Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy最新文献

Al-Ghoryeen, located 95 km southwest of Muscat, is a unique settlement dating to the Umm an-Nar period and is built upon a Late Hafit period settlement. It was found in 2004 and excavation began in 2018. Preliminary analysis of the results revealed two major occupation phases with an occupational gap in between. A change occurred between the earlier and later phases of the settlement system reflected mainly in the difference in building sizes and plan. We excavated either partially or completely a stone round tower and more than 10 domestic structures. The distribution of the architectural features including the round tower, domestic structures and burials showed some kind of organised settlement structure. The Hafit period settlement was tested in two trenches where ¹⁴C analysis dated the earliest occupation to the late Hafit period.

Julfar was a major port town of the Persian Gulf during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries AD. A possession of the Hormuzi empire, it was a lucrative source of taxes and pearls, and a port of trade for northern Oman, tapping into maritime trading networks connecting the Middle East with Africa, India, Southeast Asia and China. The site is found north of modern Ras Al-Khaimah, UAE. Julfar Al-Nudud was previously considered to be a late suburb of an urban core, Julfar Al-Mataf, and is located on a creek opposite the latter. However, excavations in 2010 indicated that Al-Nudud was part of the original urban core, which had grown up on either side of the creek. Moreover, re-examination of previous work in Al-Mataf, where a large mosque and fortification were excavated (by British and French teams), shows that the two areas followed different trajectories. Significant occupation in Al-Nudud and southern Al-Mataf (revealed by previous Japanese excavations) ended before the start of the sixteenth century, while use of the mosque and fort in central Al-Mataf continued into the seventeenth century, albeit discontinuously. A revised concordance of the phases derived from the work of various archaeological teams is therefore proposed.

The ancient port city of Sumhuram (Dhofar Governorate, Sultanate of Oman) has been the focus of over 20 years of research by the Italian Mission to Oman (IMTO), University of Pisa, in collaboration with the Office of the Adviser to His Majesty the Sultan for Cultural Affairs (Muscat-Salalah, Sultanate of Oman). Excavation has revealed most of the town layout, leading to the identification of several buildings, alleyways, squares and workshops, among which two massive buildings stand out, significantly named by the excavators as “Monumental Building” 1 and 2 (MB1 and MB2). This paper presents the results of the excavation inside MB1, characterised by the presence of the only well discovered within the city walls, which was previously interpreted alternatively as a palace or as a temple. The architectural development of the building, its distinctive features, the archaeological material discovered inside it, and its chronology will be discussed. These results highlight the absence of fitting parallels from other ancient South Arabian towns. Overall, it is clear that access to, management of, and control over the water supply of the town represented a key asset which justified the huge investment in workforce and building materials that is reflected in the monumental architecture of this edifice.

This article presents two new Safaitic inscriptions containing the group name ʾʿrb. Following an edition of the texts, the article discusses the implications of these new attestations on the origin and use of group names derived from the root ʿ-r-b in pre-Islamic times and concludes with a discussion on the name of the Arabic language before the 7^th c. CE. The article is followed by an appendix of texts discovered at the same site and related to the ʾʿrb inscriptions.

Petroglyphs are well known in the Negev, eastern and southern Jordan, and the Arabian Peninsula. Intensive documentation of hundreds of petroglyphs at the site of Wisad Pools in the Black Desert of eastern Jordan records animals, humans, hunting traps and geometric designs, connecting people and places to the larger landscape. These were recorded at the landscape scale with drones and photogrammetry, and the local scale through the construction of a database combined with GPS recording and terrestrial photogrammetry. Petroglyphs of animals and hunting traps are significant because the site is located within a landscape that includes enormous and enigmatic hunting traps (desert kites). Mapping these depictions highlights typological distribution, association of types, and relation to landscape features as well as the topography of the basalt boulders on which they were pecked. The depictions of animals and hunting traps provide clues about the use of desert kites, the social role of hunting, communal gatherings, and feasting in the region.

The translocation of livestock into the Arabian Peninsula was underway by the sixth millennium BC. It remains unclear, however, whether nascent pastoralism in Arabia focused on specialised cattle herding, intensive caprine husbandry, or more extensive forms of sheep, goat and cattle management. Here, the role of Bos in Neolithic animal exploitation systems in the Arabian Peninsula is re-examined in the context of fisher-hunter-gatherer groups inhabiting the coasts of the Arabian Gulf, agro-pastoralist settlements located in the Jordanian highlands, and hunter-herder communities in adjacent Jordanian steppe (badia). By the late sixth millennium BC, cattle from southern Mesopotamia were imported to the Arabian littoral via Ubaid exchange networks but remained a relatively unimportant part of local hunter-gatherer-herder subsistence for at least a millennium. New zooarchaeological evidence indicating cattle herding in the Jordanian highlands by the late eighth millennium BC suggests a southern transmission route originating out of Late Pre-Pottery Neolithic B settlements and the subsequent spread of cattle along the Sarawat mountains into the interior or down the relatively arid Red Sea coast via land or boat. Cattle eventually played a central role in the symbolic and ritual lives of herders in southern Arabia, but the use of the term ‘cattle pastoralism’ to describe early Neolithic subsistence systems in the region is premature.

The hypostyle hall of the Minaean temple Qabḍum in Barāqish (ancient Yathil), dedicated to ʿAthtar dhu-Qabḍ, is characterised by the presence of four long offertory tables that were discovered in situ in an overall good condition. This article presents an analysis of these objects together with their epigraphic material with the aim of better understanding the rituals that may have been connected to them. The topic is also analysed within the complex history of the sacral area of Yathil, as organised and used by the Minaeans, while also taking into account the later and brief intrusion of the Amīr tribe in the pre-Islamic site. A comparison with the similar hypostyle hall that was uncovered in the nearby temple of Nakraḥ is also offered, as regards the position and organization of the cultic furniture. The presence of differently arranged cenacles in the South Arabian sacral architecture, which may have been associated with a variety of ceremonies, is also briefly discussed. The use of offertory tables according to a liturgic calendar is finally addressed with the study of a new inscription from the same temple of ʿAthtar dhu-Qabḍ (Y.05.B.B.14).

This paper studies a group of inscriptions and rock drawings from Ṭūr al-Qawwās in the Ḥismā desert (Saudi Arabia). These include two Nabataean and three Hismaic inscriptions, in addition to a Hismaic/Nabataean bilingual. The presence of Hismaic and Nabataean texts carved side by side as well as this new ANA/Nabataean bilingual raise the question of the linguistic diversity in northern Arabia and that of the relationships between the Nabataeans and their nomadic neighbours. From the point of view of Nabataean grammar, the texts provide us with new lexical items at the same time as they illustrate a new example of an optative use of the prefix conjugation. One of the inscriptions is a prayer to Dushara that exhibits a unique religious formula requesting the deity’s protection. Leading to reflect on the association of rock art with Nabataean inscriptions, the drawings are also of interest. They include a rare representation of a bird, possibly an eagle, which could find its source of influence in the Nabataean sculpture. Just as interesting are a cameleer dressed with izār and ridāʾ, and the figure of a saddled equid which suggests, for the first time, an occasional employment of horse saddles among the Nabataeans.

The PalaeoEnvironments and ARchaeological Landscapes (PEARL) research project is a joint German–British project with the principal objective of developing a framework of past human occupation and landscape change in south-eastern Arabia. Fieldwork during 2018 and 2019 involved the systematic survey and excavation of sites in the Rustaq and Ibri regions of Northern Oman, with the aim of establishing the nature and timing of human occupation and landscape change during the Early Holocene period (c. 10,000–7,000 years BP). Further to the findings previously reported, results from recent excavations of the site Hayy al-Sarh in Rustaq revealed the presence of animal remains, stone and shell beads and stone structures, indicating a large Neolithic settlement with burial areas. In addition, preliminary excavations at a rock shelter site near Ibri have revealed stratified archaeological remains, including a Fasad-type assemblage. Future fieldwork will further develop archaeological and palaeoenvironmental records to help build a framework for studying cultural and natural developments in Northern Oman.

The excavation of KHB-1 archaeological site was part of the Joint Hadd Project [Joint Hadd Project is a project operating in the Ja’lān region since 1985, born under the collaboration between ISIAO (Istituto Italiano per l’Africa e l’Oriente, Rome), CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris) and the University of Bologna] carried out in the Ja’lān region, along the coast of the Sultanate of Oman. Different phases of occupation with significant structural evidences were identified within the deposit: an early short-term occupation in the 7th millennium, followed by a longer, extended period of occupation during the 4th millennium by a community of hunter-gatherers, with some evidence of animal husbandry. The material culture recovered from KHB-1, which includes architectural remains, provides new insights on the cultures of this region, highlighting a need for further excavations and analysis.

This paper will illustrate the stratigraphic sequence and the main features recovered at KHB-1, followed by a discussion on the two main periods of occupation which will help shed a light on the site function and more broadly provide key insights on mobility, economy, and material culture of Ja’lān in the beginning of 7th and along the 4th millennium B.C.