10th ICAANE | Preface by the Series Editor | Excavations at Wadi Sharma 1: New Insights into the Hijaz Neolithic, North-western Arabia | Pottery from Tayma: Chronostratigraphy, Archaeometric Studies, Cultural Interaction | On the Formation of ‘Urban’ Oases in Arabia: New Perspectives from the North-west | The Bronze and Iron Age Funerary Landscape in Central Arabia  | Excavations of an Iron Age Site near Adam in Central Oman  | Late Bronze/Iron Age Extramural Shrines of the Arid Southern Levant and the Syro-Arabian Desert Cultic Architecture | The Political History of North-west Arabia from the 6th to the 1st Century BCE: New Insights from Dadān, Ḥegrā and Taymāʾ | New Insights into the Nabataean Long-Distance Trade  | The Islamic Productive Economic Landscape in the Southwest of Saudi Arabia: the Case for Mining  | Index

Dieser Band umfasst die Ergebnisse des zweiten internationalen Workshops zur Archäologie der Arabischen Halbinsel. Nach der ersten Publikation (OREA 4) hat der zweite Band das Ziel, die Funde auf der gesamten Arabischen Halbinsel miteinander zu vergleichen und die Kluft zwischen traditionell getrennten wissenschaftlichen Bereichen zu überwinden.

Dabei wird ein zeitlicher Bogen vom präkeramischen Neolithikum B (PPNB) bis in die islamische Periode gespannt und Regionen von der südöstlichen Spitze bis zur nordöstlichen Ecke des Subkontinents, vom Oman bis zum Negev und zum Roten Meer, behandelt und ein umfassenderes Bild der Archäologie dieses riesigen und wenig erforschten Gebiets gezeichnet. Die Entstehung der ältesten peri-maritimen Siedlungsgemeinschaften des Neolithikums wird erörtert und Ähnlichkeiten und Unterschiede in Bezug auf Wahrzeichen, territoriale Aneignung und Umgebungsbedingungen in der frühbronzezeitlichen Gräberlandschaft (Oase al-Kharj) untersucht. Des Weiteren wird die Siedlungslandschaft hervorgehoben, die durch das Aufkommen des hijazischen „Urbanismus“ im frühen 3. Jtd. v. u. Z. in den ältesten Städten der Halbinsel, den berühmten ummauerten Oasen von Qurayyah und Tayma, entstanden ist.

Außerdem werden die unterschiedlichen Varianten von Kulturlandschaften nomadischer Hirtenvölker im Negev und Oman sowie der symbolische Wert der Kupferlegierungsmetallurgie, die epigraphischen und regionalen Handelsverbindungen und -routen sowie die Entstehung von Bergbaulandschaften und spezialisierten Stätten für die Gewinnung von Bodenschätzen in islamischer Zeit beleuchtet.

Das Buch präsentiert die ersten Antworten auf Fragen zu Handlungen, Vernetzung und Chronologie sowie zum komplexen Erbe der Geschichtsrekonstruktion auf der Grundlage griechischer, römischer und lokaler epigraphischer Zeugnisse.

 The volume presents the proceedings of the second international workshop on the Archaeology of the Arabian Peninsula. Following the first publication on the archaeology of Arabia (OREA 4), this second volume is devoted to connecting the evidence across the Arabian Peninsula and bridging the gap between traditionally distinct scholarly fields.

Spanning a chronological range from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) to the Islamic period and encompassing regions from the south-eastern tip to the north-eastern corner of the subcontinent, from Oman to the Negev and the Red Sea, we commit to reconstructing a broader, more interconnected picture of the archaeology of this underexplored, vast territorial expanse.

In this edition we discuss the formation of the oldest peri-maritime settled communities of the Neolithic and investigate similarities and dissimilarities in landmarks, territorial appropriation and environmental conditions of the Early Bronze Age funerary landscape (al-Kharj oasis) and the settlement landscape created by the early-3rd-millennium-BCE emergence of Hejazi ‘urbanism’ in the most ancient megasites of the peninsula, the famous walled oases of Qurayyah and Tayma. We highlight the varied modalities of cultic landscapes of nomadic pastoral peoples in the Negev and Oman and the symbolic value of copper-alloy metallurgy, and investigate epigraphic and regional trade connections and routes throughout an extended region, as well as the formation of mining landscapes and specialised sites for the selective exploitation of mineral resources such as copper, silver and gold (Al-Baha area) in the Islamic period.

The book offers the first answers to questions of agency, networks, chronologies and the complex legacy of reconstructing history based on Greek, Roman and the far from comprehensive local epigraphic evidence.

Connecting the Evidence. Proceedings of the International Workshop held at the 10th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East in Vienna on April 25, 2016

/_files_media/werke/inhaltsverzeichnis/9783700186304_inhaltsverzeichnis.pdf

The Archaeology of the Arabian Peninsula 2

4 Wadi Ghubai and Wadi Mohorak Sites: Protohistoric Burial Fields in the Tabuk Province, Northwestern Arabia | 3 The Socio-Hydraulic Foundations of Oasis Life in NW Arabia: The 5th Millennium BCE Shepherd Environs of Rajajil, Rasif and Qulban Beni Murra | 5 Taymāᵓ in the Bronze Age (c. 2,000 BCE): Settlement and Funerary Landscapes | 6 Qurayyah Painted Ware: A Reassessment of 40 Years of Research on its Origins, Chronology and Distribution | 7 Landscape and Settlement Process in al-Kharj Oasis (Province of Riyadh) . | 8 Early Hegra: New Insights from the Excavations in Areas 2 and 9 at Madāᵓin Ṣāliḥ (Saudi Arabia) | 9 The Role of Dūmat al-Jandal in Ancient North Arabian Routes from Pre-History to Historical Periods | 10 Three Dimensions in Two: Convention and Experiment in the Rock Art of Ancient North Arabia | 11 From South to North in Ancient Arabia | 12 ‘Arabs’ in Late First Millennium BCE Babylonia | 13 An Overview of Archaeological Discoveries in Qatar During the Past 60 Years | Preface by the Series Editor | Introduction | 1 Mobility, Contacts and the Definition of Culture(s) in New Archaeological Research in Northwest Arabia | 2 Holocene Vegetation, Climate, Land Use and Plant Cultivation in the Tayma Region, Northwestern Arabia

The Archaeology of North Arabia: Oases and Landscapes provides us with the proceedings of the namesake international congress organised at the University of Vienna. Its rich list of contributions both on recent results of field activities and new considerations on different settlement patterns and historical and cultural processes within North Arabia makes this volume a state-of-the-art account of the multiple scholarly pursuits in the region.

The innovative topics are connected both to field research and interpretative anthropological approaches: from the oasis formation paradigm, the debate on crops, on local types of agriculture and water management systems in different desert and oases landscapes, and on the date of appearance of date palm cultivation, to funerary and ceremonial landscapes in their transition and transformation from the Chalcolithic to the Bronze and Iron Ages; from the ground-breaking presence of Syro-Levantine metal weapons in early second millennium BCE graveyards of the Northern Hejaz, the phenomenon of large-scale diffusion of oases-produced pottery wares, the attestation of chariots on rock art, and the challenges of modern-day archaeology and cultural resource management, down to the concept of environmental differentiation and identity, between mobility and connectivity.

New data and the multi- and transdisciplinary methodology espoused by the volume dramatically change our understanding of the social and cultural development, especially of social complexity, of an area often neglected in scholarly studies in the past. These proceedings, therefore, contribute substantially in positioning the archaeology of North Arabia into the broader perspective of the archaeology of the Ancient Near East, from the Neolithic to the pre-Islamic period and will hopefully become a standard work for understanding the Arabian Peninsula for years to come. 

Proceedings of the International Congress held at the University of Vienna, 5-8 December, 2013

/_files_media/werke/inhaltsverzeichnis/9783700180029_inhaltsverzeichnis.pdf

Marta Luciani

Products

The Archaeology of the Arabian Peninsula 2

The Archaeology of North Arabia. Oases and Landscapes