Physical anthropology of the SLIA

Material Worlds: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Contacts and Exchange in the Ancient Near East, 2023

Pp. 82-107 in Exploring the Narrative. Jerusalem and Jordan in the Bronze and Iron Ages. Papers in Honour of Margreet Steiner. (eds. Van der Steen, E., Boertien, J., and Mulder-Hymans, N.) The Library of Hebrew and Bible/Old Testament Studies 583. New York: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2014

Annual of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan 55, 2011

Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies 45, 297-320, 2015

This paper reassesses the political and cultural chronology of northwest Arabia in the second half of the 1st millennium BC. A close review of the available epigraphic and iconographic evidence shows that it cannot provide any firm chronological anchor for the kingdom of Liḥyān nor for the Nabataean takeover of the area: only archaeology may offer new insights into the history of this important but poorly known period. Recent excavation results from Hegra / Madā’in Ṣāliḥ and from various sites in the al-‘Ulā oasis (Dadan / Khuraybah, Tall al-Kathīb, Khīf al-Zahrah) suggest a disruption in the settlement history and the material culture of the area in the 3rd c. BC. At that time, Dadan and its peripheral settlements seem to have entered a phase of decline, while the Iron Age painted pottery tradition probably came to an end. Conversely, the Saudi-French excavations at Hegra show uninterrupted occupation and development throughout the second half of the 1st millennium BC, suggesting that this site had replaced Dadan as a regional centre by the early 2nd c. BC – i.e. well before the commonly accepted date for the Nabataean takeover of the area. Numismatic data confirm the existence of an autonomous power at Hegra from the late 3rd or early 2nd c. through the 1st c. BC, revealing a hitherto unknown chapter in the political and cultural history of northwest Arabia.

In 2013, field survey conducted in Jordan revealed the remnants of a series of small stone-built installations to the east of Azraq, in the Jebel Qurma area. Looting of the site had occurred shortly before our identification, and the looting pits of different shapes and sizes made the contours of the site barely recognizable. To make matters worse, the material removed by this plunder was randomly thrown on what remained of the low stone walls ). The site was designated QUR-595 as part of our wider survey, and a closer inspection of the site and the looting debris yielded masses of charcoal and iron slag. This suggested that the place had once been used to work iron. Subsequent excavations in 2015 offered a more nuanced picture of the installations at QUR-595, together with their history of occupation and use.

2022

This paper discusses the results of the first new excavation season in the Shimal (Shamāl/Shimāl) area (Ras al-Khaimah/Rās al-Khaymah). The Shimal plain has shown favourable conditions for settlement throughout time. The area has long been known for its important Bronze Age settlement and tombs, with continuity into the early Iron Age (Vogt & Franke-Vogt 1987). Nevertheless, the Iron Age II period has so far been less visible in the area, with sparse evidence from disturbed shell middens and reuse of certain tombs. Recent surveying 'rediscovered' an important area of multiple low hills rich in Iron Age surface material. New excavations in this area have so far unearthed two building units, with multiple phases of Iron Age II and possibly Iron Age IIIpre-Islamic recent (PIR) occupation. The lowest phase reached so far in one of the buildings attests to a conflagration. Secondary evidence of copper working was found in and around these buildings. Together with ceramic vessels including snake appliqué, this suggests these structures might not have been strictly domestic but resemble contemporary cultic buildings elsewhere in the Emirates (Benoist 2007). These finds call for a comparison with the contemporary settlement evidence in the region. The possible relation with a wider destruction episode at the end of the Iron Age II will also be reviewed.

2020

Recent excavations at Saruq al-Hadid, Dubai, have recovered more than 200kg of ferrous remains from early Iron Age contexts dated to c. 1250-800 BCE, transforming our understanding of the scale of early iron use in southeastern Arabia. Many of these ferrous artefacts show typological parallels with contemporary objects from Luristan in western Iran, and the possibility of their long-distance import from this well-known iron producing and using region has long been recognised. The present study uses material from Saruq al-Hadid and the contemporary site of Muweilah to explore the provenance of the earliest iron from southeastern Arabia, by (i) summarizing the evidence for the iron resources and technology in the region and adjacent areas; and (ii) compositionally analysing iron ores, iron slags and slag inclusions in artefacts from Saruq al-Hadid and Muweilah, alongside Iron Age ferrous artefacts from Iran, using OM, SEM-EDS, XRF, ICP-MS and LA-ICP-MS. Multivariate statistical analyses are used to explore these geochemical data, alongside a large dataset of ores and artefacts derived from existing geochemical and archaeological publications. The study identifies slag samples from Muweilah as originating from iron smithing activities, providing the first evidence for iron working of any kind in southeastern Arabia. Differences in the geochemical compositions of the material from Saruq al-Hadid and Muweilah and iron ores from the U.A.E. and Oman – particularly the distribution of rare earth elements – suggest that Iron Age ferrous artefacts from southeastern Arabia were not smelted from locally-available iron ores. Rather, the study demonstrates geochemical similarities between southeastern Arabian iron objects, contemporary objects from Luristan, and ores of the Sanandaj-Sirjan metallogenic belt of Iran, suggesting that iron may have been imported, at least partially as complete objects, from this region. Multiple source deposits are indicated, however, and the possible contribution of iron from other regions of ancient Western Asia and neighbouring regions remains to be further explored. The research provides critical new information regarding the long-distance exchange contacts of southeastern Arabia society during the floruit of the early Iron Age, in the late second and early first millennia BCE.