Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy最新文献

This paper will produce a new edition of the Rīʿ al-Zallālah inscription, discussing in detail its paleographic features and content, and the ramifications it has on our understanding of the linguistic and religious milieu of the sixth–early seventh century Ḥigāz.

This research focuses on studying the pottery sherds collected in the period 2018–19 from settlement DH7 in the northern al-Batinah region in north-eastern Oman. The material mainly comes from stratified contexts from the largest building at the settlement, building S42, whose function is interpreted as a warehouse. Three main classes of pottery are recognised: The Indus red micaceous ware, the Umm an-Nar fine red ware and the Dahwa sandy buff ware. Compared with most of the other known Umm an-Nar settlements, the black-slipped jars (Indus red micaceous ware) are clearly over-represented at DH7. Intriguingly, local pottery Dahwa sandy buff ware shows a typical Indus rim form. This is presumably a result of existing Indus potters in the al-Batinah region who adapted to the local market. Radiocarbon dating places the beginning of the occupation of settlement DH7 to c.2500 cal. BCE. Such a date accords well with the results of stylistic comparisons of DH7 pottery with other sites of the Umm an-Nar period.

The monumental stone structures of the Arabian Peninsula have been notoriously difficult to date. Due to their visibility in the landscape, they have suffered from extensive robbing and later reuse, which has compromised dating methodologies. In particular, our understanding of when the elaborate “pendants” (also known as “tailed cairns” or “tailed tower tombs”) of north-west Arabia were first constructed has remained incomplete. Recent work undertaken by the Aerial Archaeology in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia – Khaybar project provides some of the first radiometric dates for the pendants of Saudi Arabia. These structures can now be dated as far back as the third millennium BCE, revealing for the first time a hitherto undocumented, large-scale, monumental funerary landscape dating to the Early Bronze Age. These radiocarbon dates bring the advent of the pendant building tradition in line with funerary developments across the wider Arabian Peninsula, and may mark a profound reconfiguring of the wider Harrat Khaybar landscape during the third millennium BCE.

The subject of this article is the Sabaic inscription BynM 5 and a new interpretation is proposed considering Ancient South Arabian and other Semitic sources. The document is a funerary stela concluding with a curse. It is suggested that this curse reflects a magical belief which can be closely compared to Qur 113, 4. This contributes to shed light on the ancient Arabian magical practices.

One of the least known, yet extremely important, archaeological sites in Failaka Island, off Kuwait, is Sa’ida village. A joint Gulf mission started excavation in Sa’ida in 2001. The excavations on Hill 1 then exposed the first Friday mosque discovered on Failaka and in the State of Kuwait. The material data revealed that the village dates to the late Islamic period, specifically to the end of the seventeenth century until the beginning of the nineteenth century, when the village was abandoned due to the plague epidemic that swept the region. Since 2016, four fieldwork campaign indicated that the village was inhabited in the early Islamic era in the seventh–eighth centuries and continued until the beginning of the twentieth century, with a few but long gaps. The six campaigns revealed religious and domestic buildings and were sufficient to reassess the chronology of occupation and abandonment of Sa’ida. They provided a valuable insight into the organisation of the site and the lifestyle of the population, with large courtyard houses and small one-room buildings.

Pottery assemblages from the site of Al-Khidr on Failaka Island, Kuwait, were analysed in order to reconstruct the chemical composition of Bronze Age wares and to build a mineralogical database of Bronze Age pottery dated from Failaka Periods 1–3B (2000–1650 BCE). A total of 145 ceramic sherds from Al-Khidr, as well as reference groups, were analysed by non-destructive portable X-ray fluorescence (pXRF) spectrometry. Preliminarily petrographic thin-section analysis was applied to four samples to reconstruct possible clay paste recipes and to identify raw materials. The results indicate that geochemical analyses can successfully distinguish subgroups within a typological category of ceramic assemblages. The results identified two subgroups within the Al-Khidr typological category: the Dilmun Barbar tradition and the Mesopotamian tradition. Future comparative compositional studies can be conducted to explore other aspects of craft specialisation, such as ceramic technological choices and possibly the influence of sociopolitical units.

Over the course of the last three decades, Ancient Egyptian scarabs have been discovered on Failaka Island off Kuwait, as well as at other sites in the Arabian Gulf. A scarab is the most expressive amulet of the cultural identity of ancient Egypt, revealing its influence and its cultural diffusion in the ancient world. Therefore, this paper discusses the reasons for the presence of such exotic products on the island and also answers the question about their origin. Were Failaka scarabs locally manufactured? What is their connection to the Levant? Are they a testimony to the interconnection between ancient Egypt and Arabia?

The vast majority of individuals who died during the Umm an-Nar period (2700–2000 BCE) of the Early Bronze Age (3200–2000 BCE) in south-eastern Arabia were interred within large communal tombs, and following decomposition, their skeletons became commingled with others. Here, two women are discussed whose skeletons remained articulated – one from Unar 2 at Shimal, and one from Tell Abraq. The Unar 2 female was left unburned, exhibited a pathological lesion on her talus, and was directly associated with an articulated dog, indicating that she may have engaged in hunting or herding activities despite her reduced mobility. The Tell Abraq woman suffered from paralytic poliomyelitis, suggesting that she received care as a member of her community despite her disability and non-local status. Whatever the role these women played in Umm an-Nar society, both were set apart in meaningful ways, speaking to an identity that granted them special status in death.

Two amphoras found at burials outside the ancient city of Thāj, Saudi Arabia, bear inscriptions mentioning wine. The chemical analysis of the content of one of them confirms the presence of wine and more precisely as red wine. Contextual information from one of the graves suggests that wine was consumed as part of burial rituals. One inscription is in Aramaic and the other is in South Arabian cursive or zabūr—in fact the first attestation for this particular script in the core region of the so-called Hasaitic writing culture. Complementing the recent discoveries of zabūr inscriptions from Mleiha (Sharjah, UAE), this inscription buttresses our idea of the emergence of writing in East Arabia in the Hellenistic period.

This special issue of Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy is the result of the conference ‘Archaeological Failaka, Recent and Ongoing Investigations’ organised at the National Library of Kuwait by the National Council for Culture, Arts, and Letters (NCCAL) of the State of Kuwait and the French Research Center of the Arabian Peninsula (CEFREPA, formerly known as CEFAS) between 26 and 28 November 2019. Not less than 13 articles on the archaeology of Failaka offer an overview of the most recent works on sites dating from its first occupation in the Bronze Age to the late Islamic period. It provides a new insight into the rich history of Failaka – an island explored by Kuwaiti and international teams since the 1950’s and that was connected with Mesopotamia, Iran, the Near East and India – and begin to fill in some gaps, in particular concerning the late Islamic period, the pottery studies, the long-distance trade and the geomorphology of the island.