ANAPAN A New Approach to Pottery of Arabia and Its Neighbors

• Applicant: Dr. Arnulf Hausleiter
• Subject Area: Egyptology and Ancient Near Eastern Studies
• Term: since 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 521309092

Material properties of pottery have seldom been used for investigating socio-economic changes. Specifically, past archaeometric studies of Bronze and Iron Age ceramics of Arabia were limited in scope and only rarely discussed manufacturing modes, production places and exchange networks. Through a systematic and comparative analysis of stratified assemblages of the long-lasting sequences of the two major oases of NW Arabia, Qurayyah and Tayma, and comparable material from four sites in Jordan (Pella, es-Smakiyyeh, Barqa el-Hetiyeh, Tell Kheleifeh), we will investigate manufacturing modes, production places and exchange networks of Bronze and Iron Age pottery. By using ceramic’s material properties as a proxy for socio-economic change over the longue durée, we will clarify the evolving dynamics of such exchanges and the technological and commercial networks and cultural practices linking Arabia’s desert oases to the Southern Levant. We adopt a large-scale, multi-proxy, interdisciplinary holistic approach integrating archaeological, technological and archaeometric evidence. Morpho-functional, stylistic, technological analysis of multiple diachronic assemblages from Early Bronze to the final Iron Ages will be investigated on a sample-by-sample basis through Neutron Activation Analysis (NAA) of hundreds of specimens and will be combined with surveys of raw materials and micromorphology of manufacturing earthen structures from a châine opératoire perspective. In scale, interdisciplinary mode of investigation and target area such a holistic, extensive, comprehensive science-based study has never been attempted before. Its focus on poorly investigated regions provides not only an unparalleled increase of new raw data for the Greater Levant but is relevant for reappraising past biases on pottery production in the desert and the Eastern Mediterranean. Methodologically, it provides a novel blue-print for scope and structure of future interdisciplinary research. By embedding the project in the WEAVE joint program, there is an great opportunity to create synergies between international scholars and research institutions.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Austria
• Cooperation Partner: Professorin Dr. Marta Luciani