missionary was Jeanette Boersma who served as a nurse in Iraq and Oman until her retirement in 1986. Her experience in Oman is available in her book Grace in the Gulf: The Autobiography of Jeanette Boersma, Missionary Nurse in Iraq and the Sultanate of Oman (1991).
The ultimate goal of this paper is to explore the images of Oman developed within American missionary writings. In American missionaries' representations, the author locates Oman as a place, a people and a culture. Precisely, the author is interested in looking at their attitudes, both positive and negative, to every aspect of life in Oman. The author hopes to contribute to the literary criticism of Western discourse on the Middle East with a different perspective. Unlike Edward Said and his advocates, who homogenize Western discourse on the Middle East, in my paper the author proposes that American missionary writings on Oman are much more heterogeneous, ambiguous and discontinuous. My project argues that these writings are neither homogenously biased nor impartial, but imply a mixture of diverse attitudes, depending on many factors such as the missionaries' backgrounds, motives of their visits, lengths of stay, time of visit, and the kinds of people encountered. The gap of knowledge that this paper undertakes to fill is that most of the missionary texts on Oman have not been studied in the context of Orientalism.

14:50 - Friday 23 July 2010 (Stevenson Lecture Theatre)

ANDRIYANOVA, Olga
Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, (CEMAf), Paris, République Française & Faculty of Asian and African Studies Saint-Petersburg State University, St-Petersburg, Russian Federation

Olga Andriyanova began her studies at the Faculty of Asian and African Studies of St Petersburg State University in 1998. Awarded a scholarship by the French Government in 2006, Olga Andriyanova is now preparing - under the joint supervision from University of Paris 1 and Saint-Petersburg State University - a PhD on 'State, Power and Society in Eastern Arabia in the 17th-19th centuries: an attempt of socio-political history'. Focusing on the history of Oman, she is especially interested in power relationships in Omani society during the afore-mentioned period, its social structure and the Omani historiography.

Some observations on women in Omani sources

The topic for the paper was naturally suggested by the materials obtained during our two short (6 weeks and 3.5 months) research sojourns in the Sultanate of Oman. Omani historical works as well as European archives have demonstrated, excluding a few renowned examples of women's participation in political life, an almost complete absence of women. During our fieldwork, we came across a recent publication, with comments, of a list of the renowned women of Nizwa, and an unpublished manuscript (1977) on the virtuous women of al-Wasil village (al-Sharqiyyah). Both can be considered as a late manifestation of some local historical interest towards the subject, probably stimulated by the social transformation experienced by the Sultanate since 1970. Following this trend, we propose to explore the documents on the social and economic life in Oman from the 18th to the first half of the 20th century. Giving but a very quick overview of the chapters of the works on Ibadi fiqh concerning women, we will concentrate on the women's role in the Omani society as revealed by the analysis of documents from private collections (testaments, legal documents on property rights, etc.).

15:15 - Friday 23 July 2010 (Stevenson Lecture Theatre)

URKEVICH, Lisa
American University of Kuwait, Safat, State of Kuwait

Lisa Urkevich, PhD is a Professor of Musicology and Ethnomusicology at the American University of Kuwait (AUK), where she also serves as Director of the Arabian Heritage Project, a centre focused on outreach and preservation of the music of Arabia and related cultures. She has lived in the Peninsula for over eleven years, where she has been involved in fieldwork in the Gulf States and diverse areas of Saudi Arabia. Before coming to Kuwait, Dr Urkevich was a Professor at Boston University, and she has served as a visiting Professor at various American institutions. She holds four degrees in music: www.urkevich.com

Musical practices of Wadi al-Dawasir, Saudi Arabia: genres and styles

Throughout the Arabian Peninsula, musical works known as 'dosari' (al-dawsari) are well known and often included in all-night samra music parties. Sometimes the designation refers to a specific song genre, and sometimes it is applied to pieces in general that are associated with Wadi al-Dawasir, a region that borders the empty quarter of Saudi Arabia, c.600 km south of Riyadh. Al Dosari, one of the leading desert tribes famous for their musical sense and dancing skills, dominate this fertile oasis that lies on an ancient caravan route. The nature of the more recent inhabitants is diverse, being both badu and hather (hadhar): in some seasons the residents would drive herds through al-Hadb and in others they would tend palm groves. Because of the fertile ground, many African slaves were brought to the region to assist in agriculture, and today their descendants, who carry the surname 'Dosari', play a major role in the community and are especially noted as leaders in music making. This paper will present, with audio and video examples, musical characteristics, styles, and genres of Al Dosari, the influence of the African descendants, and the importance of 'dosari' compositions in the Gulf and other parts of the Peninsula. Indeed this study is significant for no similar research on 'dosari' music has been formally presented or published in an academic setting.

15:40-16:10 TEA

The Seminar continues in the BP Lecture Theatre at 16:10 with the Bronze Age Session

17:50 - Poster Session

This is an opportunity to meet and discuss the research of those that are presenting posters. Individual contributors will stand next to their posters and informal discussion will continue into the reception.

RECEPTION
18:30 - Clore Centre East

SATURDAY JULY 24th

Saudi Focus Session
Chair: Venetia Porter (British Museum, UK)

09:30 - Saturday 24 July 2010 (BP Lecture Theatre)

AL-NAIM, Mashary
College of Architecture and Planning, University of Dammam, Dammam, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Historical mosques in al-Hassa region, Saudi Arabia: a typological study

The study aims to conduct a survey and classify the traditional mosques in al-Hassa (al-Hasa') region, Eastern of Saudi Arabia, starting with the Jawtha mosque (sixth century) and including the mosques built in the first half of the twentieth century. The purpose here is to understand different types of mosques and the origin of their forms. The study will cover the political, social and technological aspects related to mosque architecture in the region. In this regard, the study will cover a number of case studies such as the mosques of Jawatha, al-Jabri, al-Dibs, 'Ali Basha, Faysal ibn Turki and a number of small indigenous mosques in Hofuf (Hufuf) and al-Mubarraz. The outcome of this research will help us understand how the architecture of the mosques was developed in the past fourteen centuries in the region. It will also shed a light on the main influences that shaped its visual and spatial elements.

09:55 - Saturday 24 July 2010 (BP Lecture Theatre)

AL-SAUD, Nouf Bint Bin Fahad Bin Abdul Aziz
College of Architecture and Planning, University of Dammam, Dammam, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Understanding the origin of architectural elements: a study of the palaces of al-Dir'iyyah, Saudi Arabia

The aim of this research is to describe, define and show how the origin of architectural forms evolved and how they were carried on through different eras. The study will cover the settlement of al-Dir'iyyah as one of the few sites exhibiting the traditional architecture of the central region of Saudi Arabia. The paper points out the merits and attempts to persuade people to respect the traditional architecture that remains. In this research the author hopes to demonstrate, to discuss, and to assess the general characteristics of the traditional designs that are found to be largely similar to other Islamic architecture. The aim here is to draw conclusions about the growth and change brought about conservation, preservation and restoration of the settlement of al-Dir'iyyah. The researcher focuses on finding ways to assess, analyse and classify the architectural elements of old al-Dir'iyyah.

10:20 - Saturday 24 July 2010 (BP Lecture Theatre)

AL-FAKHIRI, Sawsan
Department of Antiquities of Aqaba, Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan

Arts and industry at Aylah city and at Garh al-Mabyat: a comparative study

The aim of this paper is to introduce Islamic civilization with its characteristics (arts, industry and commercial prosperity) by studying the remains of the Islamic Aylah city in Jordan and al-Mabyat site in Saudi Arabia.
Aylah (now in the centre of the Jordanian city 'Aqabah on the Red Sea) was the central point for Asia, Africa, and Europe. This city was established by 'Uthman ibn 'Affan in AD 650, and continued to be occupied throughout the Umayyad (650-750), the Abbasid (750-950) and the Fatimid (970-1116) periods.
Al-Mabyat site dates to the Umayyad and Abbasid periods and was surveyed for the first time by the Institute of Archaeology, University of London in 1968.
In this paper, the similarity between these Islamic cities will be studied by comparing the remains (pottery, steatite, glass etc:) of the two cities. The paper will also demonstrate trade with Ethiopia , some ports in the Indian Ocean and the Far East which continued at the same time as trade by land with the Arabian Peninsula, Egypt, Iraq and the Levant.

10:45 - Saturday 24 July 2010 (BP Lecture Theatre)

ALSENAN, Maha
Princess Nora Bint Abdurrahman University, Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Maha Alsenan is an Assistant Professor, PNU, Saudi Arabia (KSA). With a PhD in Archaeology (Art history) awarded in at KSU in 2009. She has published 3 books on contemporary art and women.
And has participated, coordinated, and judged art work in art exhibitions and associated activities.
Given the Award for the Best Summer Program, King Abdul-Aziz Foundation for the Gifted in 2005.
DAI research Grant, Berlin, Germany, 2007 and Fulbright visiting scholar (Post-Doctoral) Award 2010-2011, at Harvard, MA. USA.

Local and imported artistic styles in metal sculpture from Qaryat 'al-Faw'

It is likely that Qaryat al-Faw (Qaryah al-Faw) in south-central Arabia, emerged and disappeared during the second half of the first millennium BC and the first half of the first millennium AD, and the Kingdom of Kindah dominated it most of the time.
The importance of Qaryat al-Faw depends on its role as a city on the trade route between the south, on one hand, and the middle, north, east and east west of Arabia, on the other.
Exploration in Qaryat al-Faw revealed a detailed picture of a pre-Islamic Arab city. The findings that include a large group of metal have been transferred from the site to King Saud University Museum. This study covers 94 artefacts from the site which resemble human and animal figures divided into 3 groups: human figures; animal figures and figures on applied arts,
The paper will try to answer the following questions:
" Is there evidence of local manufacturing?
" What do these sculptures represent?
" What are the most important artistic trends in sculpture of al-Faw?
" What are the characteristics of the local sculpture art school of al-Faw?

11:10-11:40 COFFEE

Chair: Michael Macdonald (Oxford University, UK)

11:40 - Saturday 24 July 2010 (BP Lecture Theatre)

AL-RASHID, Saad Bin Abdul Aziz
Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Saad al-Rashid obtained his PhD from the Department of Semitic Studies, University of Leeds in 1977. Currently Professor in the Department of Archaeology and Museums, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia he was its Chairman from 1994 to 1996, having been previously Dean of Libraries, King Saud University from 1982 to 1992. Between 2005 and 2006, Deputy Minister for Antiquities and Museum Affairs and currently Cultural Adviser for the General President-Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities. She is a member of governing boards of several associations and societies dedicated to archaeology and culture. She conducted field research in archaeology and supervised archaeological excavations at the Islamic city of al-Rabadhah. Publications include 1980. Darb Zubaydah: The Pilgrim Road from Kufa to Makkah, Riyadh;1986. Al-Rabadhah: A portrait of Early Islamic Civilization in Saudi Arabia. Riyadh;1993. Kitabat Islamiyyah Ghayr Manshurah min 'Ruwawah' al-Madinah al-Munawwarah, Riyadh: Dar al-Watan; 1995. Kitabat Islamiyyah min Makkah al-Mukarramah (Riyadh: King Fahad Library); 1993. Darb Zubaydah: Ta'rikh al-hajj min al-Kufah ila Makkah al-Mukarramah: Dirasat Tarikhiyyah-Hadariyyah-Athariyah. Riyadh Dar al-Watan; 2000. Dirasat fi al-Athar al-Islamiyyah al-Mubakkirah fi al-Madinah al-Munawwarah. Riyadh; 2008. Mudawwanat Khattiyah 'Ala al-Hajar min Mantiqat 'Asir: Dirasah Tahliliyyah [Early Islamic Records Texts from 'Asir Region, Saudi Arabia]. Riyadh: Dar al-Watan; 2009. As-Suwaidrah (al-taraf Qadiman), Atharuha wa Nuqushuha al-Islamiyyah. Riyadh: Z Advertising Company.

Al-Suwaydrah and its early Islamic inscriptions

The present town and the old site of al-Suwaydrah is located c.62 km. to the east of al-Madinah al-Munawwarah, in a lowland area surrounded by hills and can only be seen at a short distance away. It is an ancient settlement, a camping station for the pilgrims and caravans, and an important source of water which attracted people to stay there not only in the early Islamic period but long before in prehistoric times as well.
Muslim geographers, historians and writers produced brief but very important information on al-Suwaydrah. The name itself became known in the 9th century AH/15th century AD) when the Mamluk Sultan Qa'it Bay carried out a major renovation and restoration of the Prophet's Mosque (al-Masjid al-Nabawi al-Sharif) after it was damaged by fire. He ordered wood to be brought from al-Suwaydrah and its vicinity. The name 'Suwaydrah' originally referred to an ancient well (bi'r), which is still in use; the name also referred to Wadi al-Suwaydrah, which was originally known as Wadi Najaz. In fact the area of Suwaydrah was known in the early Islamic period as al-Taraf. Muslim geographers such as Ibn Rustah, Ibn Khurradadhbih, al-Harbi, al-Hamdani, 'Arram, Yaqut, al-Samhudi and al-Fairuzabadi, referred to al-Taraf as a pilgrim station on the intersection of roads from the route called Darb Zubayadah to al-Madinah. Queen Zubaydah, the wife of Caliph Harun al-Rashid, was among prominent personalities who stopped at al-Suwaydrah during her several journeys for the hajj.
This paper sheds light on valuable information on the archaeology, history and rock art of al-Suwaydrah. It was an important camping station on the Darb Zubaydah and due its water resources, unique location, greenery and panoramic situation had attracted people even in early prehistory, as petroglyphs of human and animal figures attributed to the Neolithic period are located on the rocks flanking the wadi stream.
Among huge piles of lava and basalt rocks is a narrow stream running in the wadi into which rain water drains from the surrounding hills and mountains. The availability of water led to the creation of active water courses in the valley and a green area developed inside and around the wadi. An oasis with varieties of flora such as acacia and date trees developed here along with fertile farm land.
On an elevated plateau-like basalt area a large number of early Islamic and some ancient inscriptions are located along with wusum or tribal symbols, in addition to petrolgyphs of human and animal figures. Variety of cultural material attributed to various phases of history suggests that al-Suwaydrah was always an attractive place for the local Bedouin as well as for travellers and pilgrims.
The field study carried out by the writer, along the Wadi al-Suwaydrah, resulted in recording more than 300 early Islamic inscriptions. The inscribed texts had been engraved by deep pecking on hard basalt and granite rocks. Each inscription is still preserved at the same place where people in the past depicted either their names, or the names of their tribes, and dedications for prayers, asking God for forgiveness and memorial messages. These inscriptions were written in a span of 300 to 400 years from 1st century to 4th century AH. Dates are mentioned in some inscriptions and thus a chronology of four hundred years of the development of Arabic writing can be postulated.
The writer documented this highly valuable cultural material on sporadic trips that began in 1973 and the years to follow (1985, 1988, and 2006). Although, the fieldwork covered only 10 km. of the entire length of the wadi, he discovered some tantalizing dated inscriptions, 195AH.(AD 810 AD), 205 AH (AD 820, 233 AH (AD 847), 240 AH (AD 854), 249 AH (AD 863). Some interesting engraved and pecked inscriptions that contain poetic verses and other text referring to new titles of personalities such as the title of Khadim al-Ka'bah, the servant of the Ka'bah).
The study of these early Islamic inscriptions revealed a treasure of information regarding the names of inhabitants, travellers and pilgrims from different parts of Arabia and Muslim lands. The inscriptions and rock art together form an open air museum, to be studied and protected.

12:05 - Saturday 24 July 2010 (BP Lecture Theatre)

'ABD AL-THEEB, Solaiman
Department of Archaeology, King Saud University, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

New Nabataean inscriptions from the al-Siyg site in al-'Ula',Saudi Arabia

A group of 28 inscriptions, were found in al-Siyg site, This site is located c.40 km east of al-'Ula'; our thanks goes to Badr al-Faqayr, associate Professor in the Department of Geography, Faculty of Arts, King Saud University who discovered this site during his survey of natural habitats in the area.
This group of inscriptions reflected a number of cultural and social concepts known at that time by the Nabataeans and provided a number of personal names and vocabulary, some of them having been identified for the first time in the Nabataean inscriptions.
In the study of this new group, the scientific method was used: reading and translation was followed by comparative analysis of all the personal names and vocabulary items that appeared in these inscriptions with those of other Semitic inscriptions. Perhaps the importance of this study lays in the discovery of:
1. A new Nabataean site;
2. Personal names and vocabularies that have been identified for the first time in Nabataean inscriptions.

12:30 - Saturday 24 July 2010 (BP Lecture Theatre)

'ABD AL-MALIK, Sami Saleh
Faculty of Archaeology, Cairo University, The Arab Republic of Egypt & Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), The Arab Republic of Egypt

Inscriptions from the period of the Abbasid caliph al-Mustansir bi-Allah in Makkah: a study in history and archaeology

The Abbasid caliph Abu J'afar al- Mansur al-Mustansir Bellah (bi-Allah) was born in Baghdad AD 1192, His reign started in the month of Rajab 623 AH/ June-July AD 1226 after his father, al- Zahir bi-Amr Allah, died. Al-Mustansir bi-Allah was the thirty-sixth Abbasid caliph and the last but one of Abbasid caliphs in Baghdad before its destruction by Mongols. He died in the month of Jamad II 640 AH/ December AD 1242 aged 51 so he was caliph for 17 years.
The Abbasid caliph Al Mustansir bi-Allah sponsored much architecture in the holy city of Mecca (Makkah), as recorded by the local historians there. Some of the inscriptions on these constructions are still to be found. Four of the most important inscriptions will be studied here academically for the first time. These include the inscription of al-Bai'a mosque (1227-1228), the inscription of construction of Mataf around al- K'abah (1233-1234) and the inscription of construction of the two way- marks ('alam) of 'Arafat (1236-1237) which was discovered by me in 2008.
Through the study of these inscriptions, we can understand their significance in the confirmation of these constructions as ordered by Abbasid al- Mustansir b-Allah. This study supports historical records and validates the exact dates of construction given by some historians especially for the construction of al- Bai'a mosque. It adds new architectural dimensions not previously known as well as titles, jobs, terms, architectural constituents and new names for the holy city of Makkah and Islamic world.
The author aims to prove, through the comparison between these architectural inscriptions and contemporary inscriptions and based on the shape and content that at least one of the inscriptions was written by the famous writer in Makkah Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Rahman ibn Abi Haram al- Makki who died in 1247 although it was not signed by him.

12:55-14:00 LUNCH

Session 11: Epigraphy
Chair: Robert Hoyland (Oxford University, UK)

14:00 - Saturday 24 July 2010 (BP Lecture Theatre)

AL-NASARAT, Mohammed
Al-Hussein Bin Talal University, Ma'an, Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan

Mohammed Al-Nasarat has a PhD in ancient history from the University of Jordan. He is working as a researcher and as an Assistant Professor at al-Hussein Bin Talal University. His main research interest is the history of southern Jordan. His MA dissertation was published in 2007 as a book entitled The Political History of the Nabataean kingdom.

Agriculture in sixth century Petra and its hinterland, the evidence from Petra papyri

The Petra papyri, since their discovery in 1993, have attracted the attention of both historians and archaeologists, due to the amount of information they reveal. They deal with the property of Theodoros, son of Obodianos, and his family in Petra and its vicinity in the period between AD 537 and 593.
This paper focuses on agriculture and its importance in Petra and the surrounding area in the 6th century AD according to the information derived from the scrolls. It appears that agriculture played a major role in the economy of Petra and its hinterland at the time these documents were written. The papyri repeatedly mention agricultural lands throughout the region and in many cases specify their locations and toponyms. Some of the latter are, significantly, still in use. There is also information about springs, some of which are still active and contribute to local agriculture. Some papyri even contain information about the type of plants grown in the area. All of these issues will be discussed in the paper and the authors will present the current situation of agriculture at selected places to cross-reference it with the state of agriculture in the 6th century AD in the study area.

14:25 - Saturday 24 July 2010 (BP Lecture Theatre)

PRIOLETTA, Alessia
Dipartimento di Scienze Storiche del Mondo Antico, Università di Pisa, Pisa, Repubblica Italiana

Alessia Prioletta graduated at the University of Pisa with a thesis on South Arabian epigraphy. She obtained her research PhD in 2004 at the University of Florence with a thesis on the Hadramitic inscriptions (supervisor Alessandra Avanzini). Since 2004, she has been working in the CSAI project, for the complete on-line edition of the South Arabian epigraphic corpus (University of Pisa; http://csai.humnet.unipi.it). From 2007 she has been head of epigraphic cataloguing in the museums of Yemen within the CASIS Yemeni-Italian cooperation project (University of Pisa). She has worked in the museums of Sana'a, Aden, Dhamar, Baynun, Ibb, Zafar and Zinjibar.

The Sabaic inscription A-20-216: a new Sabaean-Seleucid synchronism

The paper will focus on an unpublished inscription, A-20-216, housed in the University Museum of Sana'a. This inscription, in Sabaic, is a dedication to the goddess Shams and to other South Arabian and foreign divinities. The text shares a number of traits in common to the Sabaic text Ry 547 which, according to Norbert Nebes (Seminar 2007), could be joined to the unpublished fragment DAI-Marib 2007-I. In the scholar's opinion, the inscription, commissioned by inhabitants of Gerrha settled in South Arabia, might be dated back to the reign of the king Seleucus I (end of 4th century BC). In fact, A-20-216 is written by members of the same clan for the same divinity, and apparently also contains that very dating formula, even if with a different year. In addition to the well-known Minaean-Persian synchronism, a new Sabaean-Seleucid synchronism seems then be attested in these latest revealed south Arabian inscriptions.
A-20-216 deserves and will be object of a global and in-depth study as it is extraordinarily interesting from the cultural, linguistic and historical point of view. Culturally, the inscription is commissioned by a woman, who joins in the dedication her brothers and their sons. Different linguistic traits referable to either Ancient North Arabian (Hn-'lt) or Aramaic (Brmlky', Btmlky') are clearly discernible in the long list of divinities numbered, some of them in fact worshipped in North Arabia, others unknown. Historically, if rightly interpreted, the text would become dramatically significant, since it would offer a synchronism between the king Seleucus and the Sabaean king Yd'l Byn, likely to be identified with Yd'l Byn bn Krb'l Wtr mlk S'b. Lastly, the text is also a further proof of the close links of the Sabaeans with the northeast of the Arabian peninsula and, though indirectly, their concern with the trade strategies and management.

14:50 - Saturday 24 July 2010 (BP Lecture Theatre)

KROPP, Manfred
Seminar für Orientkunde, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, Bundesrepublik Deutschland

Manfred Kropp is Professor of Semitic and Islamic Studies at Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz (Germany). His main areas of research in Epigraphy and History are pre-Islamic Arabia and Ancient and Medieval Ethiopia.

Neither indigo nor feverish sweat: the Thamudic E inscriptions of Madaba and Uraynibah West (Jordan) revisited

In recent years the corpus of Old North Arabian inscriptions has been enriched by a number of findings. Among them as perhaps the most spectacular and sensational ones two 'Thamudic E = Hismaic' texts of considerable length and linguistic complexity as well as of highly interesting contents.
The first is a graffito of eleven lines on a raw stone block found near Madaba (Madaba, Jordan). Fawwaz Hamad al-Hrayšeh in his editio princeps (2000. Kitaba 'Arabiyyah bi-l-hatt al-Tamudi min al-Urdunn. Al-Dumatu 2: 59-70; See also P. Bikai and F. al-Khraysheh. 2002. A Thamudic E Text from Madaba. ADAJ 46: 215-224) interprets the first part of the text as public confession and expiation before the god Sa'b, while the second one invokes the good 'memory and assistance' of the goddess (al-)Lat on people of the dedicant's family or entourage who are listed by their names.
The second inscription consisting of 7 lines is carved on a worked stone slab which once was part of a building. It has been found at Uraynibah, south-east of Madaba (Jordan). David F. Graf and Michael J. Zwettler. 2004. The North Arabian 'Thamudic E' inscription from Uraynibah West. BASOR. 335: 53-89), authors of the editio princeps interpret the first part of it as a text ex voto to the god Sa'b for healing from long lasting sickness. The second part resembles, literal parallels included (apart the proper names naturally) , the invocation of the goddess Lat in the Madaba inscription. Furthermore, the two authors reinterpret, seen the close parallels, the first part of the Madaba inscription as a text ex voto as well.
What becomes clear, is that we have a variant of Old North Arabic, very close to what later appears as 'Classical Arabic' but (still?) without the determinate article 'al-'.
The paper intends to revisit the proposed interpretations. It will start with new drawings corrected in details. The ensuing transliteration will propose a different word separation of the text. From the lexical point of view the new interpretation tries to eliminate from the first one the priestesses 'Munira and 'Afina' together with the 'body (of the author / commissioner of the inscription) which flows with sweat', as well as the 'Indigo and Verdigris' dyes together with (the author / commissioner of the inscription) who sweats feverishly (as a horse?)' in the second, and will propose a new translation, hopefully a more plausible and convenient to the general (religious) contents of the texts. Accent is laid then on several salient linguistic phenomena and their relevance for our knowledge of Old North Arabian.

15:15 - Saturday 24 July 2010 (BP Lecture Theatre)

MARAQTEN, Mohammed
Seminar für Orientkunde, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, Bundesrepublik Deutschland

Mohammed Maraqten published intensively on Semitic epigraphy and in particular on Old South Arabian inscriptions. His main currently topics of research are the publication of the South Arabian texts written on wood sticks (the collection of the National Museum of Sanaa) and the publication of the Sabaean inscriptions recently discovered by the American Foundation for the Study of Man (AFSM). He is epigrapher of the AFSM and is engaged on the project of this Foundation, which is continuing since 1998 at the Awam temple, Mahram Bilqis, near Ma'rib, Yemen. Currently he is working at the University of Mainz, Germany.

Cosmogony in ancient Yemen

The purpose of this paper is to present an overview of South Arabian cosmogony. Cosmogony has to do with myths, stories, or theories regarding the creation of the universe. Much has been written about creation myths and flood stories from ancient Mesopotamia and their relationship with Old Testament. The question is, do we have actually creation accounts in ancient Yemen? The intention of this paper is to answer this question.
Until a few years ago, no really literary texts were known in ancient South Arabia. Fortunately, we have now more than ten literary texts. Some of them have been recorded in monumental or rock inscriptions, while others were engraved on palm leaf stalks. Beside the sun-goddess prayer of Qaniya and the inscription van Lessen 24 and the recently discovered hymn in Khawlan, east of Sanaa (Sana'a), we have four monumental inscriptions from the Awam temple, Mahram Bilqis, near Ma'rib; three of them have been recently discovered by the AFSM. The majority of these poetic texts can be described as epic poetry or prayer. Even if we do not understand the accurate meaning of some expressions in these texts, the content is quiet clear.
The four literary inscriptions of the Awam temple represent three hymns, the first one ('Inan 11) is described as s¹mdtn 'hymn, song'. These three hymns (74 lines) assume a narrative form and give rhetorical and stylistic devices such as parallelismus membrorom. Thus, they can be described as cosmogonic myths. The three hymns praised power of the Sabaean national god Almaqah in his struggle against the enemy (chaos), which seems to have put an end to chaos by the final victory of Almaqah. This dramatic scenario is similar to the combat of Marduk against the monster Tiamat and Ba'l in Ugarit against the dragon Yamm and other similar creation stories in the ancient Ear East.
Several texts inscribed on palm leaf stalks give us some good data about this topic. In one text we read: w-'tr / whd / w-ns / 'rdn / bn / ms'rqy / s'ms'm / 'dy / m'rbyh / w-qwm / w-krb ... 'And 'Attar has performed and created the earth from the sunrise of the sun to its sunset and erected as well as blessed...' (Oost. Inst 141). A passage in another text reads: s'ms'-hm tft w-kl mhr w- 'tr w-s'ymy w-kl l'it nts't rdn w-hw't s'myn bn ms'rqy s'ms'm dy m'rby s'ms'm. Their sun-goddess Tafiš, all the helpers (!), 'Attar, the patron deities, and all deities have created the earth and raised the heaven from the sunrise of the sun to the sunset of the sun' (Mon.script.sab. 79). Further, another text states: symm w-s'ms' tft' 'mhr w-'tr w' s'ymy w-kl l'lt rdn mhs 'rdn 'The patron god, the sun-goddess Tafiš, all the helpers (!), 'Attar, the patron deities, and all deities of the earth formed the earth' (YM 10 199). Moreover we have a passage in another inscribed stick. It reads: tr-s'rqn-b'l qr'y rdn w-s'myn l-hwdn w-hs'ryn ... 'Attar Šariqan, lord and giver of the earth and the heaven. May he bestows and protect...' (Oost.Inst 20).
After giving an outline of the South Arabian epic poetry, this paper aims to present some mythological conceptions of creation accounts. Among these mythological conceptions are divine figures such as Umm 'Attar 'Mother of 'Attar, Mother Earth', Umm Ilatum 'Mother-Goddesses' etc. and mythological elements such as the sacred marriage, the Sabaean festival of Jabal al-Lawdh, etc.

15:40-16:10 TEA

Chair: TBC

16:10 - Saturday 24 July 2010 (BP Lecture Theatre)

STEIN, Peter
Institut für Sprachen und Kulturen des Vorderen Orients, Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, Jena, Bundesrepublik Deutschland

Trained in Assyriology and Semitic studies, Peter Stein gained his PhD on Sabaic grammar in 2002. He works as a lecturer at Friedrich Schiller University in Jena. His main field of interest are the Ancient South Arabian languages and culture, and the uses of script in pre-Islamic Arabia. During the past years, he had been working on the Ancient South Arabian minuscule inscriptions on wood in the collection of the Bavarian State Library in Munich. The first volume of this edition has just been published. (homepage: http://www.uni-jena.de/Peter_Stein.html)

The Ancient South Arabian minuscule inscriptions on wood in the collection of the Oosters Instituut at Leiden.

After Sanaa (Sana'a) and Munich, the Oosters Instituut at Leiden (Netherlands) houses the third largest collection of every-day life correspondence from ancient Yemen. The inscribed wooden sticks, numbering a bit less than 350 pieces, have been scientifically treated by Jacques Ryckmans and Abraham Drewes during the past 20 years. After the decease of both scholars, their posthumous manuscript is going to be published by the Director of the Oosters Instituut in collaboration with the present writer. The paper gives a first overview over the entire material of the collection, only an infinitely small part of which has already been published.

16:35 - Saturday 24 July 2010 (BP Lecture Theatre)

FRANTSOUZOFF, Serge A.
Institute of Oriental Manuscripts, Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, Russian Federation

Dr Serge (Sergey) Frantsouzoff graduated from the Oriental Faculty of the Leningrad State University in June 1985. He prepared his PhD thesis on the early medieval history of Hadramawt and defended it in November 1990. In June 1990 he was recruited by the St Petersburg Branch of the Institute of Oriental Studies where he was promoted to Senior Researcher in June 1998; on 1 July 2009 this institution was transformed into the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The fields of Dr Frantsouzoff's academic interest include the languages, history and culture of ancient South Arabia (Sabaean Studies), medieval Yemen and ancient and medieval Ethiopia as well as the Christian Arab written heritage.

New data on Wadi 'Idim (eastern Hadramawt) in the pre-Islamic period

In spite of several surveys undertaken by French archaeologists at the sites of Mashgha and Suna in 1979 as well as by their Russian colleagues at al-Ghuraf in 1989 and 1994 the pre-Islamic history of Wadi 'Idim has been only superficially explored.
A short rock inscription of a local merchant discovered at the head of a small tributary of this valley by oil workers and generously entrusted to me for publication by Dr 'Abd al-'Aziz Bin 'Aqil proves to be of great interest for that subject (Fr-'Idim 1). On the basis of palaeographic criteria, it can be dated from the 3rd-1st centuries BC. Its author's nisbah (l. 2: 'dmy-hn) testifies that the toponym 'Idim was in use for more than two thousand years. The 'wars of Hadramawt' referred to in it (l. 4: 'd;.rr/H;.d;.rmt) should be identified with a series of conflicts between Hadramawt and Qataban which took place in the late 2nd-1st centuries BC. The final passage on selling one qnt of dates (ll. 5-6) has a close parallel in another Hadramitic inscription (Mukalla Museum 161/9-10).
The analysis of all the available data on Wadi 'Idim in pre-Islamic times suggests an idea that the road constructed by Sayyid Bu Bakr al-Kaf in the early thirties from Tarim to al-Shihr through Wadi 'Idim followed an ancient caravan route.

POSTERS

BLAIR, Andrew
Department of Archaeology, Durham University, UK

Andrew Blair is studying an MA in Archaeology at Durham University. His current research interests extend from South Asia to the Arabian Gulf, where he was most recently involved in joint Kuwaiti-British research in the Kadhimah region of Kuwait.

Preliminary results from the Kadhimah Project, Kuwait (December 2009-January 2010)

December 2009 to January 2010 saw the first of five seasons of fieldwork conducted by a Kuwaiti-British mission (Shehab A. Shehab, National Museum of Kuwait; Dr Derek Kennet, Durham University) in the historic region of Kadhimah, Kuwait Bay. Though often mentioned in early Islamic literature, little was known of Kadhimah in archaeological terms until the discovery of stone structures and Umayyad/Abbasid pottery at Kadhimah al-Kurfishi by Sultan al-Duwish in 2002. Through a dual programme of landscape survey and excavation, the Kadhima Project aims to enhance current understandings of the early Islamic period in both Kuwait Bay and eastern Arabia as a whole.
Reflecting the fact that the toponym 'Kadhimah' refers in early Islamic literature to both a settlement and a region, and intending to place the site within its landscape context, a systematic field-walking programme was undertaken, with detailed feature recording and pottery pick-ups for several kilometres around the known settlement. This poster reports the findings of the first season of landscape survey, along with an outline of the future objectives of the landscape project.

BORTOLINI, Eugenio
The Institute of Archaeology, UCL, London, UK

The Hafit-Umm An-Nar Transition: an evolutionary approach

The poster analyses structural variation in Bronze Age monumental burials of eastern Arabia (3100-2000 BC). This approach draws on evolutionary theory of descent with modification to explain change over time in the empirical record. It involves a reclassification of the studied tombs, the identification of diagnostic structural traits, the quantitative analysis of these traits, spatio-temporal distribution and the subsequent cladistic analysis of the obtained classes. The main goal is to evaluate occurrence and quality of transmission lineages among funerary structures, in order to define potential transitional phases between Hafit and Umm an-Nar tombs. In addition, the study aims to identify structural features determined by environmental pressures as opposite to stylistic traits likely dependent on cultural transmission and random drift. Current researches in the region are indeed reporting the emerging traces of nonlinear continuity in the archaeological patterns of Oman and the UAE, while traditional chronological typology is not always able to explain the underpinning processes.
This work is significant because it creates a more theoretically-laden classification of prehistoric monumental architecture by challenging current typologies; it generates empirically grounded knowledge of Arabian mortuary rituals and it represents the first example of application of an evolutionary framework to a substantial burial record.

CONDOLUCI, Chiara
Dipartimento di Scienze Storiche del Mondo Antico, Università di Pisa, Pisa, Repubblica Italiana

Chiara Condoluci was awarded her PhD by the University of Pisa in 2009. Her research focuses on the Iron Age of south-east Arabia. She has been involved in the Italian Mission to Oman (IMTO) excavations at Salut since the beginning of the project in 2004. She is continuing post-doctoral research at the University of Pisa.

PHILLIPS, Carl
CNRS UMR 7041, 'Village à l'état au Proche et Moyen-Orient', Nanterre, République Française

Carl Phillips is an associate researcher with CNRS UMR 7041 and has been responsible for a number of archaeological projects in the UAE, Oman and Yemen

Basketry from Iron Age Salut (Sultanate of Oman)

Along with pottery, basketry has formed a major component in the range of domestic objects used by people throughout the world. In Arabia the raw material for basketry production, primarily the date palm, is readily available. Unlike pottery, however, studies of ancient basketry are few because of the scarcity of surviving remains. Due to its organic nature, the evidence for basketry is often indicated only by impressions made in more durable materials such as pottery or mud-bricks. At some Bronze Age sites in the Gulf basketry has survived due to its having a protective coating of bitumen, but generally speaking, the evidence for what must have been a widely used commodity is lacking. At the Iron Age site of Salut it is fortunate that evidence for basketry is provided by impressions and by charred remains. In particular, the charred remains of baskets provide a clear indication of how they were made and can be compared with the baskets still produced throughout this region.

MARCUCCI, Lapo Gianni
CNRS, UMR 7041 ArScAn du CNRS Maison de l'Archéologie et de l'Ethnologie, Nanterre, République Française

Lapo Gianni Marcucci is preparing for his doctorate at the University Paris 1 and the University of Bologna. Since 1998 he has been working in Oman on the cultures of the Early Holocene and Bronze Age periods where he has led various excavations, the most important of which is directing excavation of the Ra's al-Hamra 5 Heritage Site Project. He is particularly interested in the spatial construction and reconstruction of coastal villages, the working of shells and reconstruction of production chains for the making of instruments and ornaments.

USAI, Donatella
Istituto Italiano per l'Africa e l'Oriente, Rome, Repubblica italiana.

Dr Usai has a PhD in African archaeology and is a specialist in lithic analysis. She is currently researching the question of the Mesolithic/Neolithic transition and is directing an archaeological project in Sudan, as well as being involved in the excavation of a Neolithic site in the Wadi Shab-GAS1 in Oman.

More data on Ra's al-Hamra 5 (Oman) prehistoric lithic industry: records from the most ancient recognised phase

The reappraisal of excavations at the Middle Holocene prehistoric site Ra's al-Hamra 5, in the Oman coast, has provided new interesting structural and material evidence. A previous analysis of the lithic assemblage recovered during the field work done in the 1980s by Paolo Biagi, evidenced its particular character and uniqueness with a high specialisation index. The most ancient levels recognised at the site were, at that time, investigated only to a limited extent. For this reason the analysis, and the resulting interpretations, of the associated lithic material were based on a rather small sample. In general the lithic industry appeared quite homogenous along the entire sequence except for this small sample that showed some possible affinities with the assemblage of the nearest, but more ancient, Ra's al- Hamra 6 site. The material provided by the new field work offers the opportunity to corroborate or, vice versa, to refute this assertion and, moreover, to insert it in an overall general economic context.

MORLEY, Mike
Oxford Brookes Archaeology and Heritage, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, UK

Mike Morley is a geoarchaeologist and consultant with Oxford Brookes Archaeology and Heritage (OBAH). Mike has worked in both consultancy and academic research at sites across Europe, North and South Africa, the Middle East and southeast Asia, and specialises in using geomorphological and sedimentological data to provide environmental context to archaeological narrative.

CARTER, Rob
Oxford Brookes Archaeology and Heritage, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, UK

Robert Carter is an archaeologist and an historian, and heads Oxford Brookes Archaeology and Heritage. He has worked extensively at sites throughout the Gulf, and has particular interests in coastal settlement, maritime exchange and the pearl fishery.

VELDE, Christian
Department of Antiquities and Museums, Ras al-Khaimah, United Arab Emirates

Christian Velde is resident archaeologist in Ras al-Khaimah

Geoarchaeological investigations at the site of Julfar (al-Nudud and al-Mataf), Ras al-Khaimah, United Arab Emirates: preliminary results from the borehole survey

The medieval port town of Julfar, situated on the south-eastern side of the Gulf, is associated with the archaeological sites of Kush, al-Mataf and al-Nudud (Kennet 1997, 2003; Velde, 2009, in prep). Though these sites have been excavated as separate entities, they are most likely the expression of the same administrative centre which served not only the port, but also the fertile arable land situated on the toe of a large gravel fan complex which brought water from the Ru'us al-Jibal to the east and north. It has been speculated that these geographical migrations of the urban centre were primarily driven by geo-morphological processes (Velde, in prep), associated in particular with changes in relative sea level (RSL) resulting in marked changes in the coastal geomorphology. Two observations are important in this respect: i) Kush, the earliest 'incarnation' of Julfar, is situated c. 3 km from the coastal locations of al-Mataf and al-Nudud, and ii) a significant lagoon and navigable channel once linked the area around Kush with the coast. This lagoon, for millennia the focus of human activity in this area, is now largely in-filled with sediment, and it is likely that this silting up, and the resulting disconnection of Kush from the coast, meant that port administration moved to al-Mataf (and possibly later al-Nudud),and ultimately the modern town of Ras al-Khaimah, taking the urban core with it.
To begin to map the extent and depth of the lagoon sediments a geoarchaeological borehole survey has been carried out as part of renewed archaeological investigations being carried out at al-Nudud, funded by the Ras al-Khaimah Department of Antiquities and Museums and undertaken by Oxford Brookes Archaeology and Heritage (OBAH). Preliminary results indicate the presence of lagoon and channel sediments interdigitating with terrestrial beach sediments to the north and east of the sand bank on which al-Nudud is situated suggesting fluctuations in relative sea level (RSL). This work can be seen as a pilot to a much wider geoarchaeological survey needed to delimit the edges of the lagoon especially with reference to the site of Kush.

© Seminar for Arabian Studies 2010.

Website design by markbeech.com

Go to Top

About us

Committee

Contact

Fonts

Guidelines for Editors
(pdf - 848 Kb)

Instructions for Authors
(pdf - 717 Kb)

Index PSAS

Links

Proceedings

Seminar 2002
Seminar 2003
Seminar 2004
Seminar 2005
Seminar 2006
Seminar 2007
Seminar 2008
Seminar 2009
Seminar 2010
Seminar 2011

What's new? * NEW *

email SAS
webmaster


page last updated:
5 Sept 2010