Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy最新文献

For centuries, the remote site of Bāyir, far to the east in southeast Jordan, in an arid environment, was frequented by nomads watering their herds, thanks to its huge wells. Four Latin graffiti from Bāyir area are published or revised and republished here. They provide new evidence of the visits paid to the place by troops from the Roman army.

This article was intended for this special issue, Surveying Oman – Methods of archaeological exploration in Eastern Arabia, but was inadvertently published in an earlier issue of Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy, 33:1, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/16000471/2022/33/1. The publisher apologises for this error and for any confusion it may cause.

When citing this article, please cite it as per its original publication in issue 33:1 as shown here.

Düring, B. S. (2022). Beyond dots with dates: A landscape approach to the Sohar hinterlands. Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy, 33, 170–177. https://doi.org/10.1111/aae.12219

The survey of extensive and topographically irregular landscapes is not easy. Survey teams often must be creative to cover the largest area possible, in a short time, with limited budgets, without losing quality and effectiveness in their work. The use of techniques employing geographic information system (GIS) tools has tremendously improved the efficiency and quality of the surveys. Such techniques were employed in the Jabal al-Yamh and Ḥattā Valley (Emirate of Dubai, UAE), and their methodology, implementation and effectiveness are discussed in this paper. The Jabal al-Yamh Research Project, which began in 2018 to survey, excavate, restore and research the prehistoric tombs in the Jabal al-Yamh and the surrounding Ḥattā Valley, thus used primarily GIS tools employing remote sensing and probabilistic analysis to identify a large number of tombs in this rugged topography, delimitating areas more likely to contain tombs. On the other hand, identifying tomb distribution and orientation patterns through GIS data queries also allowed us to answer several sociocultural questions posed during the development of this project. This paper will thus discuss two primary purposes of this project's survey: methods for identifying new tombs for further excavation and protection, on the one hand, and the interpretation of those same tombs' emplacement, attending to their distribution and orientation pattern, on the other, thus developing a theoretical and predictive model of the distribution of prehistoric tombs in the area.

This is an analytical study of a new Sabaic inscription probably coming from the town of Naššān in Wādī al-Jawf in northern Yemen. The text of this inscription, which is of a construction/dedicatory and a legal nature at the same time, bans the violation of the properties of Yaqdumʾil son of Ṯawrān, by the people of Ḫawlān and their vassals who had attacked that man's properties by cutting his trees and scattering his crops. The inscription is dated by the name of the Sabaean king Yadaʿʾil Bayyin son of Yaṯaʿʾamar, who reigned about the end of the fifth and the beginning of the fourth century BC. What distinguishes the inscription is that it contains new historical and linguistic material. Along with other Sabaic inscriptions found in the region, the text refers to the extent of settlement of Sabaean families from Mārib, Ṣirwāḥ, and Ḫawlān in the cities of al-Jawf, specifically in Naššān and Našq, to control the roads of incense.

An ongoing long debate on the chronology of Julianos Church, Umm el-Jimal, northeast Jordan, started in the early 20th century. It was claimed to be the earliest dated church (ad 344) by an inscription not found in situ. After five decades, it was proven that the inscription was mistakenly associated to the church, and ‘after the start of the fifth century ad’ was suggested as a new date. It is still argued that this new date is an early one, and the church might have been built in the late fifth to early sixth century ad when compared to the dated churches of sites surrounding Umm el-Jimal. This research aims to reconstruct the chronology of Julianos Church by AMS radiocarbon dating organic inclusions collected from mortar samples from the pavement, the coats of the tiers of the bench and the steps of the throne of the synthronon. The AMS radiocarbon dates agree with the archaeological data in that Julianos Church was renovated after its good-quality initial construction. Hence, the last decades of the sixth century ad (565–607) are interpreted to be the most probable date for the renovation of the synthronon, while the fifth century ad, probably the second half (465–507 ad), might be the construction date of the old mosaic floor (i.e., the church).

This study describes seven new Byzantine inscriptions discovered in Moab (Governorate of al-Karak, southern Jordan), which was part of Provincia Arabia and Palaestina Tertia during the Roman Empire. The Byzantine tombstone inscriptions in Moab date from the fifth to the mid-seventh century ad. The inscriptions follow the typical formula of Byzantine Christian epitaphs, including the name of the deceased, the father's name and age. Some of them are dated. These newly discovered names not only contribute to the corpus of common names used in the region but also introduce some new ones.

For over a decade, the French mission ‘Archaeology of the Arabian Seashores’ has been exploring the evolution of the Omani coastline, from hunter–gatherers to the rise of complex societies during the crucial passages from the culmination of the Pleistocene to the Early Bronze Age, passing through the Neolithic. The team extensively surveyed the land spreading from the eastern head of Arabia, Ra's al-Hadd and Ra's al-Jinz, to the last villages of Dhofar, including Masirah Island and the Hallaniyyat archipelago, covering 1000 km. Most Final Palaeolithic, Neolithic and Early Bronze Age sites were tested or excavated. A multidisciplinary approach that involves the joint work of archaeologists and geologists was chosen to include the contribution of environmental factors to modifying the equilibriums between the natural environment and human communities through the study of climatic and eustatic fluctuations. The project provided a substantive perspective on the evolution of maritime communities between 10,000 and 2000 bce. Moreover, an interdisciplinary and multiscalar approach for describing and analysing the change in the material culture of this region made it possible to transcend the traditional typology and examine the role of human communities’ interaction.

Water played an undeniably significant role in the origins of complex societies across the Near East, but political complexity in regions like Southeast Arabia diverges dramatically from the more well-known histories of Egypt, the Levant and Mesopotamia. Through quantitative analysis, this paper investigates spatial associations between water availability and Umm an-Nar towers in Adh Dhahirah Governorate of Oman. We hypothesise that ancient Umm an-Nar people targeted high water flow accumulation areas for major settlements with towers. Our results lead us to reject the null hypothesis of no spatial association between tower settlements and water and help clarify the role of water in the rise of complex polities.

The current study discusses a Palaeo-Arabic inscription found in the Ḥismā desert and engraved by a man named ʿAbd Šams, son of al-Muġīrah, who likely belonged to the Qurayš tribe. This inscription is particularly important as it is an addition to the Palaeo-Arabic corpus, as well as the first one in which an attested Palaeo-Arabic opening invocation with the deity's name Allāhumma is mentioned. It is also the second Palaeo-Arabic inscription that refers to the Lord by the Arabic term Rabb and the first inscription in which the personal name ʿAbd Šams is written in Arabic script. The inscription was documented by its finder, Muhammed Abdul Nayeem, and it was recently redocumented by the Saudi citizen Saleh al-Hwaiti. This essay discusses the text in terms of meaning, authorship and religious implications.

Nabataean Aramaic contains a large number of loanwords from Arabic. Together with other evidence, this has been taken as an indication that the Nabataeans used Aramaic as a written language only, while a Pre-Islamic variety of Arabic was their spoken language. Based on a comprehensive review of the evidence, however, this article concludes that both Arabic and Aramaic were in spoken use in the Nabataean Kingdom and Late Antique Northwest Arabia. Departing from this modified understanding of the linguistic status of Nabataean Aramaic, various features of Pre-Islamic Arabic are then examined based on the Nabataean evidence: the realisation of the voiceless sibilant /s/, nominal morphology, the reflexes of stem-final *y, verbal syntax, and the lexicon.