Bulletin of the Society for Arabian Studies 2009

Number 14 ISSN: 1361-9144 Registered Charity No. 1003272 2009 £5.00

1 Bulletin of the Society for Arabian Studies 2009 The Society for Arabian Studies

President Bulletin of the Society for Arabian Studies Miss Beatrice de Cardi OBE FBA FSA Editor Dr Robert Carter Chairman Ms Sarah Searight Book Reviews Editor Mr William Facey Vice Chairman Dr St John Simpson Treasurer Col Douglas Stobie Honorary Secretary Mrs Ionis Thompson Grants Sub-Committee

Prof. Dionisius A. Agius Honorary Secretary Dr St John Simpson Dr Lucy Blue Ms Sarah Searight Dr Harriet Crawford Dr Nelida Fuccaro Dr Nadia Durrani Dr Nadia Durrani Mr William Facey Dr Nelida Fuccaro British Archaeological Mission in Dr Paul Lunde (BAMY) Dr James Onley Chairman Prof. Tony Wilkinson Mrs Janet Starkey Dr Lloyd Weeks

Prof. Tony Wilkinson

Notes for contributors to the Bulletin The Bulletin depends on the good will of Society members and correspondents to provide contributions. News, items of general interest, ongoing and details of completed postgraduate research, forthcoming conferences, meetings and special events are welcome. Please contact the Honorary Secretary, Ionis Thompson. Email [email protected]

Applications to conduct research in Yemen Applications to conduct research in Yemen should be made to the Society’s sub-committee, the British Archaeological Mission in Yemen (BAMY). Contact Professor Tony Wilkinson, Durham University, Department of Archaeology, South Road, Durham, DH1 3LE. Tel. 0191 334 1111. Email [email protected]

Grants in aid of research Applicants are advised to apply well ahead of the May and October deadlines. Full details on p.3

Applications for official sponsorship Expeditions and individuals may apply for official sponsorship from the Society for research projects if helpful in obtaining funds from other sources or permission from foreign governments. Sponsorship signifies the Society’s approval of academic content but not financial support. Applications should be submitted on the relevant form, available from the Hon. Secretary at the address below, and sent to the Grants Sub-Committee: Dr St John Simpson, Middle East Department, The British Museum, London, WC1B 3DG, UK. Email [email protected]

Membership Membership details are available from Ionis Thompson, the Honorary Secretary, at the address below or on the Society’s website. For membership renewals contact the Treasurer, Douglas Stobie, at the address below, or email: [email protected]

The Honorary Secretary, Society for Arabian Studies c/o The London Middle East Institute School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) Thornhaugh Street, London, WC1H 0XG, UK Email: [email protected] Web: www.societyforarabianstudies.org

Bulletin of the Society for Arabian Studies ISSN: 1361-9144 Registered Charity No. 1003272

0 CONTENTS

A Message from the Chairman ...... 2 Awards and Prizes ...... 26

Available Grants and Prizes ...... 26 Society for Arabian Studies News...... 3 Conferences and Seminars 2008-2009 ...... 300 Monograph Series ...... 3 Completed Conferences...... 300 Grants in Aid of Research ...... 3 Upcoming Conferences 2009 ...... 32 Society Grants-in-Aid 2008...... 3 Book Reviews...... 33  : An Environmental Overview...... 33 Grant-In-Aid Reports...... 3  Women In Pre-Islamic Arabia: Nabataea...... 35

 The Coastal Plain of South-West Arabia In British Archaeological Mission in Yemen Its Regional Context, C. 6000 BC–AD 600 ...... 36 (BAMY)...... 4  Classic Ships of : from Mesopotamia to the Indian Ocean...... 37 Lectures and Lecture Reports 2008...... 4  India Traders Of The Middle Ages: Documents From  City and State in Bahrain and in the Gulf before Oil. The Cairo Geniza – ‘India Book’...... 38 Nelida Fuccaro ...... 4  A Traveller in Thirteenth-Century Arabia: Ibn Al-  From Mayfair to : Lady Evelyn Cobbold, Mujāwir’s Tārīkh Al-Mustabsir...... 40 British Muslim. William Facey ...... 5  The Arabian Frontier of the British Raj: Merchants,  The Arabian Frontier of the British Raj: Merchants, Rulers, And The British in the Nineteenth-Century Gulf... Rulers, and the British in the Nineteenth-Century Gulf ...... 42 James Onley ...... 6  British Missions around the Gulf, 1575–2005: Iran,  Classic Ships of Islam. Dionisius Agius...... 6 Iraq, Kuwait, ...... 43  Pilgrimage to Mecca...... 44 Lecture Programme 2009...... 9  The Western Hadramawt: Ethnographic Field Research , 1983–91...... 45 Arabian News and Research...... 10  A Land Transformed: The , Saudi Arabia and ...... 47 Arts ...... 10  The Burial Mounds of Bahrain. Social Complexity in Early ...... 48 Wildlife...... 11  The Tylos Period Burials in Bahrain. Volume 1, The Glass and Pottery Vessels...... 48 Other General News ...... 12  Funeral Monuments and Remains from Jebel Al-Buhais...... 52 News and Research by Country...... 14 Bahrain...... 14 New Publications on Arabia...... 56 Kuwait ...... 16 Oman...... 18 New Books 2008–09 ...... 56 Qatar ...... 19 ...... 20 Journals And Magazines...... 56 General UAE News...... 20 ...... 20 Societies, Associations and Other Online Resources Fujairah ...... 21 ...... 58 Ras Al-Khaimah...... 21 ...... 23 Obituaries ...... 59 Saudi Arabia...... 23 Yemen ...... 25

Front Cover: Hudaibah Tower, Ras al-Khaimah. Photo by Christian Velde.

1 A MESSAGE FROM THE CHAIRMAN

When the Society for Arabian Studies was But all too often their designs threaten the founded in the mid-1980s, its remit was fragile environment of desert, mountain and strongly archaeological; the rapid rate of shore. The threats are highlighted by a development on the back of sharply increased relatively new journal, Wildlife Middle East oil revenues was seen as a major threat to the (see page 58). The Society feels as concerned fragile and often little-explored archaeological today about the danger to the natural past of the Peninsula, particularly the Gulf. environment from careless development as it Interest in that past was sparked by was initially for the archaeological heritage of organisations such as ours, and teams of Arabia. archaeologists from all over the world have Population pressure rather than grand since excavated some remarkable early sites. cultural developments is a critical problem in a Several members of the Society’s Committee very different environment from the rest of the attended Abu Dhabi’s excellent annual Peninsula, that of Yemen. Hence the Society’s archaeological conference in March; a report decision to highlight Yemen’s water problem on page 32 keeps us all up to date. Thanks to in its AGM lecture in May. But water issues the Bulletin’s current editor, Dr Rob Carter, must surely be a growing source of anxiety all and web expert Ivor Pridden, access to news over the Peninsula. Development of whatever and the Bulletin itself has been vastly kind is thirsty! We look forward to some improved by posting it on the Society’s pertinent discussion of the problem at the website, visited by a growing number of AGM. interested parties. A happier note is the UAE’s enthusiasm to Over the past eight years the Society has commemorate the British traveller Wilfred organised a very successful series of biennial Thesiger. Abu Dhabi gave him a posthumous conferences, three of them dedicated to the award in December, and his biographer Red Sea and one to Death and Burial in Arabia Alexander Maitland was invited to the from the earliest times to the Islamic period. A Literary Festival to speak on Thesiger’s books fourth Red Sea conference was organised in (2009 marks the 50th anniversary of the 2008 by Southampton’s Marine Archaeology publication of Arabian Sands). A permanent Department. The idea behind these exhibition of Thesiger’s remarkable conferences has been to include areas photographs is due to open later this year in Al adjoining the Peninsula – eastern , Ain. Maybe the Society should organise a Mesopotamia and Iran, for instance. A fifth special tour to visit them! Red Sea conference is planned by Professor Sarah Searight Dionisius Agius to take place in Exeter in Chairman September 2010, extending that focus to the Indian Ocean. Other UK academic societies involved in these areas are being strongly EDITOR’S ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS advised to spread their regional wings, and the British Institute for the Study of Iraq As always, many thanks indeed to all our generously supported the Death and Burial contributors, and to Ionis Thompson and Sarah conference. Searight for providing additional material. The Development still threatens archaeology Bulletin would not exist without them. This but the Society is also concerned to publicise year thanks are also due to Paula Carter for her its threat to other aspects of the Arabian world. immense help in compiling and formatting the There are dramatic plans for museums, art Bulletin. Thanks too to all those who read and galleries, and music and sports facilities in all commented on the manuscript. GCC countries, often designed by some of the Robert Carter world’s leading architects, which the Bulletin Editor has begun to follow over the past few years.

2 SOCIETY FOR ARABIAN STUDIES NEWS

The Society was founded in 1987 with the submit a summary of their research for purpose of encouraging interest and research publication in the Bulletin following the end of into the archaeology, history, culture and the period during which the grant was held. environment of the Arabian Peninsula – The Society may also ask grant holders to give Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, a talk to Society members on their research the United Arab Emirates and Yemen. The projects. Society publishes this annual Bulletin, Further information and application organises regular lectures and a biennial instructions are available on the website, conference, and supports field projects in and www.societyforarabianstudies.org or from Dr publications on this region. Full details of the St John Simpson, Middle East Department, Society’s aims and activities can be found on British Museum, London, WC1B 3DG, UK. its website: www.societyforarabianstudies.org Email [email protected]

MONOGRAPH SERIES SOCIETY GRANTS-IN-AID 2008 In 2004, the Society launched a Monograph Dr Robert Carter and Dr Roberta Tomber Series with the aim of publishing peer- were awarded a grant for thin-section analysis reviewed research-based studies, conference of ceramics from Sir , Abu Dhabi. A proceedings, archaeological excavation or preliminary report is presented below. survey reports, and theses comprising an T. Mathiesen was awarded a grant to study important synthesis or a significant addition to Trans-nationalism in Saudi Arabia (report knowledge. The scope encompasses the forthcoming). archaeology, early history, ethnography, Farah al-Naqib was awarded a grant to study epigraphy and numismatics of the Arabian Oral histories of Kuwait (report forthcoming). Peninsula and related matters. The Series now has seven titles, published by Archaeopress GRANT-IN-AID REPORTS (B.A.R. International Series); these are listed Dr Robert Carter and Dr Roberta Tomber, on the back cover of the bulletin. in collaboration with Seth Priestman, received an award for a pilot study entitled Torpedo SOCIETY GRANTS-IN-AID Jars: Origins and Contents. This kind of Each year, the Society offers grants of up to bitumen-lined amphora is widely distributed in £500 in support of research, or the publication the Gulf and the Indian Ocean region from the of research, into the archaeology, history, Sasanian to the Abbasid periods. The intent is culture or environment of the Arabian to apply thin-section petrographic analysis to a Peninsula. Awards are intended primarily for selection of samples from Sir Bani Yas (Abu small projects and are insufficient in Dhabi), Iran (Williamson Collection) and India themselves to finance a major research project, (already prepared by Dr Tomber), in order to although they may be used as grants-in-aid identify provenance and patterns of trade. The towards larger projects which have already grant covered the preparation and analysis of attracted, or can reasonably expect to attract, the Sir Bani Yas material by Dr Tomber, and is further independent funding. Grants are not accompanied by a parallel typographic and awarded to fund university or other courses. chronological analysis (Seth Priestman), and a Applicants must be members of the Society. provenance analysis of the associated bitumen Applications should be submitted by 31 May (Dr Carter and Jacques Connan, CNRS). The or 31 October, and the results are team is pleased to report that the thin sections communicated within 6 weeks of those dates. have been made and are currently under Awards are tenable for one year from the analysis. The pilot study is also supported by date on which they are awarded. Grant holders the British Institute of Persian Studies, and the will be required to provide a written report on Emirates Natural History Group. An their research with an account of expenditure, application will be made subsequently to a to be submitted within six months of the expiry major funding body for an extensive study. of the period for which the grant was made. Robert Carter Successful applicants will also be required to

3 Dr Michel Mouton was awarded a grant in 2007 for the reformatting of his ground- LECTURE REPORTS 2008 breaking 1992 thesis, La Peninsule d'Oman de la fin de l'age du fer au debut de la periode 19 March 2008: Sassanide. This is now published in the City and State in Bahrain and in the Gulf Society Monograph Series. See the back cover before Oil of this Bulletin for details. Dr Nelida Fuccaro Dr Fuccaro lectures in the modern history of BRITISH ARCHAEOLOGICAL the Arab Middle East at SOAS. MISSION IN YEMEN (BAMY) This lecture presented an account of the making of new ‘urban frontiers’ in the Persian BAMY operates under the auspices of the th Gulf and in the islands of Bahrain from the 18 Society for Arabian Studies and is responsible th to the early 20 centuries, before the region for screening all British research carried out in started to be populated by modern Yemen in the fields of archaeology, history, entrepreneurs, consumer goods and oil epigraphy, numismatics, pre-Islamic and companies – a process which started in Islamic architecture and all manuscript and Bahrain in the 1930s. This was a period of museum-based studies. tribal expansion, British imperial In late 2007 and early 2008, Tony encroachment and of the boom of Gulf pearls Wilkinson and Carl Phillips attended two in the world markets which was characterised meetings in Qatar which aimed to establish a by the making of new urban settlements and series of projects in Yemen sponsored by the states throughout the region under the aegis of states of Qatar and Yemen. The meeting was the Government of India. This paper relates the attended by representatives of archaeological story of how new port towns such as Muharraq teams from France, Germany, Russia, Canada, in Bahrain, Kuwait and Dubai, and old port the UK, Yemen, and other countries. A settlements like Manama started to develop at proposal for new British investigations at the an exponential rate and how their socio- site of Hajar Henu Az-Zureir (i.e. the political and spatial organisation reflected new Qatabanian city of Haribat) was presented, and patterns of state building across the Gulf. is under review. We are still awaiting final In this context the islands of Bahrain results of the review process although the constituted a sort of microcosm of the new delays in the start date of the project are raising th ‘urban frontier’ which emerged after the 18 questions about whether such a programme century. For centuries, the configuration of will actually go ahead. settled life and the organisation of coastal UK applications for permission to carry towns reflected the demographic and political out research in Yemen should be referred to realities of a frontier society in flux. The the BAMY Committee. The applications it establishment of tribal settlements and of a approves will become official BAMY projects new capital city, Muharraq, had profound and BAMY will apply for permits from the repercussions on existing patterns of General Organisation of Antiquities and agricultural settlement and, more generally, on Museums (GOAM), Ministry of Culture, the tradition of government established under on behalf of applicants. Application the rule of the Safavid Empire (1602–1717). deadlines are 30 April and 30 September each To complicate the picture, in the age of year. Further details can be obtained from: imperial expansion Bahrain became the BAMY, Professor Tony Wilkinson, Durham stronghold of British power on the Arab side University, Department of Archaeology, South th of the Gulf. By the last quarter of the 19 Road, Durham, DH1 3LE. Tel. 0191 334 1111. century Manama, the cosmopolitan port town Email [email protected] of the islands, became the busiest entrepôt of Tony Wilkinson the , a centre of British and Chairman of the British Archaeological European shipping and the world centre of Mission to Yemen pearling. (Durham University) Nelida Fuccaro

4 21 May 2008 who introduced her to the Amir Faisal and the From Mayfair to Mecca: Lady Evelyn US oil negotiators then present there. While Cobbold, British Muslim awaiting official permission from the King for Mr William Facey her to perform the Hajj, Philby arranged for Mr Facey is a publisher and writer on Arabia Evelyn to travel by car to Madinah, fixing up and its history. her accommodation with a local family. Once Aristocrat, Mayfair socialite, owner of an permission arrived she would be allowed, as a estate in the Scottish highlands, accomplished travelling grandee, to go to Makkah also by deerstalker and angler, mother and gardener, car, Philby once again providing guide and Lady Evelyn Cobbold (1867–1963) was driver. probably unique in being also a Muslim and an Her book, Pilgrimage to Mecca (London: -speaker. In 1933, at the age of 65, this John Murray, 1934), gives a fascinating and highly unusual Anglo-Scottish aristocrat sympathetic account of her Arabian journey. It became the first British-born Muslim woman was reprinted in 2008 (see the Book Reviews to make the pilgrimage to Mecca. Yet the story section). As much a record of an interior of her life and her contribution to the literature experience of faith as a conventional of the Hajj have been inexplicably travelogue, it is remarkable for its sympathy overlooked until now. Nor has she been and vividness. As a lone female Muslim, she studied from the point of view of what her life was able to do something no traveller before has to say about Islam among the British. her had done: to describe the female side of Lady Evelyn Murray was born in domestic life in Makkah and Madinah. This, Edinburgh in 1867, the eldest child of the and its author’s religious commitment, set her famous traveller, Charles Adolphus Murray, 7th account apart from every previous English Earl of Dunmore. Permanently hard up, Lord description of the Hijaz. Dunmore found it both cheap and congenial to What sort of a Muslim was Lady Evelyn? cart his family off to North Africa every Though she would certainly have claimed to be winter. This was how, by Evelyn’s own Sunni it is difficult to pin her down more account, Islam was imbued in her – by precisely. Though clearly firm in her faith, a childhood during which she became, as she there is no record of her performing the five puts it, ‘unconsciously a little Moslem at heart’ daily prayers, or of giving alms to the poor and – and why she liked to claim that she had been needy, during her normal life at home, though a Muslim all her life. Here she was steeped in there is anecdotal evidence of her fasting the culture and language of everyday life in the during Ramadan. No doubt she had uttered the Arab Muslim world, and came to feel shahadah, or declaration of faith, on various completely at home there. occasions; otherwise, going on the Hajj seems At 24 Evelyn was married, in Cairo, to to have been the sole other Pillar of Islam that John Dupuis Cobbold, of the wealthy Suffolk she subscribed to. brewing family. Three children followed There is a long history of British converts between 1893 and 1900, but it is fairly clear to Islam before her time, going back at least to that she found it hard to settle back in Suffolk. the Crusades, and peaking during the 17th Still travelling in North Africa, by 1911 it century when many Britons were enslaved, becomes increasingly evident that she regarded either to man the fleets of the Barbary corsairs, herself as a Muslim. In 1922, she and her or otherwise to be absorbed into North African husband separated, and the Cobbolds arranged society. But Lady Evelyn belongs to a later a generous financial settlement, including the category – that of educated converts in Britain highland deer forest of Glencarron, which itself in the late 19th century. She was made her a very wealthy woman. Much of the contemporary with other eminent Muslims of 1920s was occupied by the field sports at this type – Abdullah Quilliam, Lord Headley, which she excelled, and she became the first Lord Hothfield, and Marmaduke woman to down a 14-point stag. Pickthall, to name but a few. In 1929 her husband John Cobbold died, The Western attitude to faith as a matter of and it was from this point that she began private choice and practice, which works very seriously to contemplate performing the well for Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists pilgrimage. By 1933 she was ready, arriving in and other religions, is perhaps not so easy for Jiddah, where she was put up by the Philbys, Muslims to adopt. For many, to be a Muslim is

5 a matter of more than mere private religious write it, illustrating his talk with a series of conviction, kept behind closed doors. While slides. historical and social experiences of the religion The Arabian Frontier is a study of one of obviously vary, Islam is often perceived – not the most forbidding frontier zones of Britain’s only by outsiders but by also by many of its Indian Empire. He explained how Britain’s adherents – to entail a commitment to a certain Political Residency in the Gulf, which was type of state and society, certain types of responsible for Britain’s relationship with public institution especially where the law and eastern Arabia and southern Persia, was part of education are concerned, and prescriptions for an extensive network of political residencies family life and daily public behaviour. Public that surrounded and protected British India space, as well as the private sphere, is until 1947. It was the responsibility of considered to be its legitimate domain, and Britain’s Political Resident in the Gulf and his Muslims regard Islam as providing not just a very small cadre of British officers to maintain personal faith but a complete social system the Pax Britannica on the waters of the Gulf, intimately tied up with a specific worldview protect British interests throughout the region, and norms of identity. and manage political relations with the dozens In contrast to this view of Islam, there is of Arab rulers and governors on both shores of little sign that Lady Evelyn was much aware of the Gulf. How, Dr Onley asked, did such a these public implications of her faith. In small number of British diplomats (sometimes regarding Islam solely as a matter of private just two or three) manage such duties for an conviction and in subscribing to it entirely on area the size of the United Kingdom? her own terms, she followed a very European The secret to the Gulf Residency’s model of religious belief. In this, she has to be effectiveness, he explained, was the extent to placed in the context of her time. She lived in which these men worked within the indigenous an age in which many members of the political systems of the Gulf. Arab rulers in intelligentsia and society’s upper echelons need of protection collaborated with the sought enlightenment among various non- British to maintain the Pax Britannica, while Christian systems of belief on offer. influential men from affluent Arab, Persian, Lady Evelyn lived on for another thirty and Indian merchant families served as years. She died in January 1963, one of the Britain’s ‘native agents’ (compradors) in over coldest months of the century in Britain, and half of the political posts within the Gulf was buried, as she stipulated, on a remote Residency. Onley gave the example of the hillside on her Glencarron estate. Her Safar family (originally from Hillah in splendidly Islamo-Caledonian interment southern Iraq), members of which served as symbolized her two worlds: a piper, so frozen British political officers and agents throughout that he was scarcely able to walk let alone Arabia for five generations between the 1830s perform, played MacCrimmon’s lament, and and 1930s. Research for his book was based the Surah ‘Light’ from the Qur’an was recited primarily upon the private papers of men such in Arabic by the equally refrigerated Imam of as the Safars’ agents, kept by their descendants the Woking Mosque. A verse from the same in the Gulf. Onley explained how there are a Surah adorns the flat slab over her grave. great many such records in Arabia, locked William Facey away in dust-covered trunks, awaiting discovery by historians. 22 October 2008 James Onley The Arabian Frontier of the British Raj: Merchants, Rulers, and the British in the 22 January 2009 Nineteenth-Century Gulf Classic Ships of Islam Dr James Onley Professor Dionisius A. Agius Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, Exeter Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, Exeter University University This lecture accompanied the launch of Dr The lecture was a book launch presentation Onley’s book of the same name, the research and joint lecture with the Society for Arabian for which was partially funded by the Society. Studies, the Palestine Exploration Fund and the Dr Onley presented the main arguments made Council for British Research in the Levant. in his book and explained how he came to

6 Classic Ships of Islam is the culmination of Culture shapes society. It is a system of research which goes back to the 1980s. It is the relationships that exist among the community, final part of a trilogy covering the development their daily activities as dictated by the politics of maritime culture in the Western Indian of the region, and their religious belief. Of Ocean. The first two books, In the Wake of the these relationships, he considers interaction Dhow (2002) and Seafaring in the Arabian between man and material culture to be one of Gulf and Oman: The People of the Dhow the most important and significant elements in (2005) focused on the cultural, material and a community. Material culture comprises the commercial significance of the traditional objects that the individuals of a community wooden vessel (known in the West as the manufacture, subject to climate, environment dhow). They speak of its role in the life and and the materials available. This book explores interaction of coastal communities and the the relationships between man and all that traditions of seafaring during the Portuguese, pertains to the sea: the carpenter, the the Dutch and the English presence, until the manufacturer and his materials, the watercraft, decline in maritime activity in the Gulf and the the crew, navigational aids, the winds and advent of oil. Most of the material gathered for currents, the merchants and their voyage, trade both works was by way of more than 200 and pilgrimage and the harbour and people. interviews and archival research. The third and The traditions of seafaring and final book, Classic Ships of Islam: From shipbuilding have long been a means of Mesopotamia to the Indian Ocean (2008) is a cultural as well as commercial exchange journey into the past from the Modern Age to among the diverse linguistic ethnic the Classical period and even further, touching communities of Mesopotamia and the Indian on the . It charts the development Ocean. The Indian Ocean seafaring tradition of watercraft in the Western Indian Ocean. developed quite separately from the Divided into six parts, the book opens with Mediterranean tradition though contact with a discussion of Arabic sources and Egypt and the Levant via the Red Sea, was methodology; the second part looks at inevitable. Seasonal trade was dictated by the maritime contacts and port towns of the pre- monsoonal winds and they were fundamental Islamic, Classical and Medieval Islamic to the physical and human unities of the Indian periods; part three examines watercraft Ocean, while religion (Hinduism, Buddhism, technology during the Bronze Age showing Judaism, Christianity and Islam), no doubt, similar construction features of ships in was a great driving force which strengthened Medieval Islam; part four is an inquiry into trade and cultural ties. seamanship and the Indian Ocean ship, A new departure in research methods in whether engaged in trade or pilgrimage or Classic Ships of Islam is that it makes naval activities; part five analyses watercraft extensive use of: a) Arabic textual and types, the origin of their nomenclature and the documentary material (historical, geographical, context of their occurrence. Finally the book travel and maritime works); b) Arabic concludes with a discussion on language lexicography which involves the search for contact and language dominance, the use of meaning and origins of nautical and maritime technical terminology, and cultural and terminology; c) archaeology (nautical and technological exchange. marine) and d) iconography (graffiti, Professor Agius set out to answer two illustrations and miniatures). These constitute principal questions: i) What information do the corners, the demarcation of the book’s early and medieval literary and non-literary framework, and within these four parameters it sources provide about watercraft in the demonstrates the relationship of maritime Western Indian Ocean? and, ii) How reliable material culture to the wider picture of the are their data and how far can they help us to ethnic, religious and linguistic mix as well as understand construction features of vessels and the technological and economic developments technology? of trade and commerce in the Western Indian He explains the scope of the study of the Ocean. The framework is an attempt to bring book by defining what is tradition and culture. four disciplines together, to strengthen In order to understand what tradition is he evidence where there is doubt, to fill gaps argues that one needs to define culture because where there are holes and to offer tradition forms an important part of culture.

7 interpretations of the sources available and mariners etc. Of course, information from such make inferences from them. sources must be cautiously evaluated but, with care, they offer an often overlooked source of information. Navigational treatises were the hub of this study, containing details on coastlines, winds and currents, navigation and shipping and trade. They are the synthesis of earlier Persian manuals on navigation and, as such, they throw light on the knowledge of nautical theory and practice that came down to the by way of Sanskrit and Persian. Reconstructing the past is a difficult task because of the absence of tangible information. We have lists of names of watercraft types but little discussion on what they served for, or where they sailed. We have lists of exports and imports, but hardly any assessment of the importance of trade in terms of its role in the economic survival of the region. Professor Agius has evaluated information from documentary evidence, such as the Genizah papers and the Quseir al-Qadim paper fragments of the medieval period (11th–13th CE); but if textual material was lacking then his only resource is to go to visual material and archaeological finds. Here too evidence can be St Petersburg IOS – C822, fol 011r thin; however, much can be learnt about Perso-

For the textual data the book looks at Arabian and Indian craft through firstly pre-Islamic and Islamic poetry, where Mediterranean and Chinese sources, always nautical scenes and the language the poets use bearing in mind that illustrations and figures to describe them are recorded with great can often be subjective and not a real vitality and precision; the contribution to representation of the period in question. nautical terminology of this literature is Archaeological finds can be arbitrary; they can significant and makes a significant give us clues but no conclusive answers. contribution to our understanding of the In an attempt to classify watercraft of maritime past. Geographical texts give medieval Islam, a discussion on early unknown abundant information on socio-economic types ensues; three chapters focus on the river- events, customs and practices of people, trade type (e.g. shabbāra, ‘ushārī etc.), the deep-sea and commerce, harbours and coasts of the vessels (e.g. jalba, sanbūq etc.) and the war Indian ocean and provide a wealth of material and transport vessels such as the Ήarrāqa, the cultural terminology, though disappointingly Γarrāda and the ghurāb and examples of their without a great deal of information on use in the Western Indian Ocean. Some of seamanship and shipbuilding. Historical works these craft are compared with those of the were used because of their information on Mediterranean in the context of their history, society, culture and commerce, biographies of naval tactics and construction features. men, reports on human and physical disasters, The results of the study on the military and naval incursions. Travel works are development of the medieval ship in the an important and indispensable source of western Indian Ocean are examined in the light information on ethnography and cultural of: a) philological data and b) cultural and history, not to mention details on maritime technological exchange. Firstly, for many centuries before the rise culture, while the works of the maritime th literary genre offer exclusive data on Indian of Islam, right up to the 14 century, Persian Ocean navigation: statements from merchants was the leading trade language; the nautical concerning their voyage, accounts of heroic terminology mariners used and the maritime manuals they followed are proof, no doubt, of

8 the Persian foreign dominance which has, technological transfer in the Indian Ocean has through many centuries and up to the present often moved from east to west in spite of day, influenced Arabic terminology. This can Eurocentric views to the contrary; of course be shown in many words for boat and ship indigenous innovations could have developed terms, parts of the watercraft, and nautical independently. terms, all of which can be traced to Persian and Much legend surrounds the encounter some even earlier, to Sanskrit. That the between Ibn Mājid and Vasco da Gama but language of trade in the Indian Ocean from one fact is irrefutable: until 1487, the leading pre-Islamic times (in particular the Sasanian merchants and traders of the Indian Ocean period) was Persian is largely true but not were the Persians, Arabs and Indians, many totally, and even though the nautical under the identity of Muslim, as attested in the instructions known to Arabian mariners were works of the geographers, historians and written in Persian before the 1500s, and a travellers. However, in terms of science and number of nautical terms are of Persian origin, technology it is no exaggeration to conclude it cannot be taken as conclusive proof that that China was for many years ahead of the Persian navigation was superior to Arabian. Muslim world and Europe. However, it seems irrefutable that Arabic was Dionisius Agius only the vehicle; the tradition of Persian nautical manuals existed long before Ibn LECTURE PROGRAMME 2009

Mājid’s treatise, the only one we have in Arabic, because as Ibn Mājid tells us, the 20 May 2009 Persian manuals were lost. Water in Yemen: changing views on a Secondly, Professor Agius talked about the rapidly changing resource’ question of cultural and technological Dr Jac van der Gun exchange: How far did it go and what were its 5.30pm in the Khalili Lecture Theatre, SOAS. implications? Watercraft designs depended on Joint lecture with the British-Yemeni Society. environment, topography and economic Dr van der Gun is a hydrologist with specialist demands but they were influenced also by knowledge of water resource management at social, cultural and religious factors. Some Utrecht University. He worked in Yemen on construction features of contemporary water projects in the 1990s and will talk about primitive boats are our clue to boats of the problems associated with the decline in antiquity and it is possible to show common water resources in Yemen, and how people design features with the early vessels of the there are adapting to the change.

Bronze Age, and with the watercraft of the Autumn 2009 classical and medieval periods of Islam. No Windtower examples of watercraft construction features Dr Anne Coles are found between the Bronze Age and Dr Coles is a geographer, who lived and medieval Islam. Craft like the Iraqi quffa worked in Dubai from 1968 to 1971. She has coracle, reed canoes of the Marshes of spent many years in the Middle East, and her Southern Iraq, reed bundles for crossing the career has combined research, university Nile, the Omani beach canoe, the shāsha, are teaching and professional practice. She has examples of long standing techniques that go particular interests in the cultural aspects of back to antiquity. Stitching planks predated development, migration and human responses nail construction and its use can be traced from to ‘difficult’ environments. Dr Coles is antiquity to this very day on the west Indian presently a research associate at the coast. International Gender Studies Centre in The book demonstrates that technological Department of International Development, exchange brought about adaptations and Oxford University and is co-author of inventions which have Chinese connections, Windtower with Peter Jackson. such as the compass, stern rudder, the lateen- settee and types of fire. It is evident from Note from the Honorary Secretary written sources (over 100 Arabic primary In addition to the Society’s own lecture works were used) and pictorial sources programme, Society members are sometimes (limited because of the Islamic prohibition on invited to attend lectures and talks organised figurative art within a religious context) that by other societies. Members with email

9 addresses can be sent notice of these lectures receiving such notices but who would like to as they arise, often at very short notice. It is do so are asked to send a current email address impractical to send notices to those with only to me at: [email protected] postal addresses. Any members who are not Ionis Thompson

ARABIAN NEWS AND RESEARCH

The first parts of this section give general Booker Prize Foundation. In the last five years coverage of activities throughout the Arabian a Man Booker International Prize has been Peninsula, while archaeological activities are awarded every other year to a writer of covered in a following country-by-country international stature. section. The latest arrival to the family has been the International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF), ARTS established in 2007, in association with the

Booker Prize Foundation. It has received Art Island, Abu Dhabi generous and assured funding from the Abu Dhabi is going ahead with its plans for a Emirates Foundation in Abu Dhabi and, like huge offshore cultural island on Saadiyat to the other Booker children, has already become accommodate four new museums and a vast a major presence in the global literary world. It performing arts centre. These are part of a $27 is now (February 2009) approaching the end of billion development including beach resorts, a the second annual cycle: on 16 March the marina, golf courses and luxury housing for second prize was announced at a gala dinner in 170,000 people. Museums include a new Abu Dhabi. national museum, the Shaikh Zayed National The running of the prize follows a familiar Museum, Frank Gehry’s building for a format. Publishers of Arabic fiction, in the contemporary art museum, alias Guggenheim. Arab world and beyond, are invited to submit Another museum, designed by Jean Nouvel, copies of up to two novels published in the will house objects from the main Louvre previous year to the Administrator – the collection under a $1.6 billion contract for the Lebanese poet, editor and journalist, Joumana loan of objects for thirty years. A maritime Haddad. In both the first and the second year museum is being designed by Japanese 130 novels were submitted: all Arab countries architect Tadao Ando, and the Iraqi-born Zaha have been represented. She sends a copy to Hadid has designed a ‘Daliesque’ theatre each of six judges who over a few months complex. Saadiyat will be linked to the main whittle the list down to a long list of sixteen Abu Dhabi island by a bridge and causeways. and a short list of six. Both lists are published The whole complex is planned to be completed and three months later the judges meet on the by 2018. afternoon of the gala dinner where the winning

The Lure of the East: British Orientalist Art novel is announced. Sharjah’s exhibition of The Lure of the East: One of the emphases of the prize is its British Orientalist Art opened in February (Feb international nature. Registered in London, 1 – April 1). This is the fourth venue for this funded from the Emirates and run from exhibition, which has already been on show at Lebanon, a dozen Trustees come from the Mellon Centre in Yale, at London’s Tate different parts of the Arab world and beyond. Britain and at the Pera Museum in Istanbul. Trustees appoint the judges who also come from different Arab countries. One judge is International Prize for Arabic Fiction selected from outside the Arab world, in the (IPAF) first year a British Professor of Arabic Since it was founded in 1968 the Booker Prize Literature, in the second year the leading (the Man Booker since 2002) has been the translator of contemporary Arabic literature parent of other international literary prizes. into German. After the fall of the Soviet Union a Russian The objectives of the Prize are to bring Booker prize was launched. At the beginning reward, readership and recognition to the of the new century the Caine Prize for African writers. Like the Man Booker the award is for Writing was founded in association with the the novel, not for lifetime achievement. All

10 shortlisted authors receive a prize of areas such as woodlands, grasslands and US$10,000, the winner an extra US$50,000. wetlands, and protect them from over- International publishers have become exploitation, for the benefit of biodiversity, interested and the novel by the winner of the people and livelihoods. first prize, Bahaa Taher, is currently being Following the announcement of the fund, translated into seven languages. Bahaa Taher BirdLife is considering establishing a himself, a senior Egyptian novelist, has in the permanent office in Qatar, to support the last year been invited to festivals and development of the bird conservation conferences from Indonesia to Washington. programme of the Friends of the Environment The Arab media, after initial scepticism, Centre, and to co-ordinate its activities in the has been warmly supportive of the Prize. The Gulf region. Prize focuses the minds of publishers, editors, Conservation organisations from two writers and above all readers – in Arab further countries in the Gulf region, Nature countries, among the Arab diaspora and Iraq and Bahrain Natural History Society, were elsewhere – on the high quality and varied also welcomed to the Partnership during the nature of contemporary Arabic fiction Council meeting.

Peter Clark Yemen Leopard Recovery Program Peter Clark is a Trustee of the International The recovery program was initiated by the Prize for Arabic Fiction YLRP in 2007 to conduct leopard surveys and Dubai International Children’s Book Fair to publicise its plight. Captive leopards are Not to be outdone by Abu Dhabi’s sponsorship mainly from Wada’a in the western highlands, of the International Prize for Arabic Fiction, in having been captured in traditional stone traps November 2008 the Ruler of Dubai, Shaikh or margaba. According to specialists reporting Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum launched in the June issue of Wildlife Middle East, such the first Dubai International Children’s Book traps have been used since ancient times to Fair. The Foundation has also initiated a catch leopards and other predators. mobile library. ABBA Survey 40: Northern Saudi Arabia Exhibition of contemporary Saudi art During February 2009 a survey was made of The first-ever comprehensive exhibition of wintering birds in northern Saudi Arabia by contemporary Saudi Arabian art, Edge of myself and three alternating staff members Arabia, was held at SOAS, London, on 16 Oct from the NCWCD Riyadh (National 2008 – 13 Dec 2008. Commission For Wildlife Conservation And www.soas.ac.uk/gallery/visit Development). The main study area was within about 200 km of the borders with Jordan and WILDLIFE Iraq. The survey covered the whole region from near the Arabian Gulf coast to the Gulf of Qatar joins BirdLife Aqaba, chalking up 8,700 km. In previous Her Highness Shaikha Jawaher Bint Hamad similar surveys of this generally treeless plain, Bin Sahim al-Thani, consort to the Heir thousands of sandgrouse (Pin-tailed Pterocles Apparent of Qatar, has donated $1 million to alchata and Black-bellied P. orientalis) and establish a BirdLife fund to conserve birds and uncommon wintering waders such as Sociable biodiversity, and to promote sustainable use of Plover Chettusia gregaria and Dotterel natural resources through site protection and Charadrius morinellus were encountered. An management across the Middle East. She objective of the survey was to systematically announced the donation in her address at the cover the region so that some numbers could st opening ceremony of BirdLife's 31 Global be put to these wintering species, and thus to Council Meeting, at the Virginia judge how important the region is as a Commonwealth University, Qatar. During the wintering habitat for them. Methods included a Meeting, Qatar’s Friends of Environment series of vehicle transect counts (more than Centre joined the BirdLife Partnership as the 1,500 km of measured off-road counts) as well BirdLife Affiliate in Qatar. Among other work, as early morning timed censuses on foot. the fund will be used to establish hima, a However whilst this region has enjoyed good traditional system with its roots in Islamic law, rains during the 1990s it has suffered under which communities manage natural widespread drought conditions for most of the

11 21st century. Indeed most of this whole region OTHER GENERAL NEWS was showing conditions consistent with prolonged drought and in many areas there was UAE honours Sir Wilfred Thesiger a complete absence of green vegetation. The great explorer traveller, writer and Probably because of these conditions, not a photographer, the late Sir Wilfred Thesiger, single Dotterel or Sociable Plover were seen who died on 24 August 2003, was recently and only a few dozen Pin-tailed Sandgrouse honoured at a series of events in Abu Dhabi were found at one site. The Pin-tailed and Al Ain. Sandgrouse were seen on irrigated farmland At a ceremony in the Emirates Palace and it is possible that many more of the other Hotel on 21 December 2008 Thesiger’s friend species were also wintering on other farms and biographer Alexander Maitland received where they would find green vegetation, such on his behalf a posthumous Abu Dhabi Award, as alfalfa. However the lack of records of the presented by the Crown Prince, HH Shaikh study species in desert regions also suggests Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. Salim bin that many had gone elsewhere this winter. Kabina, who accompanied Thesiger’s two Numbers of other wintering birds were crossings of the Empty Quarter in 1946–48, generally low and not a single wintering also attended the ceremony. A filmed vulture was seen, although Lappet-faced interview with bin Kabina summarising vultures were breeding at one locality. There Thesiger’s achievements was shown to an were however very good numbers of Eastern audience of 300 before the presentation, which Imperial Eagles Aquila heliaca. It is clear this also marked the 60th anniversary of Sir region holds a significant part of the world Wilfred’s first visit to Abu Dhabi in 1948, and population. 500 wintering Black Kites Milvus his first meeting with HH the late Shaikh migrans were roosting at one farm, more than Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan. previously recorded as wintering in this region. The first Emirates Airline International Breeding range extensions were recorded of Festival of Literature, held in Dubai from 26 Desert Finch Rhodospiza obsoleta, Desert February to 1 March 2009, featured a Eagle Owl Bubo ascalaphus and Alpine Swift discussion of Thesiger’s travel writing between Tachymarptis melba among other species. the Gulf publisher Ian Fairservice and Wintering birds included several small flocks Alexander Maitland. On National Day, 2 of Eurasian Linnets Carduelis cannabina (not December 2008, the world’s first permanent recorded in northern Saudi Arabia before) and exhibition of Sir Wilfred Thesiger’s Hen Harriers Circus cyanus relatively photographs was formally opened at Al Jahili numerous at one farm. This area has rather Fort, Al Ain, entitled ‘Mubarak bin London: limited species diversity in winter but the short Wilfred Thesiger and the Freedom of the list included 13 species of raptors, five owls, Desert’; the exhibition was conceived and nine larks (numbers were low of this group and organised by the Abu Dhabi Authority for more species were expected) and seven Culture and Heritage, directed by Dr Sami al- wheatears. Masri. In the words of ADACH’s chairman, The NCWCD sponsored the survey HE Shaikh Sultan bin Tahnoon Al Nahyan, and a full report of the findings is being “this exhibition and catalogue are a celebration prepared for them, which will include full of the life and legacy of an explorer who, more details and analysis of transects counts and than any other, had the spirit of a true Bedu”. censuses and a systematic list. A soft copy of Alexander Maitland this report will be available to those who subscribe to Phoenix and who let me know Exeter sets sail on MARES project they would like a copy. A summary of the A major three-year project to investigate the survey will appear in Phoenix 26 (January maritime past of the Red Sea and the Arabian- 2010). Persian Gulf has been launched at the Institute Mike Jenning of Arab and Islamic Studies (IAIS) of the Atlas of the Breeding Birds of Arabia, and University of Exeter. Editor of Phoenix newsletter [email protected]

12 landscape and seascape indicators in establishing location. It also seeks to gather poetry and song used by seafarers as mnemonic aids in maintaining and transmitting navigational knowledge, and to discover the economic, environmental and cultural factors influencing the choice of route across these seas. The team will also explore the vestiges of the Arab wooden boat-building tradition along the coasts of the Red Sea and the Gulf, visiting Ship under construction, al-Ghurayrah, Yemen remaining boatyards, and recording wooden (Photo: John Cooper) ship remains. The £750,000 MARES Project is a multi- The MARES project is also seeking to disciplinary, multi-period research programme identify candidate areas of the Red Sea and that focuses on the maritime traditions of the Gulf coastline for archaeological survey as peoples inhabiting and travelling on the two case studies, aiming to better understand great seaways flanking the Arabian Peninsula. pivotal points in navigation on these seas. It aims to draw on ethnography, anthropology, Preliminary fieldwork for the MARES archaeology, history and linguistics in a bid to project is scheduled to take place in Yemen understand how people made their lives on and and Djibouti, including Soqotra, in February alongside these seas in late antiquity and the and March 2009. The project is also medieval period, and how they have done so in investigating the possibility of further the recent past. fieldwork in Egypt and Iran in subsequent ‘For centuries, the Islamic lands stood at seasons. the centre of trading and communications Among the activities of the MARES networks that stretched across Africa, Asia and project will be a regular public lecture Europe,’ says Professor Dionisius Agius, who programme at the Institute of Arab and Islamic is leading the MARES Project. ‘Seafaring was Studies (IAIS) of the University of Exeter, as a vital medium in achieving that well as seminars and workshops. The IAIS will communication. The sea brought into contact host a major exhibition on Arab Dhows in people of diverse identities and traditions, September 2010, coinciding with Red Sea V, carrying with them goods, technologies and the latest in a series of biennial conferences on ideas. The Red Sea and the Gulf were essential the Red Sea supported by the Society for corridors in that process.’ Professor Agius has Arabian Studies. Details of MARES events published widely on Islamic seafaring and activities can be found on the MARES traditions. website, projects.exeter.ac.uk/mares Joining Professor Agius on the project are The project is being funded by the Golden two post-doctoral research fellows, Dr Chiara Web Foundation, a registered charity based in Zazzaro and John Cooper, and Ph.D. candidate Cambridge (www.goldenweb.org). It is being Julian Jansen van Rensburg. hosted by the IAIS. Despite a growing awareness of the John Cooper importance of seafaring in facilitating cultural Ancient Egypt’s Red Sea contacts explored connections within the Middle East and MARES postdoctoral research fellow Chiara beyond, the practices, skills and patterns of Zazzaro has recently conducted one month’s seafaring in the region are still poorly fieldwork in the Egyptian Red Sea, including understood. The team aims to investigate an experiment to navigate in the sea on a recent wind-powered seafaring practices reconstruction of an ancient Egyptian seagoing through ethnographic survey of coastal ship, and an archaeological excavation project communities, drawing on the memories of at Mersa and Wadi Gawasis. older people who recall the age of sail. The project to build and navigate the ship The research aims not only to better Min of the Desert was initiated and backed by understand sailing techniques, but also to French TV documentary production company explore the navigational skills of seafarers, Sombrero & Co. The basic lines of the ship including stellar navigation and the use of

13 were designed by maritime archaeologist production and modification of the ship Cheryl Ward, who also coordinated an equipment at the site. international team comprising naval architect The wealth of new information coming Patrick Couser, maritime archaeologist and from Mersa Gawasis and the positive results of shipbuilder Tom Vosmer, and the Egyptian the Min navigation experiment are opening archaeologist Mohamed Abdel Maguid. new lines of enquiry into maritime activity on The event was an exceptional opportunity the Red Sea. to experiment with sailing and navigation Chiara Zazzaro techniques in the Red Sea using a ship constructed using the ancient mortise-and- tenon system of joining planks. The Min sailed downwind, keeping a distance of 5–10 kilometres from the coast and reaching a cruising speed of 5–7 knots in a moderate and fresh north-northeasterly breeze. The crew experimented with raising and lowering the sail, changing course, rowing and dropping anchor. As in ancient times, navigation was Mersa Gawasis from the deck of the ‘Min of the avoided at night because of the widespread Desert’ Photo: Chiara Zazzaro reefs just below the surface. Night stops were Do you have photographs of traditional taken along coral reefs in the middle of the sea Arab ships? or in a marsa (bay). Navigation in the Red Sea The MARES Project, University of Exeter, is a is guided by careful observation of the sea three-year project investigating the seafaring surface and of the coastal landscape, keeping traditions of the Red Sea and Arabian Gulf. We are as references the many ras (headlands) and seeking to gather photographs and images of Arab jabal (mountain reliefs). During the second ships and boats in order to build up an image bank day of navigation, the Min passed the site of and develop a typology of Arab vessels. We appeal Mersa Gawasis, location of the Pharaonic for your assistance by sending any images you have harbour of Sww. A group of crested mountains to our collection. All images would be used for of the Eastern Desert chain rises from the flat non-commercial purposes, and would be fully and slightly hilly coastal desert north of the credited to the image owner. For further information, please contact [email protected] site, creating a very distinctive landscape that may have helped ancient Egyptian to identify Oxford Brookes launches new Arabian the harbour (Figure 1). Heritage consultancy Excavation at Mersa Gawasis was carried Oxford Brookes University has launched a out in 2009 under the direction of Rodolfo commercial consultancy which provides Fattovich of the University of Napoli specialised research and archaeological ‘l’Orientale’ with Boston University. Dr services in Arabian heritage, and in Zazzaro, who since 2003 has conducted a geoarchaeology. The team is led by Dr Robert systematic study of Gawasis stone anchors in Carter and Professor Adrian Parker. The new collaboration with Mohamed Abdel Maguid, organisation is called Oxford Brookes had the opportunity to examine newly Archaeology and Heritage (OBAH) and can be discovered anchors at the site. found at heritage.brookes.ac.uk Three anchor fragments and a Robert Carter concentration of hundreds of limestone fragments probably from an anchor were found NEWS AND RESEARCH BY in a circular ceremonial structure of COUNTRY conglomerate and granite slabs enclosed by a mound of gravel. The limestone fragments BAHRAIN were found arranged in a circle beneath the Waleed M. Al-Sadeqi, Durham University, mound. It is hypothesized that an anchor was reports on archaeological and heritage news intentionally crushed during a foundation ritual from Bahrain for 2008/2009. for the structure. Unfinished holes recorded on Exhibitions and museum-related news one of the anchors, as well as on previously An exhibition highlighting the work of the examined anchors, confirm the activity of French Archaeological Mission to Bahrain was

14 held at a renovated historical house on the (2300-1700 BC) burial mounds in Bahrain island of Muharraq during February 2008. during 2009. Under the title of 30 Years of French Negotiations are underway at the time of Archaeological Excavations in Bahrain, it was writing between the Directorate of Culture and made possible through the efforts of Dr Pierre National Heritage, Kingdom of Bahrain, and a Lombard of the Centre National de la German archaeological expedition as regards Recherche Scientifique, Lyon, and Shaikha excavation on the Islands sometime in 2009. Mai Al Khalifa, then of the Directorate of Archaeological publications related to Culture and National Heritage, Kingdom of Bahrain Bahrain. The Danish Archaeological Expedition has The month of March 2008 saw the opening published a report of four Early Dilmun burial of an exhibition entitled Masks, which sought mounds, two of which were excavated in the to bring together different traditional wear of Wadi Sail region. Under the title of ‘Late third- this sort from various countries. The display millennium elite burials in Bahrain’, published was held at the Bahrain National Museum. in Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy During April 2008 the Bahrain National (2008), an overview is given of the tumuli that Museum hosted an exhibition of several represent a type hitherto unknown; they Ancient Egyptian antiquities under the title of contain a second and larger ring-wall beyond Pharaohs. The exhibition was held at the the standard perimeter of the mounds. museum’s conference theatre where special A study of the social milieu of Early arrangements had been made to house the Dilmun derived from an examination of the collection from Cairo. burial mounds has also been published by The new museum at Qala’at al-Bahrain, Steffen Terp Laursen in Arabian Archaeology the largest archaeological site on the islands, and Epigraphy (2008). was opened to the public on 18 February 2008. A short booklet on the work of the Danish The building’s construction and inauguration Archaeological Expedition in Bahrain and was part of the campaign by Shaikha Mai Al other Gulf countries was published by Khalifa to further the archaeological and Moesgaard Museum, Denmark, in 2008. cultural heritage of Bahrain and was opened A second volume detailing the Tylos under the supervision of Dr Pierre Lombard material record is being prepared for and Dr Monique Kervran, and put together publication in 2009. The volume was written with the aid of Eskild Laursen, the exhibition’s by Søren Fredslund Andersen of Denmark and architect, and the graphic designer, Hanne Mustafa Salman of the Directorate of Culture Kolding. The museum remains open, despite and National Heritage, Kingdom of Bahrain. It some uncertainty about its status since will be a follow-up to The Tylos Period inauguration. Burials in Bahrain (2007), written by Søren Fieldwork in Bahrain Fredslund Andersen and published by the The Directorate of Culture and National Directorate of Culture and National Heritage, Heritage, Kingdom of Bahrain, turned its Kingdom of Bahrain, in association with attention in 2008 to the rescue excavation of Moesgaard Museum, Denmark (reviewed on threatened sites. The teams working at page 48). Janabiya and Shakhoura were headed by Ali Dr Pierre Lombard of the Centre National Ibrahim of the Bahrain National Museum. de la Recherche Scientifique, Lyon, and Excavations at Karranah were supervised by Khalid Al-Sindi of the Directorate of Culture Abbas Ahmad, of the same institution Bahrain. and National Heritage, Kingdom of Bahrain, Additional excavations are currently being are in the process of editing the proceedings of undertaken by the Bahraini Directorate of 2007’s 20 Years of Bahraini Archaeology Culture and National Heritage at Shakhoura. conference. The proceedings are scheduled for Under the direction of Abbas Ahmad, these publication in 2009 or 2010. were begun in February and proceeded into Ongoing work by doctoral students March of 2009. The following PhD students are currently Moesgaard Museum, Denmark, has plans active in Bahraini archaeology: for the further excavation of Early Dilmun Thomas Brandt Fibiger, Aarhus University, has been undertaking

15 anthropological studies focusing on Bahrain. in a state of collapse, due to neglect of the His work continues in 2009. island since the Iraqi invasion. The team will Steffen Terp Laursen, Aarhus University, also conduct subsurface survey using the latest Denmark, has been examining seals and remote sensing techniques, which will inform pottery from the Early Dilmun burials of their excavation plans for the next season. Bahrain. The French Team. The final season on Eric Olijdam, Durham University, has Failaka Island for the French team will be at been examining Dilmun transitional material the end of 2009. Previous seasons focused on from Bahrain. two sites, excavated by 15 archaeologists. The Waleed M. Al-Sadeqi, Durham University, first site is the Hellenistic fort, where the team has been studying the beads from Bahrain’s has been excavating on the northwestern side. burial assemblages in 2008. Many archaeological finds were recovered and Waleed M. Al-Sadeqi await publication. The other site excavated by The contributor thanks Dr Flemming Højlund the French is located in the centre of the island (Moesgard Museum), Dr Pierre Lombard at Al-Qusur (Arabic ‘palaces’), where the team (CNRS), Steffen Terp Laursen (Aarhus discovered an early Christian church amidst a University), and the staff at the Bahrain village of the 8th century AD. National Museum. The Slovak Team. The fifth season for the team started on 15 February 2009 and will end KUWAIT on 30 April 2009. The team consists of the Thanks to Shehab Abdel Hamid Shehab, same 19 members who undertook the fourth Khalid Mahmoud Farhat, Salma Fadel season in 2008, and is working on the same Ghaddar and Lukasz Wojnarowicz for sites on Failaka Island. contributing to the following report Al-Qusur and Al-Khidr sites are the two Kuwait National Museum: Excavations most important locations investigated by the The Kuwait National Museum’s excavation team. At Al-Khidr the excavations revealed season lasts annually from October till April. urban structures as well as numerous finds, Activities are mainly related to excavations in including large storage jars of the second Failaka Island, where many teams from millennium BC, similar to Bronze Age vessels different countries are conducting ongoing in Bahrain during the Early Dilmun period. At excavations. They are listed below by country. Al-Qusur, the team will draw a complete map The Polish Team consists of 8 members. of the excavated settlement and rebuild one of They started their first season at the end of the settlement units, to give an example of how December 2007, while the second lasted from the ancient village looked, based on 27 October 2008 until 3 December 2008. Both archaeological information from the excavated seasons were at As-Sabiyah, in an area known remains of the site. as ‘Rocky Mounds’ (al-Rukamat al-Sakhreya). The GCC Team. A group of archaeologists The team has discovered the remains of burial drawn from all the Arabian Gulf countries (2 mounds which are similar to those examined members from each), is working now in and excavated in Bahrain and eastern Saudi Kuwait and excavating at the As-Sabiyah Arabia since the 1950's. The Polish team ‘Rocky Mounds’ sites, near the Polish team. concentrated on the site survey and study of According to the Museum Director, the nature of these burials, besides site Shehab Abdel Hamid Shehab, two new excavation. A full report of Polish activities is excavation teams are expected to start digging given at the end of the Kuwait section. on Failaka island by the end of 2009 and The Greek Team. The first season ended in beginning of 2010, after long absences from February 2008, and a second season of the island. The first is the Danish team, which excavation on Failaka Island began in will re-excavate a Dilmun temple and palace January/February 2009. The team members where the first Danish excavation took place. (15 specialists) excavated at Tell Said, where a rd The second expected team is Italian, which Hellenistic fort (3 century BC) was will start working from January 2010 at a new discovered by the Danish expedition in the mid site called Al-Qurainiya, on the north coast of 20th century. The main duty of the Greek team Failaka Island. is to restore and preserve the Hellenistic fort, which has many damaged walls, some of them

16 Kuwait National Museum: exhibitions shells were the most common type. As in the Inside the museum complex, the museum first season, one drilled pearl was found. administration arranged for an open exhibition Besides SMQ 30, eight new cairns were called ‘4000 Years of Industrial Products From explored. However, not all of them can be Failaka’. This event was part of the 15th Qurain classified as funerary structures. SMQ 33, Festival, which occurs annually during 35A, 35B, 38 and 45 most probably served as December. The exhibition was extended after graves. They vary in size from about three to the end of the festival to show a collection of eight metres in diameter. Each had a single old and new excavated finds from different chamber, set in the centre. As in the case of sites on Failaka, which reflect the types of SMQ 30, larger stones were organized in two products characteristic of the island. The rings: the first one formed a chamber and the exhibition is still open to for the public. second functioned as a retaining wall. The space between them was filled with small Dar al-Athar al-Islamiyyah (DAI) activities loose stones. Except for SMQ 35A, all of these The cultural season of the DAI is an annual graves were poor in finds and only splinters of programme starting in October and ending in human bones and shell or stone beads were May, combining lectures, exhibitions, found in the filling of their chambers. The excavations and other cultural activities. For number of these beads varied from only a few more information about DAI activities, please to about a dozen per grave. In the chamber of visit the official site: the largest investigated grave, SMQ 35A, an www.darmuseum.org.kw almost complete human skeleton was found, Shehab Abdel Hamid Shehab, Khalid along with the disturbed remains of probably Mahmoud Farhat, & Salma Fadel Ghaddar two more individuals. A single copper/bronze

The second season of Kuwaiti-Polish item along with a rounded stone bead were the excavations in As-Sabiyah, Kuwait only funeral gifts that were recorded. The Joint Kuwaiti-Polish Archaeological All the bones from the first and the second Mission continued its investigations in As- excavation season have been submitted to an Sabiyah (northern Kuwait) from late October anthropological analysis and its results will be to the beginning of December 2008. Like last presented soon. year, our main efforts were focused on the The structures labeled as SMQ 36, 37 and exploration of stone cairns set along the edges 44 were also explored, but their function of natural terraces in the Mugheira Well Area. remains unclear. They were constructed of During this second season all the sites stones, like the others, but had no chamber. localised in close vicinity of the three mounds Perhaps they were some kind of platform used explored in 2007 were investigated. Part of our by nomads to support their tents. No artifacts team was also involved in exploring a large were reported. stone structure in the Mohate area, about three The stone construction exposed within the kilometers to the west of the main area of our Mohate area had a different character. This activities. Again, these investigations were site, labeled as SM 12, is a well. Its elaborate possible thanks to the generous support from construction consisted of a stone shaft, a ring the Kuwaiti Department of Antiquities and made of well-worked stones and the steps Museums. leading from the outer ring to the shaft. The Because of the rich inventory found last surrounding wall is circa 8.5 metres in year in grave SMQ 30, we decided to continue diameter and was set slightly higher than the our work there. The remaining three-quarters top of the well itself. The shaft was shaped as a of its fill were excavated in order to collect all cone, expanding upwards. We were able to the ornaments. After this season the collection explore the shaft to the depth of more than two of shell and stone beads reached 600 pieces, meters. Except for one piece of a ceramic exclusively from this grave. All were scattered vessel and a fragment of an iron blade, no among the stones of the fill. Unfortunately, no artifacts were found. The relatively good state new types were found. The beads were mostly of preservation and the careful masonry work made of flat pieces of shell with one or two lead us to the assumption that this site could be drilled holes. Tubular beads made of dentalium dated to the Islamic Period. Northern Kuwait still remains an insufficiently studied area. Continued

17 fieldwork in As-Sabiyah will be necessary to A German Team carried out restoration of provide more data concerning the burial the Haft-Beehive tombs at Bat in Ibri. customs of its ancient inhabitants. The Ministry of Heritage and Culture is Lukasz Wojnarowicz carrying out restoration of various forts in different areas of Oman. OMAN Nasser al-Jahwari kindly provides the following reports on archaeological activities SOLAS in Oman Stargazing in Oman: Land and Sea Archaeological teams in Oman under the Dionisius Agius (University of Exeter) and supervision of the Ministry of Heritage and Harriet Nash are applying to the AHRC for Culture a research grant to study stargazing in A French Archaeological Team consisting of agricultural, fishing, pastoral and nomadic five people worked in Adam in the ad- communities in Oman. We plan to collect Dakhiliyah region during the period from information on the stars used, identify the November to December 2008. The team stars and explore their significance to these carried out a survey in Adam and its various but interconnected communities. surroundings, and found a group of Hafit rd If you are involved in projects/research in cairns and 3 millennium BC stone buildings. any way related to ours, please contact us An American Archaeological Team has on [email protected], as both our been working in Bat for almost three years. proposal and research should link with During the period of February to March 2009, yours. the team worked in Al-Wahrah area in Bat, where they have cleaned and partly excavated Harriet Nash’s thesis on Water one of the area’s 3rd millennium BC stone Management: the use of stars in Oman can towers. The main aim of this season was be viewed in abstract at: clearing the main walls of the tower and http://hdl.handle.net/10036/51237 identifying the tower interior divisions. Some 3rd millennium BC finds have been found. Archaeological teams in Oman under the A local archaeological team representing supervision of His Majesty Advisor Office the Ministry of Heritage and Culture carried for Cultural Affairs out a survey and excavation in Bandar al-Jasah An Italian Team is carrying out an excavation in December 2008 for three weeks with the at Salut, near Bahla. The first season of work aim of documenting the archaeological started in February-March 2005, and it was remains. Among the recovered remains are an continued during the period from February to Iron Age settlement and tombs as well as an March 2009. The aim of this work is to Islamic cemetery. An excavation was made in excavate a 3rd millennium BC defensive stone the Iron Age tombs and settlement where Iron tower, which is buried underground to a depth Age material was recovered. of almost 3 metres. An Iranian Archaeological Mission has An excavation is being carried out at the been invited to work in Qalhat at Sur on the Iron Age site of Khor Rori in Dhofar by an coast during the period from February to Italian-Russian Team during the period from March. The team is working in association February to March 2009. Among the recovered with a French archaeological team. The Iranian material is an incense burner that might be archaeological team is working on the remains imported from Mesopotamia. at Qalhat in an attempt to understand the An Australian Team is carrying out a relationship with the Iranian coast during the survey in Al-Maghsail at Dhofar during the Hormuzi period. period from May to June 2009. The Joint Ra’s al-Hadd Project is carrying An American Team is carrying out an out excavation at the sites of Ra’s al-Hadd. excavation at Al-Balid in Dhofar during the The Al-Hajar Project under the autumn of 2009. supervision of Jeffery and Jocelyn Orchard is Nasser al-Jahwari carrying out a survey and excavation at Bisya Assistant Professor, Department of and Salut at Bahla from February to March Archaeology, College of Arts and Social 2009. Sciences, Sultan Qaboos University

18 QATAR Al-Ma, also on the north-western coast, and is Frances Gillespie kindly provides the continuing excavating there. Japanese following information on activities in Qatar archaeologists from Rikkyo University in This winter, no fewer than five teams of Tokyo excavated at this site in 1988, and again archaeologists from overseas worked in Qatar in 1990–1 and 1994. The burial mounds in collaboration with the staff of the contained the remains of bodies which were Department of Antiquities, directed by Faisal placed in a bent, sitting position in pits within al-Noaimi, which comes under the umbrella of the mounds, which were then covered with the Qatar Museums Authority (QMA). Their capstones. Accompanying the burials were work will contribute to the increased grave goods, which included beads, bowls of understanding and appreciation of the long and bronze and copper and useful everyday objects fascinating history of this country. such as grinding stones. QMA is collaborating with the University Returning to Qatar for a further season of of Birmingham in the UK to study the excavation at Murwab is Dr Alexandrine country’s ancient landscape using GIS Guerin and her team from Lyon in France. Murwab is an early Islamic city dating to the technology (Geographic Information System). th th The Senior Project Manager, Mr Richard Abbasid period of the 8 –9 centuries, known Cuttler, and his colleagues from the UK have as the Golden Age of trade and expansion, and been working in Qatar since October 2008, is situated a few kilometres inland close to Zubara. Dr Guerin spent three seasons, from carrying out a project which will gather and th combine a range of geological, archaeological 2003–2005, excavating the early 19 -century and remotely sensed satellite imagery data, fort and surrounding settlement at Bir Zekrit including data from the offshore sea bed. The on the Abruq peninsula, before moving to project partly aims to uncover evidence for Murwab. The site contains around 250 houses, ancient landscapes now submerged beneath the of which only a few have been excavated, and Gulf. Some of the data is already available is home to Qatar’s oldest forts, dating to the from studies done for oil exploration and Abbasid period, and also the peninsula’s seismic research, but there is much to be done earliest mosques. It was a well-to-do towards the thorough documentation of settlement, as is testified by the fragments of archaeological sites. fine Abbasid glassware and ceramics which A small team from the University of litter the site. Murwab poses many questions, Copenhagen will excavate the site of the old one of which is why such an obviously trading and pearling city of Zubara on the important trading centre is not mentioned in northwestern coast of Qatar. It was established any contemporary literature. by the mid-18th century and since then has had The Danish expedition excavated there in a turbulent history, being attacked and burned 1958–9, uncovering a dozen houses, a mosque down several times until it was eventually and the two forts. A British expedition abandoned in the 1930s. followed in 1972, and from the late 1970s The city sprawls over an area of around 11 onwards the French Archaeological Mission hectares, and the houses along its once busy carried out a survey and excavations. Dr streets have crumbled into mounds of sandy Guerin spent two seasons, in 2005-7, rubble, strewn with bright fragments of glazed surveying and excavating at Murwab, and now Chinese porcelain and humbler local-made returns to uncover yet more of what remains of earthenware. Excavation by archaeologists this enigmatic and mysterious settlement in from the Department of Antiquities took place what is now one of the loneliest and least in the 1980s, exposing two large areas of inhabited places on the peninsula. housing, a beach-side market and sections of Finally, a newcomer to Qatar, Dr Andrew the wall which encircled the town. Between Petersen, who is Director of Islamic Research 2002 and 2004 Iraqi archaeologist Dr Munir Archaeology at the University of Wales, based Taha from the Department directed in Lampeter, will begin work on the vast excavations of what proved to be a semi- fortress and associated settlement adjacent to industrial area, with hearths and crucibles. the shore at Ruwayda on the north-west tip of A team from the University of Tübingen in the peninsula. Dr Petersen has previously Germany has been working on a burial cairn worked in the UAE. field dating to the Iron Age, situated at Umm

19 Although a major and imposing site, representatives from local departments in each Ruwayda has never previously been excavated. emirate as well as nominated experts. The fortified area consists of three large While the archaeology departments in each courtyards of different sizes, apparently emirate will continue to handle their own representing the development of the fortress surveys and excavations, the new Council will over the years, with smaller courtyards being act as a supervisory body to ensure that work is added to the original large one. Outside the fort carried out in accordance with international the remains of buildings take the form of low standards. The Council will also provide mounds stretching away from the fortress and financial support for some excavation work. parallel to the beach, to a distance of as much Another focus of the Council's attention will as 2.5km. Surface pottery is mainly 18th be on efforts to recover artefacts which have century, although the British expedition in been stolen or excavated illegally and have 1972–3 identified some which potentially dates been smuggled out of the country, according to to the 10th century. the Minister, Abdul Rahman Mohammed Al On Dr Petersen’s initial visit to the site he Owais. noted the presence of Indian pottery of the ‘We need to get back the lost historic 11th century, confirming that this is a very artefacts, and also need to do a general survey early Islamic site. Even without excavation, to document all the findings, provide technical the range of material visible on the surface support for some emirates that need help and indicates wide-ranging trade networks with undertake more excavation at some sites,’ he East Africa, India and China. said. ‘Unfortunately many artefacts were Frances Gillespie stolen and smuggled outside the country and were sold in international auctions; the Council Qatar’s Museum of Islamic Art was opened is expected to re-open those cases and prevent on 22 November before an assembly of over the smuggling,’ he said. 1,000 dignitaries. The building is at least as Peter Hellyer remarkable as its contents. Designed by the Chinese-born architect I.M. Pei, creator of Abu Dhabi such landmarks as the Louvre Pyramid, the The following information was largely derived Bank of China tower in Hong Kong and the from the ADACH website (Abu Dhabi East Building of the National Gallery of Art in Authority for Culture and Heritage) Washington, the simple, stone-faced Doha Al-Ain’s bid for World Heritage status structure is situated on an artificial island Al Ain is now on the tentative list of World facing the capital’s cornice. Inside coffered Heritage Sites of UNESCO. The move, which ceilings and geometric forms reflect Islamic is a preliminary step for Al Ain to make it to architectural heritage, a relatively sober the official list, capitalises on the particular environment for the display of the fine cultural wealth of the city. collection of artefacts acquired by the ruling family since the 1990s. These include Hafit Cemetery Survey ceramics, jewellery, woodwork, textiles, glass, In its annual programme of surveying and and Qur’ans. protecting archaeological sites, the Department Other museums will be devoted to of Archaeology conducted an intensive two- orientalist paintings, photography and week survey of the ancient cemeteries around costume. Jebel Hafit (Early Bronze Age). The intention was to update the information on the tombs UNITED ARAB EMIRATES and benefit from modern maps, aerial General UAE news photographs and GPS recording. 122 tombs UAE to establish Antiquities body were recorded in detail. A new federal Council for Tourism and The archaeological sites in the area of Antiquities is to be set up in the United Arab Jebel Hafit are considered among the most Emirates, it was announced in mid-February important elements in ADACH’s bid to add the 2009. Covering the whole of the seven- city of Al Ain to the list of World Heritage member federation, the Council will be headed sites. by the Minister of Culture, Youth and Community Development and will include

20 Jahili Fort Restoration ADACH to reconstruct the past environment The restored Jahili Fort was inaugurated in the of the area. city of Al Ain in Abu Dhabi on 3 December Fujairah 2008, under the patronage of Shaikh A rescue survey and test excavations were Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown carried out in Wadi Madab, just outside Prince of Abu Dhabi, on the occasion of the Fujairah City, in March 2008. The team celebrations of the United Arab Emirates included Peter Hellyer, Simon Aspinall, Robert thirty-seventh National Day. Shaikh Sultan bin Carter, Alex Wasse and Matt Jones. The field Tahnoon Al Nahyan, Chairman of ADACH, team was led by Dr Carter (Oxford Brookes said that the Jahili Fort dates back to 1898 and University). The area is due to be developed is one of the most important historical into a golf course and housing complex, and monuments in the city of Al Ain, as well as the fieldwork was commissioned and funded being the town’s largest fortification. by the developer, ICG, Dubai. The work was Baynunah Miocene Survey carried out following approval from HH The A team from the Yale Peabody Museum of Ruler of Fujairah, and received invaluable Natural History at Yale University in the support in kind from the Ruler’s Diwan, and U.S.A. arrived in Abu Dhabi in mid-December from the Fujairah Department of Heritage and 2008 to continue their collaboration with the Antiquities. Numerous small chambered Historic Environment Department from the features were recorded and excavated, as well Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage, as several large buildings, rock art, an Islamic ADACH. The joint ADACH-Yale project settlement dating to before the Portuguese concerns the investigation of the Baynunah period, and pre-Islamic settlement remains. Formation, a set of geological deposits rich in The wadi appears to have an extensive Iron fossils which is exposed in Abu Dhabi’s Age occupation, with further significant Western Region. The team, led by Professor settlement during two phases of the Islamic Andrew Hill and Faysal Bibi from Yale Period. A full report is being finalised. University, worked in Abu Dhabi for one Robert Carter month in January, surveying and mapping fossil sites. These sites date back to around 6–8 Ras al-Khaimah million years ago (the late Miocene epoch). Thanks to Christian Velde for providing this During that time Abu Dhabi was greener than report today, with rivers flowing through it teeming Research work carried out during 2008 by the with hippos, crocodiles, turtles and fish. The Department of Antiquities and Museums, Ras al-Khaimah, United Arab Emirates team has so far carried out surveys and excavations at Jaw al-Dibsa, Hamra and Continuation of Ma‘arid Survey Shuwaihat. The highlights of this field season The survey of traditional pre-1950s houses in so far have been the discovery and excavation the coastal village of Ma‘arid opposite Ras al- of a well-preserved elephant jaw from Jaw al- Khaimah Old Town (see report in last year’s Dibsa, as well as a pair of jaws from a Bulletin) was continued. An inventory of primitive horse (known as a ‘hipparion’) and a buildings was prepared for the Planning crocodile skeleton from Hamra. Department of the Municipality of Ras al- Khaimah. Baynunah Camel Site A team of archaeologists from ADACH began 3D Animation investigations at a recently discovered site in Mrs Rebecca Kohlhauer, a geography student the western region of Abu Dhabi, which from the University of Heidelberg in Germany, contains the skeletons of at least 40 ancient joined the Department’s office for six weeks in wild camels. According to Mark Beech, of order to work on her MA. She set up a ADACH, these ‘represent the largest sample of computerized 3D reconstruction of Ras al- ancient wild camel bones so far discovered in Khaimah Old Town with the assistance and Arabia’. Bones have already been scientifically documentation of the Department of dated to ca. 6000 years ago, and a team of Antiquities and Museums, aiming to recreate a geoarchaeological specialists from Oxford model of the city before modernization took Brookes University, consisting of Adrian place, using old photographs, maps of the Parker and Ash Parton, is collaborating with fifties and preserved traditional buildings. Her

21 work resulted in an animated ‘fly over’ and and supplemented by further shrubs and plants. ‘walk through’, which will be of use for future This small garden not only enhances the exhibitions in the National Museum of Ras al- atmosphere, giving back some original Khaimah. features, but will also visually shield the place from the main road and give some protection Survey at Jazirat al-Hamra against traffic noise. The newly created Mr Gøran Johansen, an architecture student teahouse matches the traditional architectural from Bergen University in Norway, started a style, and will enable future visitors to sit survey of traditional houses in Old Town outside in a shaded area after having toured the Jazirat al-Hamra for his MA degree. Jazirat al- tower, and to enjoy the view of the tower and Hamra is the last authentic and traditional town the palm garden next to it. still standing in the United Arab Emirates. Once a small island, its inhabitants subsisted Restoration of the National Museum on maritime and pearl trading before they Restoration work in the old fort of Ras al- abandoned their houses in the middle of the Khaimah (see Bulletin 2006 and 2007), which 20th century, when the rush to modernise houses the National Museum, was continued. started. Mr Johansen divided the village into All traditional walls inside the fort were built five zones, according to its set-up, which in a sophisticated layer technique, in order to clearly shows divisions, marking various slow their erosion by water and salt seeping up clusters. The entire village will be from the ground. Originally every single layer documented, identifying and marking all of wall, built of wadi stones, coral stones, or a houses, showing an undisturbed picture of life combination of both, was coated on all sides before the discovery of oil. Jazirat al-Hamra with plaster, before the next layer was built on shows all elements of a traditional town, top. From outside, this technique can be including a fortress for defence purposes, a identified by horizontal lines which are formed small market, several mosques and a variety of by the building process, giving the walls an house types. These range from simple interesting and significant design. When buildings to ornate houses with courtyards, restoring their outside surface, the Department which belonged to rich pearl merchants. It is was faced with the challenge of redoing these one of the best places to study traditional lines without destroying and rebuilding them. coral-stone architecture, used along the coast Together with our masons a solution was of the Arabian Gulf in the past. developed, which imitates these original building lines. The new plaster is applied in horizontal stripes, following the outlines of each original building layer und thus copying the original appearance. After the removal of modern plaster and paint, the so called ‘Qawasim Room’ turned out to be in parts older than originally assumed. The older walls belong to a former public majlis, which was erected above the fort’s entrance. A veranda originally ran in front of it towards the fort’s courtyard. It was eventually changed and enlarged into one big Hudaibah tower and the teahouse in the hall, serving as an exhibition room for the background history of the ruling Qawasim family.

Hudaibah Tower Visiting Scholars This fortified Shaikh’s residence is currently Akemi Horii, an MA student of Islamic Art being developed into a visitor complex (see and Archaeology from Oxford (UK) studied report in last year’s Bulletin). Following its the Chinese Blue and White porcelain from the original siting in the fertile palm gardens of medieval trading town of Julfar. This material Nakheel, which had to make space in recent was excavated by John Hansman in 1976 and times for modern housing, a small palm garden during the British Julfar Excavations in the has now been planted. It is situated between 1990s. the restored tower and a newly built teahouse

22 Olivier Brunet, a PhD archaeology student responsible for collection documentation, from Paris University (France) continued to access and care. We also welcomed two new study the carnelian beads from the 2nd and 3rd guides, an education officer and an events millennium BC tombs in Ras al-Khaimah (see coordinator. Enquiries for any member of staff last year’s Bulletin). He was able to finish the can be made through vast collection of beads and found that most [email protected] probably the beads of the Middle Bronze Age Exhibition (2000–1600 BC) were produced locally, in On the occasion of International Museums Day contrast to the 3rd millennium BC beads, which 2008 the Museum opened an exhibition titled are mainly imports. During his study he was STOP! History is not for Sale highlighting the able to visit Jebel Ma’taradth south of Ras al- problem of illicit trade in antiquities and Khaimah, which is a local source of carnelian. advertising the measures that Sharjah is taking Beatrice de Cardi worked on the material to put an end to the practice. On the evening of from the French excavations in Julfar, a the official opening, a panel discussion was collection of highly elaborate Iranian pottery, open to the public and led by Dr Hamed bin as well as Chinese porcelain and other South- Seray from U.A.E. University, Dr Sabah East Asian wares. They had been excavated in Jasim, Director of the Antiquities Department the area of the fort, showing clearly the higher of Sharjah, and Mr Mohammed Al-Raeesi social status of its inhabitants. In the future from Sharjah Customs Department. Each these finds will be part of the new Julfar panel member outlined his role in putting a exhibition in the restored National Museum. stop to the illicit sale and trade in antiquities. Dr Adrian Parker and Dr Helen Walkington from Oxford Brookes University Object loan (UK) did a survey in Wadi Haqil, searching for The Museum loaned 22 artefacts for the 2nd flint sources. Afterwards both organized and GCC Archaeology Exhibition, this year held in led a one-week excursion of geography Riyadh. students from Brookes University, Research concentrating on the palm oasis of Dhayah. Through the generosity of His Highness Prof. Valeria Piacentini from Milan Shaikh Dr Sultan bin Mohammed Al-Qasimi, University (Italy) discussed a planned the Museum was able to offer one Research publication of her work for the Centre for Internship for a foreign student in 2008. The Documentation and Research in Abu Dhabi, successful candidate was Olivier Brunet. He which evaluates all Italian sources on the th th studied more than 5000 beads in the collection Arabian Gulf during the 15 –17 centuries over three months. The results will be provided AD. It will include a joint chapter by herself to the Museum in a report and will contribute and Resident Archaeologist Christian Velde on to his doctoral research. The museum intends the history, geography and archaeology of to offer similar internships in the future. Julfar, the famous trading town of Ras al- Emma Thompson Khaimah, which dominated the western shore of the Arabian Gulf during this period. SAUDI ARABIA Christian Velde Many thanks to Clare Reeler for compiling the

Sharjah following reports, and to all her informants. Emma Thompson kindly provided this report In 2008 the Deputy Ministry of Antiquities and In 2008, Sharjah Archaeology Museum Museums in Saudi Arabia moved from the expanded their team and continued to care for Ministry of Education and became and display the archaeological finds of incorporated into the Saudi Commission for Sharjah. The collection also continues to grow Tourism and Antiquities. Prof Ali Ghabban is through the fruitful work of Dr Sabah Jasim, the Vice President of Antiquities and Eissa Abbas and the Directorate of Antiquities. Museums. The Antiquities Department Mr Nasser bin Hashim is now the Curator of continued its own program of local fieldwork, the Museum. excavation and archaeological survey throughout the Kingdom. It also hosted three New staff foreign archaeological missions: a joint Saudi- The Museum welcomed an Archaeological German team, excavating at Tayma; a joint Finds Supervisor and Assistant to be Saudi-British team working in the Farasan

23 islands; and a joint Saudi-French team Abdullah Al-Zahrani and Nabiel Al-Shaykh, excavating at Madain Salih. The formal Supreme Commission for Tourism and inclusion of Madain Salih as a World Heritage Antiquities, and Abdar Razzack Al-M'Mary, Site during 2008 was a highlight for the Saudi University of San'aa. Commission for Tourism and Antiquities. Geoff Bailey Madain Salih is the first site in Saudi Arabia to Madain Salih be listed as a World Heritage Site and it is The Madain Salih Archaeological Project hoped that this will boost the country's undertook its second field season in February international profile and act as a drawcard for 2009. This project was sponsored mainly by foreign tourists, who are being allowed into the the French Ministry for Foreign Affairs, the country in increasing numbers. Much Supreme Commission for Tourism in Riyadh archaeological work is being planned in Saudi and the CNRS, as well as by several private Arabia for 2009, which should prove to be a sponsors and donors (Total, Veolia, Del Duca very busy year for fieldwork and research Foundation being the main ones). It aims at within the country, and the participation of large-scale excavations at the ancient site of foreign researchers in collaboration with local Hegra, one of the major Nabataean sites, experts is expected to grow. located at the southern limit of the Nabataean Clare Reeler kingdom, which was integrated into the Roman Farasan Islands province of Arabia in AD 106. Geoff Bailey from the Department of Several areas were chosen for excavation: Archaeology, University of York, spent in the residential part of the site, which lies in another season of fieldwork in the Farasan the middle of the plain and which is Islands in March 2008 as part of an ongoing surrounded by a city wall built in mudbrick; in joint Saudi-UK project with Abdullah Al- the Jabal Ithlib, north-east of the site, where Sharekh of the College of Tourism and most of the sanctuaries are located; in the Archaeology, King Saud University Riyadh. monumental rock-cut tombs, one of which, Work comprised further survey of the Islands’ IGN 117, was excavated systematically with impressive series of prehistoric shell mounds, the help of an anthropologist; and finally, in excavation of selected shell mounds, and more the tumuli area, south-west of the site, where a wide-ranging survey of the hinterland for tower-tomb was uncovered, the date of which traces of Palaeolithic occupation dating from will be determined by C14 analysis of bone the period of lowered sea levels when the samples. In the residential area, the Islands were connected to the mainland. Work excavations have brought to light elements of a also included diving in depths down to -20m to possible early mudbrick rampart of the 1st continue exploration of the now submerged century BC, as well as domestic structures landscape and associated archaeology, formed which belong to both the Nabataean and when sea levels were lower than the present. Roman periods, down to the interval between Survey of the shell mounds has produced more the 4th and 6th century AD. The walls usually detailed information about the location and have a stone base and a mudbrick super- distribution of the sites in relation to recent structure. Soundings along the city wall have changes in shoreline palaeoenvironments, shown that it was built in the 1st century AD. while excavation has generated a large sample The Nabataean tombs have yielded a large of shell material for dating and other amount of archaeological material, among laboratory analyses and evidence of fish bone which textiles and leather shrouds. Finally, it material. Underwater survey has identified a should be noted that restoration and number of underwater areas with evidence of presentation to the public of former palaeoshoreline features and promising excavations are among the objectives of the possibilities for the discovery of associated project and are being undertaken using archaeological material. Other participants in traditional building methods. the work were Anthony Sinclair, University of L. Nehmé, D. al-Talhi, F. Villeneuve Liverpool, Garry Momber, Hants and Wight Tayma Trust for Maritime Archaeology, Lawrence Excavations at the oasis of Tayma continued in Morean and Matthew Williams, University of 2008 based on a co-operation between the York, Saud Al-Ghamdi, University of Durham, Supreme Commission for Tourism and

24 Antiquities, Riyadh, and the Oriental Remains of an Ancient Arabian Department of the German Archaeological From Arab News, Jiddah, 5 March 2008 Institute, Berlin (www.dainst.org). Studies on human remains discovered at Um Altogether six periods of occupation have Jarsan cave in Khaibar, north of Madinah, have been identified so far at Tayma, ranging from established that some of bones are 6,440 years the to the modern period. old, according to a report carried by Al-Watan Excavations in the centre of the ancient Arabic daily. Um-Jarsan is one of the largest settlement uncovered a temple and surrounding caves in the Arab world with a length of 1,500 domestic quarters of Occupational Period 3, meters. i.e. from the mid-1st millennium BC to the An expert team from the Saudi Geological post-Nabataean periods. A tunnel leading Survey (SGS) found human skulls and bones to/from the temple, more than 14 m long, has of animals and engravings that date back been discovered most recently. One of its thousands of years. SGS President Zuhair covering slabs bears an Aramaic inscription of Nawab said his organisation sent samples to a a Babylonian name but this slab may have leading science and technology university in been re-used. Poland to determine their age. ‘The results An early Iron Age complex (Occupational showed that some findings were 2,300 years Period 4, ca. 12th to 9th ca. BC) delimited by a old. Some of the human skulls found at the substantial enclosure lies between the outer cave were 2,150 years old while others were and inner walls. A small rectangular building 5,400 years old,’ he said, adding that the oldest surrounded by a row of pillars contained skull found at the cave was estimated to be painted pottery similar to the so-called 6,440 years old. The team had also found Qurayyah painted ware, objects of organic remains of wild antelope; an expert at the materials as well as a number of Egyptian or Polish university said they were 4,285 years Egyptianising artefacts. The building or parts old. Nawab said the studies were part of a of it were destroyed by fire. major project that began in 1999 to survey the Sand deposits at the outer city wall have Kingdom’s many caves. been analysed by optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) and suggest a late YEMEN 3rd/early 2nd millennium BC construction date Antiquities Smuggling of the wall (Occupational Period 5). Therefore, Extracts from an article by Fares Anam, in the there may have been a large and important Yemen Observer, 14 June, 2008 settlement at the oasis of Tayma already at this The Yemeni authorities have been working time. hard to eliminate the smuggling of antiquities. In addition to the early Islamic cluster of Sana'a Interpol sent briefings to International occupation (Occupational Period 2) in the Interpol on sets of Yemeni antiquities that had north-western part of the site, a larger complex recently been smuggled outside the country, of this period further north has been said Dr Abdul-Qader Qahtan, the manager of investigated. Furthermore, two buildings from Sana'a Interpol. He had received several the early Islamic period have been the object messages recently from concerned bodies such of conservation measures. as the General Organisation of Antiquities and Associated projects at Tayma deal with Museums (GOAM), and the Tourism and hydrology, geoarchaeology, investigations into Culture Ministries, which asked him to the city wall system and mineralogical/ circulate information on items stolen from Al- petrographic research. Awon museum. Qahtan reported his actions at The work has been funded mainly by the the symposium The Protection of Yemen's German Research Foundation (DFG), Bonn. Archaeology and the Preservation of its Accommodation and equipment has been Civilized Heritage organized by the Progress offered by the Tayma Museum of Archaeology and Advancement Forum. and Ethnography. At the same symposium, the Customs Arnulf Hausleiter Authority presented a paper on its role in protecting and preserving Yemeni cultural heritage, and in anti-smuggling operations. A copy of a customs record was presented on the arrest of a French national found with a group

25 of antiquities at Sana'a airport. The court found Dinosaurs in Yemen him innocent because, according to the report Scientists have discovered the tracks of a herd made by Archaeology Department of Sana'a of eleven long-necked sauropods, the first University, the antiquities were counterfeit. discovery of dinosaur footprints in the Arabian About 51 ancient pieces were seized during the Peninsula, according to a Reuters report. The first half of 2007 in Sana'a Airport with 19 footprints, found some fifty miles north of different nationalities attempting to smuggle Sana’a date from around 150 million years antiquities outside the country. ago. Sauropods were the largest land mammals in earth’s history; they walked on four stout legs and were herbivorous. AWARDS AND PRIZES

Two of the Committee members of the SAS The Panel were impressed by the high quality were awarded with prizes for books: of the 62 nominations received and decided to commend very highly the following candidates Professor Dionisius Agius received the Keith for their notable contributions: Matthews Prize with honourable mention for his Classic Ships of Islam: from Mesopotamia  Reem Kelani, Diaspora Palestinian singer, to the Indian Ocean (Leiden: E.J. BRILL musician and broadcaster. 2008).  Margaret Obank, Co-founder, publisher and editor of Banipal magazine; Dr Shelagh Weir was joint winner of the founder/publisher of Banipal Books; and British-Kuwait Friendship Society Book Secretary of the Banipal Trust for Arab Prize for academic books on the Middle East, Literature. administered by BRISMES, for A Tribal  Maysoon Pachachi, Documentary film- Order: Politics and Law in the Mountains of maker, who has worked for many years as a Yemen (British Museum Press, 2007). documentary and fiction film editor in the Dr Hatoon al Fassi, received the Chevalier UK. dans l’Ordre des Palmes Academiques by  Dr Venetia Porter, Curator of the collection the French government for her book Women in of Middle Eastern art at the British Pre-Islamic Arabia: Nabataea (BAR, 2007). Museum.

Arab-British Culture and Society Award: Rawabi Holding Awards The Winners The 2009 awards, for making a significant Thefirst Arab-British Culture and Society prize contribution to Saudi-British cultural relations, of £5,000 was awarded to Al Saqi Bookshop were presented to Mr Michael Rice and Mr and Publishers, in recognition of their William Facey. immense contribution over more than 20 years to our knowledge and understanding of the life, society and culture of the Arab people. AVAILABLE GRANTS AND PRIZES

Arab-British Culture and Society opportunities to promote his or her work more Award 2009 widely. The Arab-British Centre (ABC) awards an Details of last year’s winners are given in annual prize of £5,000. The prize, which is the section above. The shortlist of this year’s open to candidates of any nationality and applicants will be published in April 2009, working in any field, recognises and celebrates followed by the announcement of the winner those who have made an outstanding and presentation of the award by Sir Marrack contribution to the British public’s Goulding at a ceremony shortly thereafter. understanding of the life, society and culture of www.arabbritishcentre.org.uk the Arab people. In addition to the £5,000 prize, the ABC provides the winner with

26 Barakat Trust Undergraduate Bursaries. BIPS offers a The Trust awards a number of scholarships and limited number of bursaries in 2009–10 to grants to students of Islamic art and encourage visits by undergraduates to Iran. archaeology including conservation and post- The deadline is 1 May 2009. doctoral fellowships. Grants have covered All applicants for grants must be members conservation programmes; documentation of of the British Institute of Persian Studies. archives; events; exhibitions and museums; Membership forms are available to download lectures; colloquia and conferences; from www.bips.ac.uk/join/join-us. Please send scholarships towards a Master of Studies grant application and membership forms to course in Islamic and Architecture The Secretary, BIPS, The British Academy, 10 at the University of Oxford; scholarships and Carlton House Terrace, London SW1Y 5AH. grants for post-graduate and post-doctoral Application forms can be obtained from study and research fellowships; travel and field www.bips.ac.uk/story/awards-grants-2009-10 trips; archaeological projects; and prizes to Email [email protected] students at accredited schools and universities. British Institute for the Study of Iraq The Barakat Trust does not support the applied BISI Research Grants. Applications are arts. welcomed twice a year to support research or The Salahuddin Y. H. Abduljawad conferences on Iraq and neighbouring Award is also administered by the Barakat countries not covered by other BASIS- Trust and offers grants up to £10,000 to a sponsored institutions, in any field of the Muslim scholar doing a postgraduate degree humanities or social sciences, concerned with in the field of Islamic Art History at a British any time period from prehistory to the present university. day. Awards will normally fall within a limit Contact the Barakat Trust, The Oriental of £4000, though more substantial awards may Institute, Pusey Lane, Oxford, OX1 2LE. be made. [email protected]; further The Institute welcomes funding information on the grants at applications for pilot projects, especially on the www.barakat.org/grants.php theme of Exile and Return. Funding of up to British Academy £8000 is available for one such project a year. The Academy offers a number of academic, The Institute offers assistance to the award- research and travel fellowships and other holder in drafting a full research proposal to grants. For full details visit the British submit jointly to other funding bodies. Academy website. Applicants must be residents of the UK or, www.britac.ac.uk/funding/guide exceptionally, other individuals whose academic research closely coincides with that British Institute of Persian Studies of the BISI. Two academic references are BIPS welcomes applications from scholars required. All applications and references must wishing to pursue research in Persian Studies. be received by 31 January and 31 October. Further information is at www.bips.ac.uk BISI Development Grants. Grants are Research Programmes. Most of BIPS’ available to support development events and research income is set aside for collaborative projects, such as lectures, study days, and research programmes. BIPS is currently popular publications that relate to Iraq and seeking to attract applications from scholars in neighbouring countries and to the areas of three ‘umbrella’ programmes: Socio-Economic interest covered by BISI. A Development Transformations in the Later Prehistory of Grant application should normally be for an Iran; Kingship in Persian Cultural History; amount up to £500.. Conditions are as above, Modern Iran: National Identities – History, but deadlines are 15 April and 15 October. Myth and Literature. Please see the website for full details and Individual Grants. A small part of BIPS’ conditions of BISI’s grants: research budget is set aside to support the www.britac.ac.uk/institutes/iraq/grants.htm research of individual students and scholars or contact the administrator: [email protected] rather than programmes. Grants are awarded mainly to cover travel and research within Iran.

27 British Society for Middle Eastern Committee by 30 April each year. The Studies (BRISMES) winner’s essay will be published in the BRISMES administers several scholarships Society’s Journal. The winner will receive and prizes each year: £250, and a year’s free membership of the MA Scholarship. BRISMES offers an Society, and the runner-up will receive £150 annual Master's scholarship for taught Master's and a year’s free membership. study at a UK institution. The Master's Any questions should be addressed to the programme can be in any discipline but should Honorary Secretary, The British-Yemeni include a majority component specifically Society, 2 Lisgar Terrace, London W14 8SJ 1. relating to the Middle East. Preference will be Email [email protected] or see the given to candidates resident in the European website: www.al-bab.com/bys

Union, and to institutions who are members of Centre for the Advanced Study of the BRISMES. Arab World Research Student Awards. For research CASAW, a Language-based Area Studies students based in the UK working on a Middle Initiative funded by the AHRC, ESRC, Eastern studies topic. The annually available HEFCE and SFC, offers funding for ceiling of £1,000 will either be given as a postgraduate studentships and postdoctoral single award or divided (max. three). fellowships at the Universities of Edinburgh, Abdullah Al-Mubarak Al-Sabah Durham and Manchester. Foundation BRISMES Scholarships. The Studentships. These studentships cover purpose of the scholarships is to encourage tuition fees in addition to an annual stipend. more people to pursue postgraduate studies in Eligibility requirements for postgraduate disciplines related to the Middle East in British awards can be found on the ESRC website: universities. The scholarships will be for one www.esrc.ac.uk/ESRCInfoCentre/opportunitie academic year. The value of each scholarship s/postgraduate/fundingopportunities will be £2,000. Two scholarships will be awarded. Council for British Research in the For full details, deadlines and conditions of Levant (CBRL) all the above see the website CBRL currently offers Research Awards (up to www.brismes.ac.uk/scholarships07.htm or £10,000), Travel Grants, Conference Funding, email [email protected] Pilot Study/Pump-priming, Visiting Research BRISMES administers the British-Kuwait Fellowships and Project Affiliation for Friendship Society Book Prize in Middle research that comes under the following Eastern Studies, which is also funded by an themes: the spread of early through the endowment from the Abdullah Al-Mubarak Near East from Africa; the origins, Al-Sabah Charitable Foundation. In each of the development and practice of economic and years since the prize commenced, it has social strategies in the Middle East from attracted around 30 nominations from some 15 earliest times to the modern day; the publishers and the overall standard of entries development and workings of complex has been extremely high. The prize is awarded societies and their products; long-term for the best scholarly work on the Middle East landscape and settlement studies; the each year. relationship between people, past and present, The deadline for entries for this year's prize and their built and natural environment; was 10th February 2009. Application forms and synthetic studies of key historical periods; the further information can be found at interface between East and West; the www.dur.ac.uk/brismes/book_prize.htm investigation of multiple identities in the Middle East; the diachronic and synchronic British-Yemeni Society Annual Essay study of the use of language, music and the Competition written record in Middle Eastern society. Submissions are invited from anyone carrying Further details, application forms and out research in or on Yemen. Essays may be conditions of the grant schemes are available on any subject or field related to Yemen and from the UK Secretary, CBRL, British should be about 1,500 to 1,600 words, and may Academy, 10 Carlton House Terrace, London, be written in English or Arabic. Submissions SW1Y 5AH, or see: are to reach the Hon. Secretary to the

28 www.cbrl.org.uk/funding_opportunities.shtm. Grants for Yemeni Studies. Each year the Queries regarding the next deadlines should be Leigh Douglas Memorial Fund offers two or addressed to [email protected] three small grants (in the region of £300) to

Gerald Avery Wainwright Fund for assist scholars of any nationality whose research involves the study of Yemeni history, Near Eastern Archaeology culture, economics, politics or society. The Fund aims to encourage the study of non- Applications should include a brief curriculum classical archaeology and the general history vitae, an outline of the relevant research of the countries of the Middle East. It holds an project and a letter of reference. There are two annual Schools Essay Prize, awards Research annual deadlines for applications: 1 November Grants to mature scholars and also sponsors a and 1 May. Further enquiries and applications post-doctoral Fellowship. should be sent by post to Dr Venetia Porter, Research Grant deadlines are on 1 May Department of the Middle East, The British and 1 December. Visit the website for Museum, Great Russell Street, London, WC1B application forms and guidelines: 3DG, United Kingdom. www.krc.ox.ac.uk/gawainwright.htm Email [email protected] For further information contact: The For further information on Leigh Douglas Gerald Avery Wainwright Near Eastern and the Fund’s work see www.al- Archaeological Fund, Khalili Research Centre, bab.com/bys/articles/douglas06.htm. University of Oxford, 3 St. John Street, Oxford OX1 2LG. Tel: 01865 278222. Email: MBI Al Jaber Foundation [email protected] The Foundation has a long-standing scholarship programme, and is currently International Prize for Arabic Fiction offering the following scholarship (IPAF) programmes: The ‘Arabic Booker Prize’ is covered above by Postgraduate Scholarships for Masters’ Peter Clark in the ARTS news. For further Degrees in the UK, open to Yemeni nationals. details, see www.arabicfiction.org/en Undergraduate scholarships for the Leigh Douglas Memorial Fund Bachelors in Business Administration The fund was established with donations from (Tourism and Hospitality Management) at Leigh Douglas’s family and friends to support MODUL University Vienna. This scholarship continued scholarship on the Middle East. It is programme is open to all Arab residents of the a charity, and has distributed more than Middle East and North Africa. £18,000 since 1990 to assist scholars and You are eligible to apply if you can experts pursuing research, mostly on Yemen, demonstrate financial need; if you intend to in fields as varied as archaeology, social return to your country of residence and anthropology, folk tales, history, geography, contribute to its future development; if you linguistics, public health, and marine have applied for, and already been accepted archaeology. Small grants have enabled onto a post-graduate Master’s degree scholars to travel, conduct field research or programme at one of our partner institutions. attend conferences, which otherwise would not Email [email protected] or see have been possible. Grants include: www.mbifoundation.com/scholarships

The Leigh Douglas Memorial Prize. This is Palestine Exploration Fund awarded annually to the writer of the best PhD The PEF awards small grants to students and dissertation on a Middle Eastern topic in the others pursuing research into topics relevant to Social Sciences or Humanities. The current its general aims. The deadline is 31 January value of the prize is £500. Anyone wishing to each year. Please address applications to submit his/her dissertation for consideration Grants Manager, Palestine Exploration Fund, 2 should send a copy, together with an Hinde Mews, Marylebone Lane, London W1U accompanying letter or recommendation from 2AA. Enquiries can be addressed to the their supervisor to Professor Charles Tripp, Executive Secretary, Felicity Cobbing. Email S.O.A.S., Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, [email protected] London, WC1X 0XG, U.K. The deadline for Further details and application forms can submission of entries for the 2008 award was be found at www.pef.org.uk/Pages/Grants.htm. 31 January 2009.

29 Rawabi Holding Award will form the basis of a paper to be published The Saudi-British Society presents this annual in the Durham Middle East Papers series. prize, donated by a Saudi businessman, Mr For further information see Abdulaziz al-Turki, to two British people who www.dur.ac.uk/sgia/imeis/lucefund. Contact have made a significant contribution towards Mrs Jane Hogan, Honorary Secretary, Sir the promotion of Saudi-British relations. William Luce Memorial fund, Durham Nominations are submitted by the members of University Library, Palace Green, Durham the Society and the Society's Committee makes DH1 3RN, UK. Tel. +44 (0)191 334 1218. the final selection. Email [email protected]

www.saudibritishsociety.org.uk/main/rh- SOAS Scholarships and Studentships awards.htm The School of Oriental and African Studies, Royal Asiatic Society University of London, offers numerous The Society offers several prizes for scholarship schemes with relevance to Arabian outstanding research in Asian studies, studies. For further information see including the Professor Mary Boyce Prize for www.soas.ac.uk/soasnet/adminservices/registr an article relating to the study of religion in y/scholarships or contact The Scholarships Asia, and the Sir George Staunton Prize for an Officer, Registry, SOAS, Thornhaugh Street, article by a young scholar, both for articles Russell Square, London, WC1H 0XG, UK. submitted to the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Tel: + 44 (0)20 7074 5094/5091. Email: Society. [email protected]

The Society moreover welcomes Thesiger-Oman Fellowships Fellowship applications from anyone with a The Royal Geographical Society offers two serious interest in Asian studies. For more annual fellowships of up to £8,000 for information contact Alison Ohta, Curator, geographical research in the arid regions of the Royal Asiatic Society, 14 Stephenson Way, world, as a memorial to Sir Wilfred Thesiger. London W1 2HD. Tel: +44 (0)20 7388 4539. The annual fellowships reflect Thesiger’s Email [email protected] interests in the peoples and environments of See also www.royalasiaticsociety.org the desert. One fellowship will focus on the Sir William Luce Fellowship physical aspects and the other on the human The Fellowship is awarded annually to a dimension of arid environments. scholar working on those parts of the Middle The fellowship funds two researchers with East to which Sir William Luce devoted his outstanding research proposals including working life (chiefly and Arabia) and is periods of arid environment fieldwork. To hosted by Durham University for a period of reflect Thesiger's interests, research within the three months from the beginning of May. The Middle East and other arid regions he visited Fellowship, tenable jointly in the Institute for will be given priority, but applications for Middle Eastern & Islamic Studies and work in the world’s other arid regions is also Trevelyan College, will entitle the holder to welcomed. full access to departmental and other For more information see University facilities. The Fellow is expected to www.rgs.org/OurWork/Grants/Research/Thesi deliver The Sir William Luce Lecture, which ger-Oman+Fellowships.htm

CONFERENCES AND SEMINARS 2008-2009

Red Sea IV, which was hosted by the COMPLETED CONFERENCES University of Southampton’s Centre for

Maritime Archaeology. Red Sea IV puts in to Southampton Around seventy people attended the The latest conference in the Red Sea Project conference, which was held over two sunny series received a warm welcome when it days on 25–26 September. They included die- arrived in Southampton last September. hard supporters of previous Red Sea Visitors from more than 20 countries attended conferences, veterans of fieldwork in the

30 region, and an encouraging proportion of The Red Sea V conference is scheduled for newcomers to the field of Red Sea studies. 10–11 September 2010, and will be hosted by Attendees heard 28 speakers give papers the MARES Project team at the Institute of ranging from the Pharaonic era to the 19th Arab and Islamic Studies, University of century. Geographically, the papers touched on Exeter. The conference will coincide with an all of the modern states on the Red Sea littoral, exhibition on dhows to be held at the Institute. while the subject matter ranged from the For further details of the conference see linguistics of the Dahlak islands to the projects.exeter.ac.uk/mares/conferences.htm, epidemiology of the 19th-century Hajj, in the where the Call for Papers and registration meantime encompassing archaeology, material instructions will be posted in due course. culture, medieval economies and maritime John Cooper history. In accord with the theme of the conference – Connected Hinterlands – papers Society for Arabian Studies Biennial touched not only on life on the sea itself, but Conference 2008: Death, Burial, and the also on the role of the sea in bringing together Transition to the Afterlife in Arabia and disparate and apparently separated Adjacent Regions communities and polities. The conference took place at the British This was the first time that the Red Sea Museum from 27–29 November 2008 and was Project conference had been held outside attended by 95 individuals from the Middle London since the project’s inception in 2000. East, Europe, the USA, Australia, and the UK. Previous conferences have been held at the A total of 38 papers were presented over three British Museum. days in the main lecture series, with a further 9 The conference team are currently papers presented in two workshops and 14 preparing and editing around 23 of the poster presentations. academic papers given at the conference for The conference was organised to highlight publication in an edited volume of conference the incredible richness of death and burial proceedings. These are to be published by traditions in Arabia and to bring together Archaeopress in the BAR International Series. researchers addressing this fundamental aspect The volume is scheduled to go on sale this of past and present societies in the region. summer. The full cost of editing and Papers were presented from fields as diverse as publishing the volume is being met by a archaeology, archaeological science, physical generous grant from the Seven Pillars of anthropology, ethnography, epigraphy, art Wisdom Trust, which also sponsored the history and poetry. As became clear over the publication in the BAR Series of earlier course of the conference, this varied research volumes of the Red Sea Project series. had implications well beyond the confines of The Southampton conference was death and burial traditions themselves, and was generously sponsored and supported by the of relevance to understanding much wider Society for Arabian Studies, which originated aspects of ancient and contemporary Arabian the Red Sea Project series, as well as the societies including health and diet, daily School of Law, Arts and Social Sciences of the activities, belief systems, landscape University of Southampton, and the Saudi- modification, inter-cultural contacts and British Society. The kind support of these exchange systems. All conference participants organisations enabled the conference deserve thanks for providing a fascinating organisers to keep attendance fees at accessible insight into the subject. levels, and also to enable the attendance of a The conference could not have taken place small number of speakers requiring financial without the generous financial support of the assistance. British Institute for the Study of Iraq, the The high quality of the papers given at the University of Nottingham, and the British- conference and the lively nature of the ensuing Yemeni Society, in addition to institutional discussions reflect the health and broad range support from the British Museum and the of current scholarship on the ancient Red Sea, Society for Arabian Studies. We would like to as well as an undiminished enthusiasm for the express our sincerest thanks to these sponsors. Red Sea Project as a forum for scholarly The proceedings of the conference are exchange. Planning for the tenth anniversary currently in preparation, and will be published conference of the series is already under way.

31 in the Society for Arabian Studies monograph ideological or economic and as they relate to series. the study of art, philosophy, literature, religion Lloyd Weeks and science etc.

th www.brismes2009.com UAE marks 50 anniversary of Umm al- Nar excavations Britain and the Muslim World: The Second International Conference on the Historical Perspectives Archaeology of the United Arab Emirates took A multi-disciplinary and international place between 1–4 March 2009 in Abu Dhabi. conference to be held at the Institute for Arab Organised by Peter Hellyer, and Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter, Archaeological Adviser at the UAE National UK, 17–19 April 2009. Media Council for the Ministry of Culture, A collaboration between IAIS and SOAS, this Youth and Community Development to conference aims to explore the historical coincide with the 50th anniversary of the first impact of cross-cultural encounters between excavations in the Emirates, by P.V. Glob and the Muslim World and Britain by bringing Geoffrey Bibby at the Bronze Age settlement together writers, established scholars, younger and necropolis of Umm al-Nar, the conference researchers, public intellectuals and members had a total of 31 papers, covering all of the of the media to present and discuss cutting- major time periods in UAE history, and edge research on the question of how past opened with a selection of previously unshown relations have brought us to our current film-clips and pictures from the 1959 situation, and to propose directions for excavations. It also included an overview of necessary further consideration and research. the important Late Miocene palaeontological www.sall.ex.ac.uk/conferences/britain-and- sites in Abu Dhabi’s Al-0Gharbia (Western the-muslim-world.html Region). Two particular highlights of the conference Ships, Saints and Sealore: Maritime were a visit for participants to the Umm al-Nar Ethnography of the Mediterranean and site, which is generally inaccessible due to its the Red Sea location in a high-security zone, and a special Malta Maritime Museum, Il-Birgu, Malta, 16– presentation by Minister of Presidential Affairs 19 April, 2009 Shaikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan to the The conference is sponsored by The National President of the Society for Arabian Studies, Maritime Museum of Malta, the Centre for Beatrice de Cardi, in recognition of her many Maritime Historical Studies, University of years of involvement in Emirates archaeology, Exeter, and the Institute of Arab and Islamic which began in 1968. Studies, University of Exeter. Themes will Peter Hellyer include Sea People and Trade, Folklore and Belief and Technology. UPCOMING CONFERENCES 2009 www.um.edu.mt/events/maritimethnography20

09/maritimeconf_index.html

Frontiers: Space, Separation and The fifth Islamic Manuscript Contact in the Middle East Association Conference The BRISMES Annual Conference 2009. Christ’s College, University of Cambridge, School of Languages, Linguistics and Cultures 24–26 July 2009 at the University of Manchester 3-5 July 2009 The Fifth Islamic Manuscript Conference will Political and territorial frontiers in the Middle be will be hosted by the Thesaurus Islamicus East have been a source of conflict and Foundation and the Centre of Middle Eastern violence for millennia and continue to be so and Islamic Studies, University of Cambridge. with acute topicality. However, while The Conference will address topics related undoubtedly functioning as separators, borders to the care, management, and study of Islamic have also always been zones of contact and manuscripts, particularly the issue of access to exchange. The 2009 theme endeavours to manuscripts. embrace a notion of ‘frontier’ that goes far www.islamicmanuscript.org/conferences/FifthI beyond mere geo-political implications by slamicManuscriptConference.html inviting thought and reflection on ‘frontiers’ at a whole host of levels, be they cultural,

32 2009 Annual Meeting of the American will be considered. Topically, papers could Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR) cover the results of archaeological excavations, 18–21 November 2009, New Orleans analysis of materials, discussion of trade, Papers on any topic associated with the ancient cultural exchange, or other topics related to the Red Sea are welcomed. This includes the ancient Red Sea. chronological periods spanning the beginnings The presentation of a paper at the ASOR of exploration by the Egyptian Pharaohs until annual meeting requires an ASOR the collapse of the Umayyad dynasty. membership and registration with the Geographically, papers examining the modern conference. Red Sea, Persian Gulf, Indian Ocean, and the www.asor.org/am/index.html regions connected by these bodies of water

BOOK REVIEWS

Saudi Arabia: An Environmental Overview deeply traditional society of warring tribes and Peter Vincent towns to a regional power at the centre of London, Leiden, New York: Taylor and Islam and an increasingly important role in Francis, 2008. xix + 309 pp. Hardback. global geopolitics, Saudi Arabia is a land of References, index. 46 colour and 10 b/w extremes and dramatic contrasts. Its relative photographs. 39 maps, 17 diagrams, 50 tables. isolation is the source of much fascination to References, index. Price: £89.00. ISBN 978-0- the wider world but also of much ignorance. 415-41387-9 (hbk). ISBN 978-0-203-03088-2 The need for well-informed surveys is bound (ebook) to grow with its changing role in world affairs, With the world’s largest sand desert, the and with the emergence of an ecotourism Rub al-Khali, some of the world’s largest oil industry that has been the focus of active reserves, and a history of rapid development investment in the past decade, with the within living memory from an isolated and establishment of the Supreme Commission for

33 Tourism under Prince Sultan bin Salman bin accentuated by modern environmental changes ‘Abd al-‘Aziz, responsible for natural and and the additional impact of man-made cultural heritage and antiquities. Much of the industrial pollution and desertification, while country remains little known or difficult of 10 outlines the steps now being taken by access. Few outsiders have had the opportunity various government organizations to protect of exploring widely enough to appreciate the the environment and address the problem of diversity of its varied landscapes and the developing sustainable sources of future richness of its cultural heritage. One such is the energy and economic wealth, not least from author of this book, a physical geographer by tourism, when the oil runs out. Those profession and a specialist in arid zone interested in understanding the geological basis geomorphology, who has been a regular visitor for the country’s natural resources, its mineral to Saudi Arabia since 1983. He has travelled and agricultural wealth and the history of its widely throughout the country with a landforms, including its deserts, mountain specialist’s eye for its landscapes, and a escarpments and volcanic lava fields, will also photographer’s eye for the telling image. find interest in the intervening chapters. Environment is taken here to include Throughout, the emphasis is on the relevance everything from earliest geological epochs, of geological and environmental processes to extending back to the Precambrian 1.2 billion human society, and the perpetual challenge years ago, to the present and future posed by some of the most extreme environmental impact of human activity. The environments in the world as a source of book ranges widely across the tectonic and economic opportunities as well as threats. volcanic history of the landscape, climate and It may come as a surprise to those environmental change, hydrology, unfamiliar with the scientific literature that geomorphology and landforms, biogeography, Arabia has been, at least periodically, a wetter soils and soil erosion, and environmental and greener region than at present throughout hazards. It brings together a vast array of much of the span of human occupation over published sources and much unpublished the past 2 million years. Human settlement information. The marine environment is extended into areas that today are too arid to explicitly excluded, presumably because it is a support it, but once had shallow lakes, as in the large topic in its own right and already served Rub‘ al-Khali and the Nafud, as well as by an extensive and reasonably accessible extensive grasslands, most recently between literature. The chapter on geomorphology is about 9000 and 6000 years ago. Further back the longest, in keeping with the author’s own in geological time, the Arabian plate has been special expertise; while the chapter on plant shifted by tectonic forces towards the pole and and animal life is the shortest. at other times towards the equator. In the late Although aimed in large part at an audience Ordovician period, 440 million years ago, it of professional scientists and students, with was covered by an ice sheet, and the intense technical detail intended for reference by sculpting by glacial action has left its visible specialists, the book is also full of information mark on the present landscape. 70 million about modern Saudi Arabia and will provide years ago, Arabia was located across the much of interest for the general reader, equator and had dense vegetation and especially in the first two chapters and in the perennial rivers. last two (9 and 10). Chapter 1 provides a One of the delights of this book is the readable account of the earliest European splendid accompaniment of colour explorers, beginning with occasional visits in photographs that enliven and inform the text, the 17th century, and the ill-fated scientific along with many line drawings and maps, expedition beginning in 1762 led by the some of them in colour. The photographs German surveyor Carsten Niebuhr, followed really bring home the dramatic nature of so by the better-known exploits in the 19th and many of the landforms, along with more 20th centuries of Doughty, Bell, Philby and intimate details of Arabian life, archaeology Thesiger, among others. Chapter 2 offers an and nature. Almost all the colour photographs overview of the overall physical setting, and a were taken by the author, testament to his useful and concise account of the archaeology extensive travels, enthusiasm for Arabian and more recent history. Chapter 9 deals with landscapes and his long working association the range of natural environmental hazards, with them. A minor irritant is the excessive

34 number of typing and typographic errors. giving them more freedom and the ability to Scarcely a page goes by without some own property. noticeable error. Copy editing seems to be a Her evidence certainly supports these rapidly dying art in modern publishing houses, arguments. Her analysis of the Nabataean perhaps for reasons of economy, or because of papyri in Babatha’s archive demonstrates that, the mistaken assumption that the electronic unlike Graeco-Roman women, Nabataean transfer of typescript made possible by modern women did not need male guardians in court or computers has made proof-reading redundant. for contractual purposes; guardianship of At any rate one should be grateful for the Nabataean women only become a common possibilities of colour reproduction afforded by feature after the Roman annexation of Arabia digital technology. This is a book that will be in the 2nd century AD. Furthermore, the of interest not only to a wide range of discussion of funerary inscriptions clearly specialists, but to the serious traveller, to those shows that women had other legal rights too. who live in the Kingdom, and to anyone with Women could own property, and they did not an interest in the Arabian Peninsula. need a male relative or husband (as co-owner Geoff Bailey or inhabitant) to own a tomb. Second, al-Fassi observes that unmarried women with children Women in Pre-Islamic Arabia: Nabataea often owned their own tombs. Her close Hatoon Ajwad al-Fassi reading of the funerary inscriptions showing Oxford: Archaeopress, BAR International that some of the tomb owners were women Series S1659, 2007. xii + 129 pp. 37 plates, 2 who were widowed, divorced, or unmarried in colour. Large-format softback. Price: mothers, is striking. These inscriptions £30.00. ISBN 978-1-4073-0095-5 demonstrate the possibility that unmarried Scholars have explored the subject of ancient women with children were not outcasts from women, specifically those of both the Graeco- Nabataean society, and that matrilinearity, in Roman and Egyptian worlds, for many years, certain cases where patrilinearity was not with recent biographies on Cornelia, Julia possible or where matrilinearity offered greater Domna and Hypatia appearing in print. social benefits, was a legitimate way to trace However, the women of the ancient Near East one’s descent. These arguments are well have remained a somewhat forgotten topic and contextualized, as numerous references are are therefore ripe for study. Hence al-Fassi’s made to the social and legal position of women doctoral thesis, published as Women in Pre- in Egypt, Greece, Rome and the ancient Near Islamic Arabia: Nabataea, makes a welcome East, demonstrating that high-status women in addition to the scholarly debates on ancient Nabataea not only had the same privileges as women and ancient Arabia. their contemporaries but additional rights not This compact, dense work brings forth enjoyed by other ancient women. As with all original research about ancient women in five discussions of ancient societies, the evidence chapters, plus an introduction and conclusion. allows us to know only how elite women fared. Chapters 4 and 5 present the most original One of the strengths of the book is al- analysis and arguments about women’s Fassi’s deft use of all available evidence. She exceptional status and rights in Nabataean moves effortlessly from inscriptions and society. Her explanation for the high status of ancient authors to archaeological and certain Nabataean women is twofold. First, the numismatic evidence. From her detailed study absence of men, who were involved in the full- of these fragmentary and partial types of time, long-distance trade of luxury goods that evidence together, al-Fassi reconstructs a fuller drove the Nabataean economy, meant that image of ancient Natabaean women than one women had to conduct business, while also might have expected or that would be possible running much of Nabataean society in place of using only a single class of material. their men. Second, al-Fassi argues that the While the book’s contribution to the centralized, powerful Nabataean state, as scholarly canon is significant, it suffers from evident in the complex defensive and hydraulic being a very lightly revised doctoral thesis. systems of its cities and its well-developed The introduction reads like a methodology coinage, was critical in women’s chapter and, as such, is quite dry. Chapter 2 empowerment. The strong state seems to have reminds the reader of the pitfalls of studying liberated women from traditional tribal roles, the ancient world and writing ancient history,

35 but it again reads like a thesis chapter and Peninsula an economic and strategic seems too long for a book of this length. While importance in the wider Red Sea–Indian Ocean the ‘Tale of Two Cities’ passage on Hegra in system. The cultural history of this area Chapter 2 brings the reader into the world of demands to be better known in mainstream ancient Arabia and of ancient Nabataean archaeology. women, it seems disconnected from most of It is to this vital task that Dr Durrani has the book and to an extent from the conclusion, addressed herself, and she has produced a where a similar passage on Raqamu (Petra) work of great significance for students of the appears. Higher-quality images would have archaeology of both sides of the Bab al- certainly enhanced the book’s arguments: in Mandab and beyond. Drawing upon primary particular, crisper photographs of the coins fieldwork data generated by survey work in the discussed would have been very helpful for the 1990s, and producing a detailed and balanced reader. The plate numbers are also out of order synthesis of a wide-ranging, comprehensive in the text; many of the plates also have two and truly international literature base, Dr images, which are unlabelled. Both of these Durrani has produced what is an effective and features make the plates annoying if not timely treatment of a complex topic: the long- difficult to use. Certain images, such as Plates term landscape history of the Tihamah Plain, XIX, XXI, XXII, and XXVII for example, do that important topographical feature extending not contribute to the book’s arguments and some 300 miles along the coast of modern could have been removed or replaced with Yemen whose archaeology, hitherto poorly more suitable ones. It would have also been known and under-appreciated, has far-reaching useful to have the full text of the funerary implications for cultural developments in inscriptions that are discussed in Chapter 4, neighbouring regions of Arabia as well as the included in an appendix. northern Horn of Africa. Importantly, this These criticisms aside, Women in Pre- work also provides a regional context for the Islamic Arabia: Nabataea is an original and better-researched areas of the Yemen worthwhile contribution to the study of ancient hinterland such as the Sayhad, Hadramawt and Arabia and of ancient women. With so much the central highlands. attention focused on the role of women in The volume is well balanced and well modern-day Arabia, the high status and structured. An overview of the literature is visibility of Nabataean women, compared to presented in Chapters 1 and 3; as an Africanist, other ancient women, is thought-provoking on I found this of great use for making sense of a many levels. number of issues that I needed to clarify in my Elizabeth Macaulay-Lewis research on the later prehistoric archaeology of Ethiopia and Eritrea. Chapter 2 focuses on the The Tihamah coastal plain of South-west physical and historical character of the study Arabia in its regional context, c. 6000 BC– area. Chapters 4 and 5 take us through the AD 600 regional prehistoric archaeological sequence, Nadia Durrani i.e. from the Neolithic and Bronze Ages into Oxford: Archaeopress, BAR International the Iron Age. Again, this is all presented with Series S1456, SAS Monograph 4, 2005. x + impressive economy and clarity, and for a non- 164 pp. 4 maps, 8 tables, 21 plans and b/w specialist in the region very approachably too. photographs. Large-format softback. Price: From a personal perspective I very much £32.00. ISBN 1-84171-894-7 engaged with Chapter 6, which is subdivided The south-western corner of the Arabian into two parts, dealing with contacts between Peninsula has often unfairly been viewed as the Tihamah and the northern Horn of Africa something of a peripheral area, both during the prehistoric and historic periods archaeologically and historically. Yemen, respectively. The nature of contact between however, is a unique and distinctive cultural these regions has been a controversial and and geographical meeting point between long-debated topic. In the context of Africa and Asia, and pre-Islamic south-west prehistoric contacts, to which Rodolfo Arabia has played an important role in the Fattovich has long drawn our attention, we shaping of the cultural history of the northern may debate the role of obsidian exchange and Horn of Africa. The development of complex of cattle and crop genetic resources, as well as polities in this region gave this part of the possible similarities in rock art styles in the

36 formation of a pan-regional ‘Tihamah’ cultural often obscure language and thoughts of axis, the nexus of which was maritime trade medieval Arab writers. through the Bab al-Mandab. This is The author’s stated purpose in this latest unquestionably an area which, as Durrani addition to the growing corpus of books on demonstrates, demands more focused research. Islamic ships and seafaring is to chart the More controversially we encounter, in the development of watercraft from antiquity to historical periods, old-style migrationist- the Middle Medieval Islamic period. It is diffusionist accounts to explain the emergence structured in six, loosely related parts: of complex polities in the northern 1. Methodology and main Arabic sources. Ethiopian/Eritrean highlands; this period has 2. Early maritime contacts and port towns of been variously labelled the Ethio-Sabaean the Classical and Medieval Islamic Period. culture, the South Arabian phase, or, of late, 3. Watercraft technology during the Bronze the (illogically named) pre-Aksumite period, Age and construction features of ships in with its associated and contemporary ‘Ona’ Medieval Islam. cultural developments in the region round 4. Seamanship and the Indian Ocean ship Asmara in Eritrea. It is to her credit that Dr whether engaged in trade, pilgrimage or Durrani skirts some of the more obtuse aspects warfare. of this controversy, but offers food for thought 5. Types of boats and ships. in her analysis (pp. 120ff) of the nature of ‘pre- 6. Language contact and language dominance, Aksumite’ kingship which, though employing the use of technical terminology, and cultural South Arabian terminology, clearly implied a and technological exchange. different sense of governance. Part Two (Chapters 2 & 3) restates and In summary, Dr Durrani’s careful analysis expands on the material of earlier works on the has highlighted both the archaeological subject. It is likely to interest historians and potential of the Tihamah coastal plain and the geographers concerned with peoples and need for more focused research to place it in a cultures, and provide incidental reading for better-understood international context. It those whose primary interest is classic ships of would be a very useful service to Islam. archaeologists and historians engaged with the I found Part Three (Chs 4 & 5) somewhat region as a whole if perhaps the author were to disappointing. While at times dilating at length turn her attention to a broader regional on what I regard as matters of peripheral treatment. It is sorely needed, and a study such interest it fails adequately to address various as this, limited naturally by the scope of the significant topics, such as: the state of Bronze publisher, ought to be extended into a more Age sailing; metal sheathing as an alternative richly illustrated regional synthesis. to chunam anti-fouling (of which there is some Neil Finneran evidence in one of the Elephantine papyri and India Office M.S. 741 f. 326); Al-Hajjaj’s Classic Ships of Islam: from Mesopotamia unsuccessful attempt to introduce nailed ships to the Indian Ocean th to the Gulf at the end of the 7 century AD; Dionisius A. Agius and the possible effect on current thinking of Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2008. Volume 92 in Fig. 162 in Shihāb’s Al-marākib al-‘arabiyyah the Brill Handbook of Oriental Studies. xxiv + tārīkhuhā wa-anwāuhā demonstrating the 508 pp. 89 illustrations, 7 figures and 7 maps. feasibility of a stitched ship with a transom Notes, Bibliography, Glossary, 2 Appendices stern. In view of the quotations from European and Index. Hardback. Price: € 140/US$ 209. sources concerning junks on the Malabar coast, ISBN 978 90 04 15863 4. ISSN 0169-9423 in this and subsequent sections, it would have Although it is the critic’s job to analyse the been prudent to warn the reader that any large book not the writer, one has to acknowledge vessel in the Indian Ocean was referred to as a the diligence and thoroughness with which junk or ‘joncke’ by Europeans, including the Agius has left hardly a page unturned and th Portuguese, until the beginning of the 17 hardly a website unvisited in the quest for century, and so the use of this word does not inspiration, ideas and information to fill the necessarily indicate a Chinese vessel. pages of this imposing volume, and his In Part Four, Ch. 6 is a miscellany of tenacity and persistence in wrestling with the discrete sections touching on various aspects of navigation and pilotage, along much the

37 same lines as Tibbett’s Arab Navigation. I am amount of intercalated material that, although sceptical about the writer’s interpretation of interesting in its own right, is not strictly Abū Shāma’s reference (p. 203) to a galley relevant to the topic and interrupts the flow of spreading her wings like those of a dove as thought, and diverts attention from the thrust implying two large bladed oars or leeboards. I of the writer’s argument. Indeed, perhaps only know of no precedent or practical justification about half of the book’s total content is for large bladed oars and, as their name directly relevant to the author’s stated implies, leeboards are usually immersed on the purposes. An even better and more readable lee side only, not spread like wings. But why book would have resulted from greater should it not refer to sails? In the following discrimination in the selection and verse, Al-Buhturī (d. 284 AH/AD 897) visited organization of its content and from a more the sail/wing simile about 350 years before incisive, more focused and more cohesive Abū Shāma’s verse, with the unmistakable narrative. There are places where I would like image of a galley running before the wind with to have seen a more robust probing and testing a sail spread to port and another to starboard, of some of the information transmitted. thus maximizing the sail area exposed to the James Edgar Taylor wind – ‘running goose-winged’, as we say: When the south wind blew over the ship, India Traders of the Middle Ages: the [two] wings of the eagle soared because of Documents from the Cairo Geniza – ‘India it in the blazing sky. Book’ idhā ‛aΒafat fī-hi ’l-janūb-u‘talā lahā janāΉā S. D. Goitein and Mordechai A. Friedman ‛uqābin fī ’l-samā’i muhajjiri Leiden: Brill, 2008. Xxii + 918 pp. 14 colour Part Four, Ch. 7 is a brief sketch of plates. 3 maps. Hardback. References, indexes. selected naval battles. Price: €249. ISBN 978-90-04-15472-8 It is in its final third, Parts Five and Six, The importance of this book cannot be that the book escapes from the shadow of its overstated: it is and will remain the sourcebook precursors and discovers its raison d’être. In for a major chapter in world economic history Part 5 the writer presents the results of during the great centuries of Islam. It presents research into a broad spectrum of mainly the very readable documentation for the Arabic sources for the names and descriptions maritime trade between Cairo, Aden and India of Islamic ships, building on the foundation of during the 11th to mid-13th centuries AD. This his contribution to Ships and the Development detailed presentation and analysis of letters and of Maritime Technology in the Indian Ocean ledgers will form the basis for all future some years ago. Although I do not see eye-to- research into the economics of international eye with all the writer’s conclusions, nor with trade in the High Middle Ages, including the his interpretations of pre-Islamic poetry, this is northern leg from Cairo to Sicily and Italy. a fine piece of work that reveals the names and Our Eurocentric predisposition should not functions of numerous Islamic ships but, sadly, blind us to the fact that international trade in leaves us still guessing about their the Red Sea, Gulf and Indian Ocean was more construction, rigs and hull forms. Part 6 (Ch. important than the trans-Mediterranean trade 13) is a somewhat rambling account of the of the period. However, while European interplay of languages in the western Indian commercial documents survived in Ocean and their influence on nautical considerable numbers in city, royal and other terminology. It includes some interesting archives, the situation in the Islamic world is examples of nautical word derivations. markedly different. Except for the Cairo The merit of this book is that it revisits and Geniza documents, originating from Jewish revives a wealth of neglected, previously- merchant families, only the recently published material from a wide diversity of discovered Yemeni commercial and sources including hitherto untranslated Arabic administrative statistics contained in the Nur ones, combining it with the most recent al-Ma‘arif (ca. AD 1290) give detailed insight archaeological discoveries and papers on the into Indian Ocean trade in the Islamic period. subject, in which those generated by the The Nur al-Ma‘arif largely confirms the Cairo Society’s conferences are well represented. Its Geniza material. Thus, though Jewish traders main weakness is the tendency of the narrative formed only a small percentage of the to ramble off course, introducing a substantial merchants trading and sailing within the vast

38 realm of Pax Islamica, or rather within its documents allow for a fascinating insight into linguistic and cultural unity, it is legitimate to the business dealings of the Lebdi family. generalize from the Geniza material. The global reach of these trading families Pious custom in the mediaeval Orient, is illustrated by Abraham ben Yiju. In 526 among both Muslims and Jews, ordained that AH/AD 1131–32, now resident in Aden, he writings containing the word ‘God’ should not receives a letter from Cairo concerning pepper, be thrown away. Discarded letters and and then establishes himself for many years in fragments (which invariably invoked God’s Mangalore. Shortly before, his brother had blessings) were therefore deposited in a special concluded a forty-year lease of an apartment in place in a synagogue or mosque. In Sicily. When still in Aden, Abraham considers synagogues, such a niche or chamber was renting a house in Dhu Jibla (clearly, the known by the term geniza, ‘burial’. The root of Fatimid connection greatly facilitated and the word, and its meaning, is identical with enhanced trade relations between Egypt and Arabic janaza. In Yemen, where I was still Yemen, and beyond). able to observe this custom in some places, a In India, Abraham establishes a bronze special niche or platform was arranged in factory as an international commercial venture mosques, where torn fragments of the Holy for made-to-order production. His partners Book, and of other documents, were ‘buried’, send letters from Aden announcing specified and these were known as maqbara al-masahif. amounts of raw material, and giving extremely The manuscript treasures discovered forty detailed descriptions of the objects required. years ago in the Great Mosque in San‘a’ had He also ships iron, betel nuts and pepper to been deposited in one such ‘grave’. Aden (most of it destined for Cairo), and The Geniza material originated in the old receives fine cloth and other wares from synagogue in Fustat (= Old Cairo), where it Yemen: ‘Please send me arsenic – I have heard was discovered and sold on the market in the that it is in great demand in Ceylon.’ A major 1890s. Today, the fragments are kept in export commodity from Yemen (and from Cambridge, Oxford, St Petersburg, Budapest Cairo) is paper, not available in India. and various other libraries. A very considerable number of documents Most of the Geniza documents in this traces the activities of Madmun b. Hasan- volume are court and legal documents of Japhet and the three generations of his family. prominent India traders, e.g. claims of partners Madmun was the head of the (Jewish) after a shipwreck in the Indian Ocean. A merchants in Aden, and nagid (translated as considerable portion comprises letters referring ‘Prince’ whereas I would prefer ‘Leader’) of to trading and seafaring enterprises in both the the Jews of Yemen. The documents offer the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean. Also, most vivid insight into his own business large numbers of religious and rabbinical texts dealings and his official functions as mediator survive, often referring to questions addressed, and administrator, particularly in the case of for example from Aden, to the consistorium in shipwrecks, and into his official business with Cairo. authorities in India and Cairo. Usually, the language of the Geniza Shlomo Dov Goitein was a German documents is Arabic – the vernacular used by oriental scholar. Early in his life, after the traders in their everyday business dealings. emigration to Palestine, he became interested Normally, these Arabic texts are written in in the Jews from Yemen. In 1934 he published Hebrew letters. The documents are published two books, Von den Juden Jemens, and here in English translation, with a few Jemenica, Sprichwörter … aus Zentral-Jemen. examples illustrated in the plates. This must have prompted him to devote his The texts selected are arranged in such a scholarly life (later on at Princeton) to the way as to reconstruct several family archives. study of the Geniza material. The result was For instance, in a lawsuit in Cairo, Joseph the monumental 5-volume A Mediterranean Lebdi had to provide an inventory of all his Society (Berkeley, 1967–88), and a number of assets. He testifies that he has left some of his publications on the Aden and Indian Ocean Indian merchandise in Aden, and then material. After his death in 1985, Mordechai enumerates the goods still in his possession, Akiva Friedman continued and completed the and intended for export, such as copper, work on the ‘India Book’. To his great credit, mercury, cinnabar, corals, textiles. 43 other such scholarly service being painstaking and

39 lacking in glamour, Friedman has added an frequently amusing labyrinth. The introduction invaluable amount of research to Goitein’s. discusses the author, the manuscript, the social I have no critical remarks to make. Future and political background and the salient scholarship will mine this rich 918-page characteristics of the text, making the quarry. A list of the goods mentioned and convincing suggestion that many of the tall traded, and the prices, might be a particularly stories and risqué anecdotes originated in bull urgent desideratum. Ma‘ashira (pp. 59, 565) is sessions with his clearly extensive coterie of not a ten-cornered tray, but circular; it sits ‘ten friends and acquaintances. He places the text persons’. in its historical and geographical context, Werner Daum discusses Ibn Mujāwir’s written and oral sources (more than 70 named informants!), and A Traveller in Thirteenth-century Arabia: provides a useful précis of the history of Ibn al-Mujāwir’s Tārīkh al-Mustabsir Yemen from the Ziyādids (818–1018) to the Translated from Oscar Löfgren’s Arabic text Ayyūbids (1173–1230), as well as the and edited with revisions and annotations by Sharifian dynasties of the Hijaz, both crucial G. Rex Smith. for an understanding of the text. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008, for The Hakluyt Everywhere he went Ibn Mujāwir collected Society, London, Third Series, No. 19. xx + itineraries, both old and new, from informants, 341 pp. 2 maps and 13 illustrations. Hardback, and all 42 are conveniently collected in jacketed. Footnotes, appendices, glossary, Appendix A. They were used by Sprenger in bibliography, index. Price: £50.00. ISBN 978- his Post- und Reiserouten (1864), and even 0-904180-91-6 though many of the stages remain unidentified, Thanks to Rex Smith, we now have an they show how practically every corner of the authoritative translation of Ibn al-Mujāwir’s Peninsula was linked, at one time or another, Tārīkh al-Mustabsir, the principal source for by overland trade routes. Most are mentioned the social and commercial history of Ayyubid in no other source. Two further appendices are Yemen. The translation is based on Löfgren’s devoted to dynastic and genealogical charts, exemplary edition, compared throughout with and the surprisingly few written sources used the principal manuscripts. No one who has by Ibn Mujāwir. There is an invaluable tried to grapple with the original can fail to be glossary of unusual words and a humbled at the courage of the translator, faced comprehensive index and bibliography. Rex as he was by lacunae, unpointed consonants Smith has supplied no fewer than 2800 notes and hapax legomena. The book is notable for to the text, placed as they should be at the its mixture of Classical with Middle Arabic, bottom of the page, carefully pointing out making this one of only two texts by a Muslim inconsistencies in the text and correcting Ibn author displaying Middle Arabic forms so far Mujāwir’s often careless rendering of personal published – the other is Usāmah ibn names and dates. More than 1200 place names Munqidh’s Kitāb al-I‘tibār. The earliest occur in the text, and where possible these manuscript of the Tārīkh al-Mustabsir is dated have been identified. Those that have eluded 1595, and Rex Smith suggests in his the translator are marked ‘unidentified’, and introduction that Ibn Mujāwir’s original show how much we still do not know about the probably contained an even greater Middle historical topography of south-west Arabia. Arabic element, ‘corrected’ by successive Nothing is known of the author but what copyists. He slightly amends his detailed study he tells us himself. The name on the title page of the language of the text published in 1996, of the earliest and best manuscript, Ayasofia suggesting that at least some of the 3080 (now in the Süleymaniye Kütüphanesi), peculiarities of the language may be due to the as Rex Smith points out in the introduction, is fact that Ibn Mujāwir was not a native speaker that of another Ibn Mujāwir entirely, a of Arabic. That he spoke Persian is obvious distinguished Damascene traditionalist who from the text, but it seems to me that the use of would certainly have been shocked to have this Middle Arabic is unlikely by a non-native occasionally quite scurrilous text attributed to speaker. him. Rex Smith has conclusively shown that Rex Smith has done everything possible to the author of the Tārīkh al-Mustabsir was Abū guide the reader through Ibn Mujāwir’s Bakr ibn Muhammad ibn Mas‘ūd ibn ‘Alī ibn sometimes tortuous but always rewarding and Ahmad Ibn al-Mujāwir al-Baghdādī al-

40 Nisābūrī, and the entry in EI² must be ‘mother of a sā’ibah’, not ‘mother of a corrected accordingly. bahīrah’. The names of the places to which the Ibn Mujāwir arranges his material roughly people of Tripoli in North Africa moved geographically, beginning with Mecca and during the caliphate of ‘Uthmān, Bārī and proceeding to Tā’if, Jiddah, Tihāma, Zabīd, Tūliyah (p. 198), should be read ‘Bari and Bāb al-Mandab, and finally to Aden. He then Puglia’. In the list of pearling grounds (p. 286) deals with various places in Yemen, including ‘Saylān’ is simply Ceylon, that is, the Palk Ta’izz, Janad, San‘a’, Sa‘da, Najrān, Strait pearling beds. The mysterious Matārid Ghulāfiqa, Farasān, Shibām, and Dhufar al-Khayl/Murābit al-Khayl (pp. 78 and 130), (Zafār). From Dhufar he went to Oman, located either on the mainland between al- describing Qalhāt, Muscat and Suhār, and from Sirrayn and Jiddah or offshore near Farasan, is there to Qays (Kish). The Tārīkh al-Mustabsir mentioned by Ahmad ibn Majid and Sulaymān ends abruptly with a short, hearsay account of al-Mahrī (Tibbetts, Arab Navigation, p. 406) Bahrain and appears to be unfinished. under the latter name, which is better read This arrangement leads Rex Smith to Marābit al-Khayl. suggest that Ibn Mujāwir travelled to Mecca Rex Smith’s many important publications from Baghdad or Basra and then worked his on aspects of the text will already be familiar way south. It seems more likely, as George to specialists, but here at last we have the Rentz maintained in his entry on Ibn Mujāwir entire text, and can see well-known passages, in EI², that he sailed to Aden from the west such as the Aden customs’ list, in their original coast of India. He was in Multān in 1221 and context. And what a context it is! This is late in the same year he sailed from Daybūl (p. indeed, as Rex Smith says, a truly ‘weird and 113) to Aden on a ship jointly owned by the wonderful book’, filled with nuggets of Nākhūda Khwāja Najīb al-Dīn Mahmūd b. Abī reliable information on economic affairs, plant al-Qāsim al-Baghawī and Shaykh ‘Abd al- transmissions, the tanning industry and water Ghanī ibn Abī al-Faraj al-Baghdādī (p. 264). management, set in a matrix of frequently His description of Socotra, which occurs at the unreliable historical information and anecdote, end of the book, dates from this voyage, so fascinating folklore, dirty stories, legends, despite the way he has arranged his book, the wonders, magic and sorcery, all related with places he visited do not follow the chronology great good humour. The book is filled with of his travels. He was in Ibrah, somewhere on unusual and striking information on everything the coast between Aden and Zabid in 1221 (p. from ambergris to xenophilia, by way of 119), then in Zabid the same year; in Mecca in customs duties and were-lions. Ibn Mujāwir’s 1223 and 1224; and in Zabid again in 1224 and magpie mind and consuming curiosity have 1226. The last date mentioned in the text is produced a book like no other. Hanuman’s 1229–30, the final year of Ayyubid rule in the rescue of Sita in the Ramayana is transferred Yemen, and the date of Ibn Mujāwir’s from Ceylon to Aden. Aden itself was peopled departure. ‘after the time of the Pharoahs’ by voyagers The thirteen illustrations, familiar to us from Madagascar. Somewhere in the Hijaz from Löfgren’s re-drawings, are here dwell 100 million Jews, isolated from the rest reproduced from the manuscript. These of mankind by a river of sand. The Sleepers of schematic plans of Mecca, Jiddah, Zabid, Ephesus still doze in a cave outside al-Janad, Aden, Ta’izz, al-Janad, Mārib, Sa‘da, Bi’r al- which was founded by Decius. Where else ‘Āsimiyyah, Zafār, Qalhāt, Socotra and the could we learn of mixed bathing parties at al- three (unidentified) fortresses of al-Qā‘idah, Fāzah to celebrate the Zabīd date harvest? This al-Jāhilī and al-Azālī are just as strange as the is a book to savour, the perfect antidote to the text they illustrate, sharing something with the dry chronicles that are the usual fare of the Balkhī cartographic tradition but even more historian of the period. The Arabia of Ibn schematic. Figure 7, the plan of al-Janad, has Mujāwir was a strange and often surprising been reproduced upside down, one of the few place, where myths and legends of the past printing errors in this elegantly produced book. were closely woven into the texture of There are very few misprints, an unfortunate everyday life, to which this book is practically ‘al-Mustasbir’ in the Preface (p. xvi), ‘627’ for our only testimony. 620 (p. 123), and the last phrase in the Paul Lunde quotation from Q.5:103 (p. 220) should read

41 The Arabian Frontier of the British Raj: Lorimer, and the records of the India Office Merchants, Rulers, and the British in the held in the British Library). But he has also Nineteenth-century Gulf obtained access to the private papers of some James Onley of those native agents, now preserved in the Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. 388 Bushiri library in Bahrain. I hope that Onley pp. Hardback, jacketed. 7 b/w photos, 2 maps, will consider at some point editing these 19 tables, 2 figures. Footnotes, glossary, papers for the benefit of those of us now appendices, bibliography, index. Price: outside Bahrain, or at the very least ensuring £65.00. ISBN 978-0-19-922810-2 that they are freely available to future The title of this book, and the map on the historians. jacket, illustrate something we have always British India’s native agency system in the accepted but never adequately acknowledged – Gulf started officially in 1822 with the the geographical closeness of Arabia to India. instructions of Elphinstone, Governor of This proximity brought the Arabian Peninsula, Bombay, to Capt. John Macleod, the first for thousands of years, into the economic and British Resident in the Gulf: ‘You should cultural orbit of India; and for the more limited suggest a plan for securing authentic period from 1820 to 1947, parts of it became a intelligence of the proceedings of the several political part of British India. Eastern Arabia in chiefs on the coast and a ready communication fact formed the westernmost frontier of the with them should they appear of a questionable British Indian empire, and the British character. You will adopt the plan at once if controlled it in the same way as India’s other not attended with much expense.’ In fact, the land frontiers – through a policy of appointment of a native agent in Bahrain had protectorates that was enunciated by one of its already been provided for in 1816, in the strongest advocates, Lord Curzon, in his 1907 agreement between Lt William Bruce and Romanes Lecture. These protectorates were Shaikh Abdullah of Bahrain, which had the under the supervision of a Political Resident provision that ‘if the British Government (PR), most of whom employed a network of should wish to establish an Agent or Broker at political agents (PAs) throughout their areas to Bahrain, they are at liberty to do so’; and the work with the local rulers, both to protect them first Agent (Sadah Anandadas) seems to have and to preserve British interests. In this sense, been appointed in 1817. From 1817 to 1834 the Gulf was no different from Hyderabad or the native Agents in Bahrain were Hindu Kashmir or Baluchistan. But there was one merchants; but from 1834 onwards, at the important difference: in the 19th century the request of the ruler, only Muslims were Residencies on the Indian sub-continent were appointed. These Muslim Agents were British officered; whereas in the Gulf (with the generally wealthy merchants, with the Safar exception of the Resident himself and his family providing many of them. The system assistant who were British political officers), persisted, with these wealthy Muslim the agencies in Bahrain and elsewhere merchants acting as British native agents until depended for their effectiveness on native the very last years of the 19th century. agents. And that is the raison d’être of this The decline and abolition of the native book. It is a study of the native agency system agency system at the end of the century, and its in Bahrain during the 19th century – the replacement with a political agency system, reasons for its rise (its cheapness compared was the result of increasing imperial rivalry in with employing European officers, and the the region, from the Ottomans and other shortage of suitable Europeans to serve in the European powers, and the native agents’ own Gulf because of the climate); the identities of ineffectiveness in the face of this new threat. the individuals who were the native agents; The latter was recognized by Meade, the PR, and the reasons for its decline at the end of the who recommended in 1898 that the Native century. Agency should be replaced by a Political This is the first study of the various native Agency staffed by a European. Accordingly, agents in Bahrain from 1816/17 to 1900, and the first (assistant) PA arrived in 1900 – most impressive it is. It will doubtless take its Gaskin, who was half-Indian but nevertheless a place as one of the source books for future political officer in the Political Residency in historians of Bahrain in the 19th century. Onley Bushire; and a full political agency established has of course used the usual sources (Saldanha, in 1905 with the European Prideaux as PA.

42 Onley concludes the book with various articles ascribed to Kumar were in fact written appendices – he gives what should now be by Landen. Does OUP have no proofreaders? considered the definitive listing of native We look forward to the next book by agents in Bahrain from ca. 1816 to 1900, the Onley – let us hope it is produced by a agents of the British India Steam Navigation publisher more diligent and careful than OUP! Company from the beginning to the 1950s, and Robert L. Jarman the PRs from the beginning to 1972 (but, British Missions Around the Gulf, 1575– strangely, does not list the PAs in Bahrain 2005: Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman from 1900/1905 to 1971). He then sets out the Hugh Arbuthnot, Terence Clark, Richard Muir legal obligations and rights of the British Folkestone, Kent: Global Oriental, 2008. 282 Crown and the Ruler of Bahrain, the rights and pp. 60 b/w illustrations. Hardback with jacket. obligations of British subjects and Bahrainis, Price: £55. ISBN 978-1-905246-58-8 and exclusive British and joint Anglo-Bahraini This account by three respected retired jurisdiction in Bahrain – the first time this has ambassadors is all set to become required been done, and most useful it is. reading for aspiring young diplomats posted to This is an excellent book, not only because any of the missions described therein. It is the of the subject matter but also because of the second in a series edited by former diplomat research revealed in it. The India Office Dr Jim Hoare, the first having dealt with the Records in the British Library have been Far East, followed by this somewhat exhaustively examined and the references are idiosyncratic choice of countries that excludes prolific. However, I do have a few quibbles. such major Gulf states as Bahrain, Qatar and There are, strangely, a few missing references: the UAE. The line presumably has to be drawn on p. 55 Onley mentions the unsuccessful th somewhere, and it must also allow for the suggestion in the early years of the 18 century willingness of former diplomats to find time to by the East India Company’s Persia Agent in write about the history of their missions. Bandar Abbas that the Agency there should be This the three authors do succinctly, briefly transferred to Bahrain – but he has no summarizing the history of British relations reference for this (presumably he gets it from with the four countries, and also, rather more Saldanha’s Selections from State Papers interestingly because less well known, going Bombay p. xxxiii, or from Lorimer vol. 1, p. into the history of the buildings occupied by 838). On pp. 55–6 he mentions that in 1750 the the British, which were often built by them suggestion was made again and that this time too, and in either case importantly showing the the proposal was accepted but never flag. It is not easy to pinpoint the 1575 date for implemented (again no reference, but the commencement of British missions but one presumably from Lorimer, p. 838). On p. 294 early visitor to Persia was Antony Jenkinson, he refers to Michael Rice as Secretary instead who came several times between 1560 and of as Chairman of the Bahrain Society in 1580 on behalf of the English Muscovy London; on p. 294 he describes Sir Harold Company, though he can hardly be credited Walker as Assistant Trucial States Agent but with establishing anything like a permanent omits his time as ambassador in Bahrain. All mission. In all four countries, however, the minor errors, but they do detract. But my chief missions were initially stimulated, like criticisms are reserved for the publisher, Jenkinson’s, by trade although by the 19th Oxford University Press. On p. 225, Onley century the security of the British in India had lists the headquarters of the Foreign and become at least as important, with moves in Political Departments in British India and then the Great Game often influencing the obviously intends the next table to list the establishment of an embassy, a consulate, a British diplomatic districts in neighbouring residency. South Asia, but OUP manages to print South Sometimes the outposts are more Africa instead of South Asia! On p. 248, OUP interesting than the centres. Hugh Arbuthnot describes the second column as Rupees per and Terence Clark both describe in some detail month when it should obviously be Rupees per the consulates that developed especially in Iran year. And in the bibliography, which is quite but also in Iraq in the latter half of the 19th outstanding and one of the best bibliographies century. Commercial, political and/or military on the area that I have seen, OUP manages considerations led to their establishment, another misprint – at the top of p. 320 the

43 financial ones to their demise. Luckily their Muslim woman. Given that most of Lady occupants were not always frantically busy and Evelyn’s diaries and personal letters have been had time therefore to explore their terrain and lost, the introduction does a brilliant job of to write about it. Their works are listed in the diligently and skilfully piecing together extensive bibliography (infuriatingly arranged, nuggets of knowledge from disparate sources with first name preceding family name). to present a rigorously researched and A few personal gripes: surely the Shah scholarly account – thus illuminating an deserves a capital letter, also the Prime important fragment of British Muslims’ Minister, even the Foreign Minister, let alone ‘hidden history’. It plucks an Anglo-Scottish the Ruler of Kuwait. Or is such aristocratic convert to Islam out of obscurity decapitalization a ‘foreign office’ demotional and reveals an independent and free spirit with foible? Persia-to-Iran is acceptable but surely a sense of adventure; it systematically narrates British rather than English is appropriate for Lady Evelyn’s ‘adoption of Islam’, and most of the period of this account. And place evaluates her ‘contribution to the literature of names need an authoritative editor to ensure the Hajj’ and her place among an illustrious consistency in spelling; the Royal line of British female travellers. Geographical Society is quite a good guide. What emerges from the pages of But, quibbles apart, British Missions will be an Pilgrimage to Mecca is a woman of many invaluable handbook for that young diplomat parts possessing considerable vitality, setting off for Iran, Iraq, Kuwait or Oman, intellectual curiosity, an array of interests and where he is sure to find it in all four embassy a number of notable accomplishments to her libraries. credit. An intriguing mixture: ‘mother, Sarah Searight landowner, deer-stalker, gardener, traveller, writer, socialite, Arabic speaker and Muslim; a Pilgrimage to Mecca strong-willed woman unfettered by the Lady Evelyn Cobbold constraints of class and domestic life; but Biographical introduction by William Facey above all a seeker after enlightenment and and Miranda Taylor meaning in life, though strictly on her own London: Arabian Publishing, 2008. Xvi + 336 terms’. pp. 50 b/w photographs, 1 map. Hardback. By locating her in the circumstances of her Notes, bibliography & sources, index. Price: family, in her peripatetic childhood £25.00. ISBN 978-0-9544792-8-2 experiences in the Muslim world, the Given the renewed interest in Islam and introduction helps us to understand her Muslims worldwide, generated by global spiritual leanings and emotional connection developments and dramatic events, Pilgrimage with the Arab East and her yearning ‘to escape to Mecca is a very welcome reprint of the first the restlessness and mad endeavour of modern edition of 1934. It is a rather unusual life’. We acquire a sense of the complex nature travelogue in that it combines accounts and of Lady Evelyn’s very private journey to Islam descriptions of people and places with lengthy as well as her particular understanding of and treatises on Islam and Muslim history, aimed somewhat ‘unorthodox’ engagement with her primarily at a Western non-Muslim audience. adopted religion. It is ‘as much a record of an interior experience As a travel book, Pilgrimage to Mecca of faith as a conventional travelogue’. Written works well. Her account of the historic sites of in diary form it offers vivid and insightful Madina and Mecca is perceptive. She offers impressions of local cultures, rites, graphic descriptions of Arab life, of streets, ceremonies, customs and their significance and markets and gardens; to the historical meaning. significance of places she brings knowledge With the addition of a full biographical and faith. But we gain most from her introduction by William Facey and Miranda appreciation of the attitudes, behaviours and Taylor (Lady Evelyn’s great-great-niece), relations of the Arab men and women with Professor Turkistani’s copious, though whom she interacted intimately, as she arguably tendentious notes, and two sets of progressed through her journey. The evocative and historically rare photographs, uniqueness of her gaze comes from her access there emerges a rounded and balanced picture to the world of both men and women. She was of the life and times of a remarkable British able to cross gender boundaries with some

44 ease, veil and unveil, mingle intimately with hegemonizing Islamic perspectives and women and more formally with men and hold practices. conversations on subjects of mutual interest. It Humayun Ansari was her long forays into presenting a case for The Western Hadramawt: Ethnographic Islam that provoked some criticism. Even as Field Research , 1983–91 sympathetic a reader and friend as Pickthall Mikhail A. Rodionov was irritated by the ‘propaganda for Islam’. Halle an der Saale: Orientwissenschaftliches Pilgrimage to Mecca reveals an unresolved Zentrum der Martin-Luther-Universität Halle- tension between Lady Evelyn’s unequivocal Wittenberg, Heft 24, 2007. x + 307 pages; 3 sympathy for Islam and her critical maps and 97 black and white illustrations. observations regarding many of its practices in Appendices, glossaries, bibliography, indexes. the Arab world, both of which find eloquent Price: € 17.50. ISSN 1617-2469 expression in her work. Basing herself in the This important book is one of the first rationalist-modernist perspective, she presents comprehensive ethnographic studies on a Islam as a tolerant (‘there is no compulsion in region in Yemen, and stands comparison with religion’), peaceful (‘the greatest Jihad is the work of Robert B. Serjeant and Walter against man’s own lust’), flexible, Abrahamic Dostal. It is the English translation of faith. As a ‘liberated European woman’ she Rodionov’s 1991 Habilitation, published in found it extremely difficult to come to terms 1994 in Moscow. The Russian text has been with Arab Muslim women’s domestic slightly expanded; the bibliography has been seclusion (‘the monotony of these women’s fully updated; Arabic words and terminology lives behind the yashmak and the shutter are now correctly transliterated. The book was appears to us almost like a living death’) which published in Halle, one of the major centres of she could never accept in her own life. Oriental research in Germany, and seat of the She was uncomfortable with the draconian German Oriental Society, founded in 1845. measures instituted by the Ikhwan (whom she Rodionov spent a year there as visiting aptly likens to Cromwell’s Puritans) – the professor, at the invitation of Hanne Schoenig. destruction of the tombs of the Prophet’s wives Of the three main regions of Hadramaut and companions, the severance of hand as (Eastern, Central and Western), this book deals punishment for theft, the forbidding of all with the latter, basically Wadi Dau‘an, Wadi amusements – yet, admirably, she was still ‘Amd, Wadi al-Kasr and Wadi al-‘Ayn. Most able to understand their positive elements. of it is based on Rodionov’s own research in Out of this struggle what comes across the field. This has been integrated with all (as most powerfully in Pilgrimage to Mecca is her far as I can see) previous literature. very European conception of religious belief – It opens with an overview of previous which to her remains a largely private matter research. Rodionov stresses the reliability of and an individual choice. Ceremonialism and the very first modern traveller in Hadramaut, ritualism are not part of her Islam. She asserts Adolph von Wrede (1843). I have myself made that ‘Ceremonial rites during the pilgrimage … use of a festival date faithfully reported by are merely commemorative acts’. Indeed, Wrede. Rodionov rightly highlights Count throughout her journey she shows herself Landberg, the indefatigable linguist, and of willing to ditch convention if it is inconvenient course Serjeant, Dostal, and ‘Abd al-Qadir al- to her. But there can be no doubt about the Sabban. deep sincerity of her faith. When her end came The first chapter deals with the traditional the instructions were clear that her burial must social structure of Hadramaut, the Sayyids be Muslim, and the verse from the Qur’an, ‘the (‘sada’), the Shaikhs (‘mashayikh’), the tribes, light of the heavens and the earth’, should be etc. Most of this is well known, such as the inscribed on her grave. genealogies of the sada going back to Ahmad In the current atmosphere, when there is b. ‘Isa b. ‘Ali b. Ja‘far ‘al-Muhajir’. Other much debate and controversy regarding what it information here is new, such as the lists of means to be a Muslim, Pilgrimage to Mecca sada families (that read like a Who’s Who of offers a timely opening for new reflection. In Yemeni and Indonesian politics, as well as a delineating Lady Evelyn Cobbold’s inimitable Saudi business almanac). For more detailed and quintessentially English pursuit of Islam, it discussion of various aspects of traditional challenges us to investigate alternatives to the

45 Hadrami society, such as the relationship Muhammad, the knowledge about intercalation between the sada and mashayikh, readers will got lost, so that the lunar months became have to go back to Bob Serjeant. decoupled from the ‘real’ year. It was then Chapter 2 is a fine and comprehensive (and probably much earlier) that the ‘star history of the region, from Kinda to 1967 calendar’ measuring the full 365-day year (independence) and after. I was not aware that acquired its predominance for the agricultural Sülayman the Magnificent had been mentioned population. It is based on the appearance of 28 in the khutba in al-Shihr on 24 Rabi‘ al-Awwal stars in the morning and/or evening, thus 944 (31 August 1537). While the Kinda period dividing the year into 28 periods (27 of 13 still awaits its historian, Rodionov’s detailed days and one of 14 days). It has, incidentally, description of the Qu‘aiti– rivalry in the never been noticed that those 28 periods 19th century is a little gem. correspond to a division of the year into the Then follow the chapters containing the number of the (visible) days of a moon month, substantive ethnological descriptions: and thus acquired its legitimacy and irrigation techniques and terminology (pp. 79 comprehensibility. f.); carpentry, tools and products (pp. 93 f.); The book has 97 illustrations (indeed they blacksmiths (pp. 97 f.); jewellery-making are much more numerous than their (jewellers constituting the highest stratum numbering!) providing the most among Hadrami craftsmen, pp. 98 f.); pottery; comprehensive visual survey imaginable, with basketry; and weaving. Pp. 110 f. deal with maps, drawings, tools, jeweller’s tools, ibex hunting. Rodionov adds a number of weaving, pottery, beekeeping, henna patterns, details to Serjeant’s seminal study, but fails to musical instruments, ploughs, basketry, house grasp fully the cultural-religious significance plans, female dress, etc. Very comprehensive so carefully analysed by Serjeant. glossaries, bibliography and indices round off Pp. 144 f. deal with social customs: the work. kinship, marriage, birth, circumcision, Based on his original notes and on his weddings, burial, etc. Rodionov mentions ongoing research in Hadramaut, Rodionov has Rajab, Sha‘ban and Ramadan as preferred since expanded several of the most interesting names for boys. This is one of several highly subjects of his book. It must therefore be read interesting survivals of pre-Islamic beliefs together with at least the following six articles (‘Rajab is the month of God’, Kister). Another (details in his bibliography), three of them is the circumcision-age among the al-Humum published in our journal Mare Erythraeum (at age 14 to 16, and sometimes before (Munich), I (1997): marriage), reported by Rodionov, but again not • ‘Mawla Matar and other awliya’: on social put into this context. The longest and possibly functions of religious places in Western the most fascinating part of the book is the Hadramawt’ section on poets and their social role. Many • ‘Poetry from ‘Alwa, Hadramawt’ examples (Arabic text, translations, • ‘Silversmiths in modern Hadramawt’ (the commentaries) open up a hitherto unknown most detailed description of tools and products world. ever) The South Arabian Stellar Calendar is of • ‘Ibex hunt today’ (1992) course well known from the works of Serjeant, • ‘Prophètes et saints’ (1997) Varisco and Gingrich. For the newcomer to • ‘Zamil’ (1998) this topic, Rodionov’s description is the Rodionov’s work adds much to our shortest and most accessible. For the benefit of knowledge on almost every aspect of the reader of this review, I may be allowed to traditional life in Hadramaut. The magic of this add a few words concerning this important last remaining wonderland of Arabia often aspect of traditional life, which still governs shines through his careful, dense descriptions. the Yemeni agricultural year. Thankfully, he spares us ‘gender’, reflections The agricultural year in Arabia (as on anthropology and otherness, on boundaries elsewhere in the Ancient Near East) was and visual intraperspectivation. It is closely always and necessarily a solar year with observed, and mostly dry and scholarly. It does (roughly) 365 days. The months were not dethrone past research, nor does it close the measured by the moon, intercalation filling the door to future studies, such as the recent remaining 10 days. In the centuries before wonderful work on Hadrami architecture by

46 Salma Samar Damluji. Rodionov’s greatest regions of the Kingdom. In true Aramco World shortcoming is the lack of connection with the Magazine style, the chapters are interspersed spiritual/religious sphere and its links to the with panels and sub-sections on themes and pre-Islamic past, explored by Serjeant and topics related to the chapters. Throughout the Dostal as well as myself. Still, Rodionov’s text there are generally excellent maps, even if aforementioned paper on Mawla Matar has the occasional place mentioned in the text is remedied this to a large extent. not shown, and the maps are not referred to in One last question must be asked: what is the text where relevant. the use and value of ethnographic research The next five chapters cover the history of today? The world portrayed by Rodionov is Arabia from the Palaeolithic to the present. yesterday’s world. True, it still influences Chapter 2 gives a useful overview of the thinking, feeling and attitudes to a degree, but evolution of society and state in Arabia as we it is not today’s reality. My answer would be are taken through the Bronze Age, to the age that anthropology, just like history in general, of the overland caravan cities. The emergence has a value of its own. It portrays a society that of powerful camel-raising tribes is followed by is so different from our modern globalized an excellent account of the development of the world – much harder, and at the same time lucrative overland trade routes – a good more human. Thus Rodionov’s book is also a summary of the archaeology of pre-Islamic book about ourselves. He has realised it in a Saudi Arabia. The Arabian city-states that scholarly, restrained, and altogether masterly grew up along them, such as Qaryat al-Faw fashion. and Mada’in Salih, are interestingly presented Werner Daum as examples of typically Arabian state formation. All this leads up to the Jahiliyyah A Land Transformed: The Arabian centuries before Islam, the gradual economic Peninsula, Saudi Arabia and Saudi Aramco decline of the region, the roles of Byzantium William Facey, Paul Lunde, Michael and Persia in the subjugation of Arabia, and Mackinnon and Thomas A. Pledge. Eds. the religious climate of the times, by way of Arthur P. Clark and Muhammad Tahlawi. introduction to the rise of Makkah as a Dhahran: The Saudi Arabian oil Company commercial and political centre. (Saudi Aramco), 2006. xxiv + 324 pp. 324 x Chapter 3 deals with the subject central to 245 mm. Colour and b/w photographs, maps, the nature and subsequent history of Saudi tables and diagrams throughout. Index and Arabia, the rise of Islam. The early period is bibliography. Hardback with jacket. Price: dealt with along standard lines, recording the n/a. ISBN 978-0-9601164-0-9 life and revelations of the Prophet, the first This beautifully produced book is the latest struggles and the eventual successes. There is a edition of the Saudi Aramco handbook, first valuable summary of the expansion of the published in 1950 as a Handbook for American Muslim empire and of the split between Sunni Employees and revamped in 1952, by George and Shi‘a. There are excellent panels on the Rentz and others, as The Arabia of Ibn Saud. Five Pillars of Islam, the Qur’an, the Hijri Since then it has been through at least three calendar, the Arabic script and Islamic science, incarnations and this new edition far surpasses but perhaps best of all is the 3-page section its predecessors. It covers the land, the history, which gallops through the entire history of the religion and the people of Saudi Arabia in Arabian literature from the pre-Islamic poets to the first two-thirds, and the establishment and modern Saudi writers. growth of the Saudi oil industry in its final The course of Islamic history inevitably third. Its dimensions, weight, appearance and pans away from Arabia itself, and Chapter 4 numerous remarkable illustrations might refocuses on the early Islamic centuries within qualify it as a coffee-table book, but it is the country. Chapter 5 opens with the pact at clearly much more than that. Dir‘iyyah, in 1744, between the reforming It takes as its starting point the signing of Shaikh Muhammad bin ‘Abd al-Wahhab and the first US oil concession in 1933 with the Saudi amir Muhammad bin Saud. We now Standard Oil of California (now Chevron), and enter the Saudi epoch, and the narrative takes the subsequent transformation Saudi life and us through the spread of Wahhabism, linked to fortunes. Chapter 1 sets the scene with an the creation and conquests of the First Saudi overview of the geology, landscape and State, again presented as an example of

47 Arabian state formation. Such continuities Chapter 7 is an interesting account of the abound, in particular the parallels between the ecology and wildlife of the country, territory of the First Saudi State in 1808 and highlighting the efforts now being made in that of its counterpart today. Another is the habitat and species conservation. Saudi entry into Makkah in 1803 and that The final one-third of the book, by Tom orchestrated by Ibn Saud in 1924. The Pledge, is a very detailed account of Saudi oil colourful story summarizes the ups and downs and its development. Labour difficulties in the of Saudi fortunes, the siege and destruction of Eastern Province are omitted. Instead the Dir‘iyyah in 1818, the conflict with Al Rashid emphasis is doggedly on the positive, for of Hail and the extinction of the Second Saudi example the very real education, training and State in 1891. Finally we reach the capture of social welfare offered to local people by Riyadh by the young ‘Abd al-‘Aziz in 1902, Aramco, which from the start set out to be not the event officially regarded as the climactic just an oil company but also a friend and moment of the current Saudi Kingdom’s birth. facilitator of government projects. The The narrative from this point is largely political aspect of this relationship is avoided. devoted to the successive expansions of Al Indeed, throughout the book there is very little Saud power, presented in terms of the recovery reference to Saudi dependence, up to the of the Al Saud ‘patrimony’, and also rather in present day, on US support both politically and terms redolent of British imperial history: that in defence matters. During the 1970s, as with all of this ‘unification’ was for the benefit of other oil-producing countries, the Saudis the various regions acquired. There is even a eventually acquired 100 percent of Aramco self-congratulatory comment that the Saudis (which thus became Saudi Aramco), but US kindly refrained from taking over the whole of influence and interest in maintaining the status the Yemen. It is worth commenting that this quo has not been thereby diminished. expansionist tendency has continued. The Saudi Arabia still boasts the largest oil Buraimi Dispute in the 1950s, when the reserves in the world and remains the most Saudis, strongly supported by Aramco and powerful member of the producers’ cartel, George Rentz’s Research Department, as well OPEC, of which it was a founder member and as the US State Department, laid claim to the instigator. There is much anxiety these days village we now know as al-‘Ain, was resisted about ‘peak oil’ and the pending decline in by Shakhbut and Zaid of Abu Dhabi with world production. It may soothe some nerves British backing. More successfully, the Saudis (though not environmental ones) to read that, later pushed the Abu Dhabi border northwards at the end of 2005, only 11 of the company’s to give themselves control of the area now 82 oilfields and 14 gas fields were actually in enclosing the massive oilfield, and production. also took over the small stretch of Gulf As an effort to provide a comprehensive coastline which had linked Abu Dhabi with account of the Muslim heartland that looks for Qatar. None of this is mentioned in the book. continuities rather than disjunctions between Chapter 6 begins in 1932 with the newly the pre-Islamic and Islamic periods, A Land unified Kingdom proclaimed, in the doldrums Transformed, sanitized though it inevitably is, of the Great Depression but on the threshold of makes fascinating reading for anyone the oil era. The keynote, as so often in official interested in the Middle East. publications, is the Saudi quest to reconcile John Grundon cultural tradition with material modernization. The Burial Mounds of Bahrain. Social The chapter brings the story right up to the Complexity in Early Dilmun present, and the narrative of the reign of King Flemming Højlund et al. ‘Abd al-‘Aziz and his sons is told in a Jutland Archaeological Society, Moesgård determinedly uncritical tone, as one would 2008 (distributed by Aarhus University Press). expect. ‘Abd al-‘Aziz himself is presented as 178 pp including illustrations. Hardback, ISBN one of the great figures of the 20th century, 978-87-8841-545-7 and the shortcomings of certain successors are glossed over. But we are given a picture of The Tylos Period Burials in Bahrain. some of the challenges facing Saudi society Volume 1, The Glass and Pottery Vessels. today, particularly those around the economy, Søren Fredslund Andersen education and job prospects for the young.

48 Ministry of Culture & National Heritage, Burial Mounds of Bahrain. These totalled Bahrain, 2007 (distributed by Aarhus forty-nine mounds in two areas near Aali University Press); 262 pp including 626 b/w (including two of the so-called Royal and colour illus. Hardback, ISBN 978-87- Mounds), two at Saar, two at Dar Kulayb and 7934-373-3 one at Umm JiDr One of the main problems The burial mounds of Bahrain are (or were, as facing researchers of this subject is that the they are now almost totally destroyed) one of looted contents and superficially repetitive the greatest mortuary landscapes of antiquity. nature of the tombs have contributed to a Much attention has focused on the ca 172,000 feeling that little can be added by detailed tumuli associated with the early Dilmun period publication, whereas in reality only a few and broadly dating between ca 2200-1750 BC. hundred of the estimated 8,000 or so excavated Most of these are single burials within their tumuli have been published at all. It may have own tumuli although a small number include taken more than fifty years for these secondary cists arranged around the central excavations to be published but the present chamber and other presumably close family book demonstrates yet again how methodical relations are suggested by clustering of tumuli the Danish archaeologists were and how new in small groups or ‘chains’. During the same insights are still possible. period other groups of individuals were The book is divided into twelve chapters, interred within honeycomb-like complexes of four of which detail the individual tumuli cists and these, like the large mound fields, excavated in each mound field. These are well were again situated off the fertile land but illustrated and catalogue in detail the tomb close to settlements (notably Saar). However, a architecture and their contents: a gold strict exclusion policy on the interment of the quadruple spiral (other gold ornaments were dead within the agricultural belt was not found by Prideaux), a copper ring, occasional exercised, either in this period or the periods carnelian beads, shell seals, two calcite bowls which followed and our understanding of the (presumably from eastern Iran), part of a knife, distribution of burials is probably skewed by shattered sheet metal containers and their patterns of survival and visibility. The chance looped handles, local and Mesopotamian discovery of early and middle Dilmun period pottery, fragmentary ivories (recalling earlier burials beneath modern fields (as at al-Maqsha finds made at Aali by the Bents), painted 2) or accidentally sealed beneath later Tylos ostrich eggshell containers, asphalt-coated period tumuli (e.g. al-Hajjar 1-2) confirm the palm-leaf vessels, piles of Veneridae shells and fact that other communities buried their dead offerings of meat and unidentified fish. nearby rather than transport them further These chapters are prefaced by a synopsis afield. Furthermore, the later chronological and summary of pottery wares found in the development of mortuary practice is illustrated tombs, a handy re-examination of the by the discovery of small Iron Age (late chronology of the early Dilmun period, a Dilmun) charnel houses at Aali and Diraz, typology of the mounds (first attempted by which presumably served yet other Cornwall and Mrs Jefferson), a summary of unidentified local communities of these previous finds from the ‘Royal Mounds’ at periods, a variety of pot and larnax burials of Aali, and a discussion of how the mounds may different periods at a number of sites across the have originally appeared. The last portion of northern part of the island (e.g. Granada the book examines the dating evidence for the Gardens, al-Hajjar 1, Jiddhafs, Jufair, al- Danish-excavated mounds, outlines the Maqsha 2, Qala’at al-Bahrain) and the development of early Dilmun society and reappearance during the late third or early evidence for social complexity within the second century BC of large tumulus burials mound fields. containing multiple burials but each within The book closes with half a dozen their own cist grave. This last type of burial is appendices. The first of these details the typical of the Tylos period of Bahrain and is exacting work by Steffen Laursen to map the the subject of the second book reviewed mounds through aerial photographs taken below. before they began to be destroyed in the 1960s, The early Dilmun graves excavated by the and uses the Saar mound field as a preliminary Danish archaeological expedition form the case-study. This research is continuing as his basis of Flemming Højlund’s volume on The PhD. Through a detailed zooarchaeological

49 analysis, Jacob Kveiborg shows that almost all or published in detail, beginning with the late of the animal-bone derives from roast joints of E.C.L. During-Caspers’ two studies of finds kid and lamb, and that the preference for goat from a large tumulus at Shakoura which was over sheep contrasts with the settlement data. first investigated during the 1960s by Captain The selection of special tender meat was Higham (and which are part of the registered therefore deliberate and the act of slaughter, collections in the British Museum). Isolated butchery and roasting gives a rare hint of post- finds or assemblages from other large tumuli mortem ceremonies carried out shortly before along the Budaiya Road, near al-Maqsha and interment. (The human remains have been at Janussan, Karranah, Shakoura and Saar have published elsewhere). Appendix 3 gives four been published or are in press (although others new radiocarbon dates and a recalibration of remain totally unpublished), remains of previous dates. This is followed by a monumental architecture and statuary discussion by Poul Kjaerum of 13 Dilmun published from the nearby sites of Barbar and seals reportedly found with a mass of Janussan, and the sequence from the Qala’at disarticulated human remains in a pit near the al-Bahrain shown to continue until at least the Budaiya Road (the latter is reminiscent of finds early Sasanian period. However, the present from Tell Abraq and Hili and underlines the volume gives a much wider range and more diversity of mortuary behaviour on Bahrain). closely dated series of vessel types than Appendix 5 identifies so-called ‘omega- previously, and corrects many of the rather shaped’ copper alloy fittings found in a general or simply wrong dates given in number of tombs (including Aali, Saar and previous literature and exhibition catalogues. It unpublished amateur digging at Dar Kulayb or salvages an important body of material and Umm Jidr) as the looped handles of metal offers a reliable yardstick for comparison with buckets, and Appendix 6 catalogues a small the past and imminent publications of the collection salvaged from burial mounds by Belgian excavations of graves at ed-Dur and a John Hysore, a BAPCO employee during the future re-analysis of pottery and glass from 1960s. At first glance the book appears to be southern Iraq and south-west Iran. somewhat of a miscellaneous collection but The book is divided into five chapters, appearances can be deceptive. It contains much beginning with a brief survey of previous of interest, whether for the tomb specialist or investigations of Tylos period remains. those interested in Dilmun, and is the latest in Chapters 2 and 3 are concerned with the glass the impressive series of final reports to come and pottery vessels respectively, followed by a out of Moesgård, many of which are due to the discussion of their chronology in Chapter 4 personal input of Flemming Højlund himself. and a historical reconstruction in Chapter 5. The second book is the product of the The primary data consists of a total of 320 latest generation of Danish scholars working glass vessels and 1827 complete pottery with Bahrainis and builds on the earlier vessels from over 100 tumuli, each containing research by re-examining finds from more large numbers of tombs, which were mostly recent excavations. The Tylos Period Burials excavated between 1971 and 2002 in some in Bahrain is based on Søren Andersen’s PhD twenty different locations. These were mostly thesis which was submitted in 2005 at the situated in the northern part of the island (Abu University of Aarhus and focuses on the Arshira, Abu Saybi, Barbar, al-Hajjar, abundant finds of pottery and glassware stored Jannussan, Karranah, Manama Suq, Maqabah, within the Bahrain National Museum, plus the al-Maqsha, Saar, Shakoura, Umm al-Hasam) small number of pieces in the British Museum. but, like the Dilmun tumuli, also extended into It is intended to be the first of two volumes, the the central and western regions (Aali, Buri, Isa second being on the burials themselves and by Town, Jabal al-Dokan, Dar Kulayb, Hamad the author’s colleague Mustafa Salman. It is Town, Karzakan); some additional finds from published by the Ministry of Culture & tombs on the Hawar islands are also included. National Heritage and closely follows the Vessel shapes are classified by form, arranged format established for the final reports of the by period and the classes discussed Danish archaeological expedition to the Gulf. individually and in detail. Key dimensions and Why is this book important? A small provenances are tabulated for each. Most selection of Tylos period pottery, glass and vessels have been drawn and the drawings and other finds from Bahrain have been illustrated colour illustrations beautifully integrated into

50 the text. The layout is therefore very logical ribbed unguentaria or faceted hemispherical and the layout and quality of the illustrations bowls may reflect these factors (especially as make the book not only easy but a joy to pottery grave-goods show a marked decrease consult (something of a rare species amongst in the late Parthian-early Sasanian periods and archaeological reports). are totally lacking from the late Sasanian The classification of the glass follows that period). established by Isings for Roman glass forms. Mesopotamian glazed wares dominated the Only 1 of the defined 49 glass types is purely pottery assemblage at 76% of the total, Hellenistic and consists of a core-formed followed by plain wares and small quantities of amphoriskos with coloured trails: only 3 grey ware, red ware, sand-tempered ware examples were found and they date between (possibly from Thaj), hard-fired ware (from the 200-50 BC. Glassware starts to become more UAE) and imported fine ware. There is no common following the use of casting and Roman sigillata (unlike ed-Dur) or Iranian blowing and this is reflected by the present Fine Orange Painted Ware (although sherds of evidence. Types 2–23 date between the first this are known from the Qala‘at al-Bahrain), century BC and second century AD and are and lamps are surprisingly rare (they are almost all early Roman Imperial products of ubiquitous in Parthian/Elymaian graves in the Mediterranean and familiar within this southern Iraq and south-west Iran). The export region from ed-Dur. They include a small of Mesopotamian glazed wares – including number of ‘pillar-moulded’ bowls, a large small to medium-sized bottles and amphorae number of small plain unguentaria and which were presumably valued as much for amphoriskoi, and mould-blown unguentaria, their contents as they were for their colourful date-flasks, bottles and a beaker. These are not glaze – along the Persian Gulf and around the particularly exceptional types but were very Indian Ocean is known from other published widely traded at this period. The remainder are and unpublished finds from ed-Dur, Yemen late Parthian – early Sasanian types, and and eastern Somalia but the dating of particular include small plain, trailed or mould-blown types has been seriously enhanced by the unguentaria, conical beakers and deep bowls present study. The author is at pains to avoid (some with separated cut facets or pinched interpreting possible burial customs and the ribs). The recognition of some of the canonical reader is sometimes left wanting to know Sasanian types is important as they confirm exactly what else was found in the individual earlier reports of occupation of this period at graves as the small finds remain unpublished Saar (including a purported fire-temple); and unquantified. Nevertheless Andersen does another example of this type of cut glass graph the changing frequency of shapes and drinking-bowl being placed in a grave has been functions of vessel to illustrate changes previously published from Dhahran. The latest through time and argues that there is a shift group (Types 44–47) consists of a very distinct from assemblages dominated by serving food class of small closed forms with opaque grey (Hellenistic period) to an emphasis on drinking weathering layers and thick trails or applied (ca. 50 BC–AD 150) and finally personal pellets: they are again familiar from Iraq and adornment through the preference for belong to a late Sasanian tradition continuing unguentaria (ca. AD 150–450). This is a into the Umayyad period and imply a very late provoking chapter and one where the reader date for some of the tombs at al-Hajjar and al- may prefer to see all of the tomb data (for Maqsha. These were wrongly attributed in the instance the anthropological analyses and initial exhibition catalogues and questioned by small finds) before making an inter-regional the reviewer twenty years ago. The re-dating comparison. of these is particularly important as this is still The book concludes with two appendices one of the least well-understood periods on the and a comprehensive and up-to-date island and one where the impact of state bibliography. The first appendix lists those Zoroastrian belief and Christian proselytisation tombs containing more than one vessel and the may have led to the gradual abandonment of second gives compositional analyses carried the old mortuary practices on the eve of the out by Ulrich Schnell at the Nationalmuseet Islamic conquest. The surprising absence of Copenhagen of 15 incomplete vessels which highly diagnostic and rather common Late were sampled with the generous permission of Sasanian types of mould-blown re-blown the museum authorities in Bahrain. One of

51 these vessels was typologically attributed to second volume (The Natural Environment of Roman production whereas the remainder were Jebel al-Buhais) has recently been published, suggested on the basis of technique, form and and must await a separate review. parallels to belong to contemporary The book is divided into three sections. Mesopotamian glass traditions. These The first covers the work of a Sharjah team at conclusions were confirmed by the a series of tombs in the al-Buhais region, compositional analyses as the first was natron- which mainly date to between the Early based and the remainder had plant-ash Bronze Age and the Iron Age. The second part compositions typical of Mesopotamian is an analysis of the human remains associated production. with those excavations. The third gives a Dr Søren Andersen and his colleagues detailed analysis of the human remains from should be very proud of this book. It is a the Neolithic cemetery at al-Buhais 18 serious addition to the growing literature on (henceforth BHS 18), while the two the archaeology of Bahrain and has a direct appendices give its grave catalogue and tables. relevance to anyone researching eastern Part 1, by Dr Sabah Abboud Jasim, details Roman trade, Parthian or Sasanian material discoveries made since 1994 by the Sharjah culture and the history of the Gulf in these late team. 29 tombs are presented, some reused. periods. The analysis of museum collections of Bronze Age collective tombs of the first half of finds from rescue excavations conducted by the 3rd millennium BC are the first to be others over many years is never easy and the discussed. As well as a couple which may be author has succeeded where others would have broadly described as Hafit-type (though they failed. It is a great loss to the field and to me appear to lack entrances), these include several personally that the author has not managed to above-ground collective burials representing a continue within archaeology. transitional phase between Hafit and Umm an- St John Simpson Nar tombs. As yet, no satisfactory terminology

Funeral Monuments and Human Remains has been developed for this disparate group of from Jebel al-Buhais Eds. Hans-Peter chambered cairn monuments, found elsewhere Uerpmann, Margarethe Uerpman and Sabah in Sharjah, at Jebel al-Emelah and Kalba. A Abboud Jasim modification of existing cultural designations Vol. 1 in the Series: The Archaeology of Jebel (e.g. Late Hafit or Early Umm an-Nar) seems al-Buhais, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates inappropriate given that those terms are Foreword by HH Shaikh Dr Sultan bin specifically based on tomb types with Mohammed Al-Qasimi demonstrably different architecture. The author Sharjah: Department of Culture and does not enter into such a discussion. The finds Information, Government of Sharjah, UAE, in are generally well presented and discussed, but collaboration with Institüt für Ur- und the drawings of some flint objects appear to Frühgeschichte und Archäologie des have been done by an untrained illustrator and Mittelalters, Universität Tübingen, Germany, provide no technical or functional information. The next section of Part 1 covers above- and Kerns Verlag, Tübingen, 2006. 386 pp. nd Hardback. 183 illustrations, 53 tables, 2 ground and subterranean tombs of the 2 appendicex. Price: 69.95 Euros.. ISBN: 978-3- millennium BC, built in the Wadi Suq Period 935751-06-3 but often containing material of the Iron Age At nearly 400 pages, replete with data and and Late Bronze Age (aka Late Wadi Suq). abundantly supplied with black and white and These collective tombs underline the colour illustrations, this is an impressive piece remarkable variation in the architecture of of work. The quality of its content more than Wadi Suq tombs. Quite why such variation matches its magnitude. It is, moreover, merely occurs remains a matter of speculation, and the first of a series of volumes which will chronological differences may not provide the detail the archaeology of Jebel al-Buhais, and whole answer. Dr Abboud compares the which record the excavations of teams from architecture with examples elsewhere, though the Sharjah Directorate of Antiquities, led by not exhaustively, and also makes artefactual Dr Sabah Abboud Jasim, and the University of comparisons for the metalwork, softstone, Tübingen, led by Professor Hans-Peter pottery and jewellery. The clover-leaf tomb Uerpmann and Dr Margarethe Uerpmann. The BHS 66 is particularly spectacular, and the

52 author speculates that it may have been used excavation. Nearly all the burials examined in for privileged members of society. this section that were sufficiently preserved to The publication of the Iron Age tombs provide age, sex and pathological data, adds significantly to our understanding of belonged to the Iron Age. Although the sample funerary practices of the time, which included was small (9 individuals providing dental not only the reuse of older structures, but also data), the evidence of tooth attrition, ante- the building of simple subterranean cist burials mortem tooth loss, dental caries and calculus capped with cairns, extensive graves of implied high date consumption and relatively conjoined chambers, and the use of rock stressful conditions in childhood. Occupational shelters. A fine selection of Iron Age softstone stress markers on the bones indicated regular and metalwork is shown, including an iron involvement in several different kinds of heavy spearhead, a remarkable lion-headed bronze physical labour. Two burials cut into older bracelet, bronze bowls and unusual stone tombs, whose accompanying grave goods jewellery. Finally, some fine glass vessels of implied warrior status, showed signs of having the Hellenistic period are presented. been habitual riders. This material will greatly facilitate future Part 3 comprises Henrike Kiesewetter’s research and help us disentangle the complex PhD, and is a detailed analysis of the Neolithic chronology of the period, but more information skeletal remains found at BHS 18 between on the exact provenance of the finds would 1996 and 2000. The site itself was originally have been useful, particularly with regard to discovered by the team from the Sharjah those tombs with extended periods of usage. It Directorate of Antiquities, who started is, for example, particularly difficult to excavations in 1995 and then invited the distinguish material of the Late Bronze Age in University of Tübingen to join the project. the region, and a detailed stratigraphic This section is nearly 280 pages long, divided exposition of the tombs and their finds would into seven chapters with a summary and have helped. The author notes when different appendices. It is an account of around 500 layers relating to the Iron Age and the Wadi primary and secondary burials, estimated to be Suq Period were apparent, but tends not to around half of the total individuals in the relate the finds to each layer in the text or on cemetery, and is a resource of incalculable the illustration captions. While the assignation value. It is the most significant contribution to of most artefacts, especially pottery and the volume, and to our understanding of softstone, can be attributed by the Arabian prehistory, specifically of Neolithic knowledgeable reader on stylistic grounds, this demographics and burial practices. It provides is not always possible with the items of not only much-needed basic information on the jewellery. It is also apparent from this text and burial practices of the Neolithic herders displays in the Sharjah Archaeology Museum themselves, their adornments, their that there are numerous objects from Bronze demographics and their health, but also data on Age and Iron Age burials, including tombs their social structure, their movement patterns covered in this volume, which are not and trading relationships, their attitudes to presented. This is therefore only a partial place or domus, and their relations with their record, and the researcher is not given the neighbours and the environment. information to draw his or her own conclusions The Introduction and the first two chapters regarding the stratigraphy of the tombs and the give accounts of excavations at the site, details date of the artefacts. of the funerary practices and the methodology Part 2 of the book, by Adelina Uerpmann, used in the bones analysis, while the next three Johannes Schmidt, Nicole Nicklish and cover demographic aspects, interpretations of Michaela Binder, deals with the human behaviour and ancestry, and palaeopathology. remains from some of the tombs in Part 1. The final chapter draws significant conclusions Further valuable photographs and descriptions regarding the social structure of the Neolithic of the relevant tombs are given. Information is population, its diet and way of life, and its then presented on the skeletal remains. This relationship with the environment. The data is sometimes incomplete, as analysis was settlement remains of BHS 18 are not covered in some cases restricted to examination of in detail here, but will be presented in a later human remains which had been left exposed in volume, as will a full account of the of the situ in the tombs for some years after finds associated with the burial. A significant

53 body of published information on these aspects interpreted as the outcome of long-term has already been published. conflict with an external group (or groups) Chapter 2 (The Archaeology) rather than internal strife. Injuries typically contextualizes the finds, briefly summarizing consisted of blunt trauma to the head, cutting the state of knowledge on Neolithic injuries, and small piercings of the front of the cemeteries, and setting BHS 18 within its skull, perhaps caused respectively by maces, cultural and environmental framework. The stone axes, and slingshots, arrows or spears. account of the cemetery itself is clear and Some individuals showed parrying injuries to concise, a difficult task given the nature of the the arm. Males, who were twice as likely to site, which consists of both primary and have head injuries than females, tended to be secondary burials, some multiple, and mostly injured to the front of the skull, whereas dug into or disturbed by other burials, beneath females were attacked from behind, as if struck and interspersed with numerous contemporary down while fleeing. Women over 40, it seems, firepits and domestic deposits. The successful were not attacked, perhaps being viewed as of disentanglement of this highly complex lesser significance, being past child-bearing situation is a testament to the direction of the age. Some of the head injuries proved fatal, project leaders and the skill of the excavators, while others healed. Of particular interest is not to mention the work of Kiesewetter herself. the evidence for trepanation in three An individual account of each of the burials is individuals, in two cases to treat head injuries, not given in the main text, a sensible decision and in one perhaps to relieve symptoms of a given the numbers involved, but a tumour. Two of the patients survived. This representative sample is presented (7 burials, denotes an impressive level of medical skill. It comprising 16 individuals). Information on the was also noted that fractured long-bones in the others is summarized in Appendix A, which is community appeared well healed, and may 64 pages long and provides all the information have been set by skilled medical practitioners. that any specialist may need. In terms of health, the results revealed The following chapters are naturally more what would be expected of a mobile pastoral specialist in nature. The methodology set out community, and suggested that life was easier in Chapter 3 is clear and comprehensive, while for the herders of al-Buhais than for the later the following demographic, physical and agriculturalists of the region. The people were pathological analyses are excellent. If a relatively muscular but lacked the bone problem is to be found in the demographic robusticity seen in agricultural communities analysis, it is in the uncertainty regarding the whose members were subjected to heavy exact length of use of the cemetery, resulting labour. The palaeopathology study, aided by from difficulties in obtaining C14 dates from CT scans, showed that health was good the human bones. If the range were more compared to other Neolithic and later tightly constrained, currently standing at populations. Both adult males and females between 300 and 1000 years, then it would were tall (averaging 170 and 160 cm have been possible to obtain a clearer idea of respectively), some 10cm taller than the the size of the Neolithic group (currently modern Omani population. Stature is thought to be 50–150). No blame should be influenced by both genetic and environmental attached to this situation. factors, and members of pastoral and hunter- The study presents such a high number of gather communities will often be healthier and significant advances in our understanding that taller than their farming or urban counterparts, they cannot be listed in detail. The following owing to better diet and living conditions. results stand out. Compared to other Neolithic The sex ratio was balanced, indicating no populations, life expectancy at birth was differences in the funerary treatment of men relatively high. This is despite the and women, a situation reflected in the comparatively high incidence of death rate provision of jewellery. One of the most among young adults (aged 20–35), usually interesting outcomes of the study is the low considered the strongest members of the level of sexual dimorphism in the BHS 18 community. Most individuals (44%) died population, implying that tasks were shared between the ages of 20 and 35. The incidences and living/working conditions were similar for of violent death and injury were extremely both sexes. high in both sexes, which is logically

54 Some small criticisms may be made. In the for high levels of violence between groups cranial study (Chapter 5), more variability is who are not obviously in competition for land noted than seen at RH5, Oman, but this surely or resources. There is a great deal of potential indicates only that the population was not in this topic, which is not covered here. highly inbred, rather than that two separate Further information is sure to derive from groups had merged to form the al-Buhais the ongoing analysis of the BHS 18 burials. It community. The author additionally does not appears that DNA analysis was not successful, discuss the possibility of intentional skull but trace element and stable isotope analyses deformation, despite the observed presence of are in progress, so further data is soon to be post-bregmatic flattening in some cases. It is expected on the diet and movements of the left for the reader to assume that there was no Neolithic population. The recent discovery of a clear evidence for this practice. Another minor similar cemetery nearby at Jebel Faya, criticism is that, in many of the chapters, there apparently of the same date, promises to add is too much information presented on the further to our understanding of the Neolithic, terminology, methodologies and backgrounds and will provide valuable comparative data. If to the techniques. The level of detail is a the results are anywhere near as valuable as the legacy of having been adapted from a PhD ones presented here, then we have much to thesis, and more ruthless editing would have look forward to. helped. Finally, the evidence for good Robert Carter nutrition, low workloads and excellent health REVIEWS IN THE 2009 BULLETIN is perhaps at odds with the conclusion that the The Reviews Editor welcomes suggestions high incidence of violence resulted from from readers of books to be considered for competition over limited resources. One might review in the next edition of the Bulletin. expect more signs of stress in the bones if Please contact William Facey at: resources were limited, or less signs of [email protected] violence if there was plenty. Meanwhile, there is ample anthropological evidence elsewhere

55 Bulletin of the Society for Arabian Studies 2009

NEW PUBLICATIONS ON ARABIA

See also the Book Reviews section for new Willis, J. M. 2009. Unmaking North and publications, and the Societies, Associations South: Cartographies of the Yemeni Past. And Other Online Resources section for Hurst Publishing Ltd. ISBN 978-1-85065-981- information on the newsletters of various 5 societies. JOURNALS AND MAGAZINES NEW BOOKS 2008–09 Adumatu

Al-Rasheed, M. 2008. Kingdom Without www.adumatu.com Borders: Saudi Arabia’s Political, Religious ISSN 1319-8947. Adumatu, PO Box 10071, and Media Frontiers. Hurst Publishers Ltd. Riyadh 11433, Saudi Arabia. Editor: Dr ISBNs 978-1-85065-931-0 casebound and Abdullah Alsharekh, contact at [email protected] 978-1-85065-942-6 paperback.

Craze, J. (eds) 2009. The Kingdom: Saudi Arabia Felix Magazine st www.arabia-felix.com Arabia and the Challenge of the 21 Century. Hurst Publishers Ltd ISBNs 978-1-85065-902- Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy 0 hardback and 978-1-85065-897-9 paperback www.wiley.com/bw/journal.asp?ref=0905-

Davidson, C. M. 2009. Abu Dhabi: Oil and 7196 Beyond. Hurst Publishing Ltd. ISBN 978-1- ISSN: 0905-7196. E-ISSN: 1600-0471. This 85065-978-5 journal serves as a forum for study in archaeology, epigraphy, numismatics, and Egan, D. 2007. Snakes of Arabia: A Field early history of countries in the Arabian Guide to the Snakes of the Arabian Peninsula peninsula. Editor: Daniel T. Potts. and its Shores (Motivate Publishing) ISBN Aram 978 1 86063 239 6 poj.peeters-leuven.be/content.php Gillespie, F. 2008. (second printing). ISSN 0959-4213. E-ISSN 1783-1342. Discovering Qatar. Published by Creative Published by the ARAM Society for Syro- Writing and Photography, 1 LD Fougirard, Mesopotamian Studies. It presents 33580 Rimons, France. ISBN 99921-70-32-8 contributions to its annual International

Hellyer, P. & Ziolkowski, M.C. (eds.) 2008. Conference, together with the ARAM Newsletter. Emirates Heritage Volume Two: Proceedings of the 2nd Annual Symposium on Recent Atlal: Journal of Saudi Arabian Archaeological Discoveries in the Emirates Archaeology and of the Symposium on the History of the ISSN 1319-8351. Ministry of Education, PO Emirates, Al Ain, 2004. Zayed Centre for Box 3734, Riyadh 11481. History and Heritage, PO Box 23888, Al Ain, Banipal: Magazine of Modern Arabic United Arab Emirates. ISBN: 978-9949-06- Literature Sharjah Archaeology Museum. 2008. Athar http://www.banipal.co.uk/home/index.php Sharjah: Highlights from the Collection of the In its latest issue Banipal celebrates ten years Sharjah Archaeology Museum. SMD of publishing – translating and showcasing Publishing. ISBN 978-9948-03-636-4. hundreds of Arab authors who have never had their works published in English before, Smith, T. 2008 Coal, Frankincense and presenting newly emerging and well- Myrrh: Yemen and British Yemenis. Dewi established writers. Lewis Publications. ISBN 978-1899235568. Bulletin of the Society for Arabian Studies Uerpmann, H. P., Uerpmann, M and Jasim, S. Past and present issues of our very own (eds.) 2008. The Natural Environment of Jebel Bulletin can now be found online. al-Buhais: Past and Present. Hardcover. A4. www.societyforarabianstudies.org/bulletin.sht 152 pgs., 91 color illustrations, 27 tables ml ISBN: 978-3-935751-05-6

56 Chroniques Yémenites ISSN 0022-2968. Based in Chicago, JNES has cy.revues.org been devoted to an examination of the An annual review in French and Arabic, civilizations of the Near East for more than produced by the Centre français d'archéologie 120 years. Contact [email protected] et de sciences sociales de Sanaa (CEFAS). The Journal of the Economic and Social History same website also covers Chroniques du of the Orient Manuscrit au Yémen, which can also be www.brill.nl/jesh downloaded free of charge. Email ISSN 0022-4995. E-ISSN: 1568-5209. JESHO [email protected] contains studies extending our knowledge of Current World Archaeology the economic and social history of what was www.archaeology.co.uk once labeled as the Orient: the Ancient Near Published 6 times a year. Subscriptions to: East, the World of Islam, and South, Southeast, CWA, Barley Mow Centre, 10 Barley Mow and East Asia. Contact [email protected]

Passage, London W4 4PH. Tel: 08456 447707. Journal of Oman Studies Email [email protected] ISSN 0378-8180. Published by the Ministry of Fauna of Arabia National Heritage and Culture, Sultanate of www.libri.ch/agency/services/faunaofarabia.ht Oman, POB 668, Muscat, Sultanate of Oman. m Journal of Persianate Studies A continuous series on the terrestrial, limnetic www.brill.nl/jps and marine zoology of the Arabian Peninsula. Order through: [email protected] It begans as Fauna of Saudi Arabia but changed its name and remit in 2998. It can be Middle East Journal of Culture and ordered from Karger Libri AG, Tel. ++41 61 Communication. 306 15 23. Email [email protected] www.brill.nl/mjcc Order through [email protected]. MJCC HAWWA Journal of Women of the Middle provides a platform for diverse and East and the Islamic World interdisciplinary work, including original www.brill.nl/m_catalogue_sub6_id10263.htm research papers from within and outside the Hawwa publishes articles from all disciplinary Middle East, reviews and review articles, to and comparative perspectives that concern investigate transformations in communication, women and gender issues in the Middle East culture and politics in the region. and the Islamic world. These include Muslim and non-Muslim communities within the Paléorient greater Middle East, and Muslim and Middle- www.mae.u-paris10.fr/paleo_index.htm Eastern communities elsewhere in the world. ISSN 0153-9345. A multidisciplinary six- monthly CNRS journal with an international International Journal of Middle East audience, devoted to a number of aspects of Studies the prehistory and protohistory of south- www.jstor.org/journals/00207438.html western Asia, including Arabia. CNRS IJMES is a quarterly journal publishing Editions, 15 rue Malebranche, F-75005 Paris. original research on politics, society and Further information from Genevieve Dollfus, culture in the Middle East from the seventh [email protected] century to the present day. It is published by Cambridge University Press under the auspices Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian of the Middle East Studies Association of Studies North America. Email [email protected] www.arabianseminar.org.uk/proceedings.html ISBN 190573901X. £45.00. 299 pages; Journal of the British-Yemeni Society numerous figures, plans, maps, drawings and www.al-bab.com/bys/articles/douglas06.htm photographs. ISSN 1356-0229. Contact the Honorary Secretary, British-Yemeni Society, 2 Lisgar Saudi Aramco World www.saudiaramcoworld.com Terrace, London W14 8SJ. Tel: 020 7603 8895.

Journal of Near Eastern Studies http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/toc/jnes/curr ent

57 The Arab The Arab magazine has some spare back issues www.the-arab.com of the hard copy version from our first year of Newly launched in January 2008, The Arab is publication (2008). We would like to offer an English language magazine on the most some complimentary copies to members of this topical issues and under-reported stories in the society. If you would like to receive a couple Middle East & North Africa today. It is of issues please email your postal address to [email protected] or telephone 020 7100 published six times a year, and provides a balanced understanding of the political, Tribulus, Journal of the Emirates Natural cultural and social landscape of a region at the History Group top of the international news agenda, through www.enhg.org/trib/tribpdf.htm thought-provoking, erudite, good quality ISSN 1019-6919. PO Box 45553, Abu Dhabi, journalism. UAE. This now appears annually, rather than bi-annually.

Wildlife Middle East News www.wmenews.com%20

SOCIETIES, ASSOCIATIONS AND OTHER ONLINE RESOURCES

Significant information is only given below for www.alexandriaarchive.org/icaz/workaswa.ht new organisations. For further details on m organisations which have been described in Association for the Study of Travel in Egypt previous editions, please see either the and the Near East websites listed or the Bulletin online at : www.astene.org.uk www.societyforarabianstudies.org/bulletin.sht ml Atlas of Breeding Birds of Arabia www.dspace.dial.pipex.com/arabian.birds%20 Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage (ADACH) Bahrain Society www.cultural.org.ae www.bahrainsociety.com

Abu Dhabi Islands Archaeological Survey Barakat Trust www.adias-uae.com www.barakat.org ADIAS has now been absorbed into ADACH, British Association for Near Eastern but this website still contains a record of its Archaeology activities. www.banea.org Al Ain National Museum British Council, Middle East pages www.aam.gov.ae www.britishcouncil.org/me.htm Al-Bab British Institute of Persian Studies www.al-bab.com/bys/articles/douglas06.htm www.bips.ac.uk Abundant data relating to the Arab world, aiming to introduce non-Arabs to the Arabs British Institute for the Study of Iraq and their culture. www.britac.ac.uk/institutes/iraq

American Institute for Yemeni Studies British Society for Middle Eastern Studies www.aiys.org www.dur.ac.uk/brismes

Arab-British Centre British-Iraqi Friendship Society www.arabbritishcentre.org.uk/default2.html www.britishiraqi.co.uk BIFS aims to inform the British public about Arabian Wildlife all aspects of Iraqi life and culture, including www.arabianwildlife.com its history, heritage, art, performing arts, Archaeozoology of Southwest Asia and language and traditions. Adjacent Areas (ASWA[AA])

58 British-Yemeni Society and now produces a monthly newsletter. www.al-bab.com/bys/articles/douglas06.htm Contact [email protected] or see: www.janetradyfineart.com/html/home.asp Centre for the Advanced Study of the Arab World London Centre for the Ancient Near East www.casaw.org www.soas.ac.uk/academics/departments/nme/a ne/lcane Centre Français d'Archéologie et de Sciences Sociales de Sanaa (CEFAS) London Middle East Institute www.cefas.com.ye/homeng.html www.lmei.soas.ac.uk

Council for Arab-British Understanding MBI Al Jaber Foundation www.caabu.org www.mbifoundation.com

Council for British Research in the Levant National Museum of Ras al-Khaimah www.cbrl.org.uk www.rakmuseum.gov.ae%20

Deutches Archäologisches Institut, Orient Oman & Arabia Natural History Department www.oman.org/nath00.htm www.dainst.org/abteilung.php?id=270 Ornithological Society of the Middle East Friends of the www.osme.org www.hadhramaut.co.uk See this page for the latest editions of OSME's

journal, Sandgrouse Hadhramaut Flood Appeal The Governorate of Hadhramaut was the worst Oxford Brookes Archaeology and Heritage region of Yemen affected by the storms which (OBAH) lashed the area on 23rd October 2008, leaving heritage.brookes.ac.uk/Home.html over 20,000 people without shelter and many A new grouping offering specialist consultancy trapped in their homes by the floods which in Arabian archaeology, heritage and swept through the wadis. Electricity and environments. telephone lines were disrupted and thousands of homes were either destroyed or damaged. Palestine Exploration Fund Schools and clinics suffered enormous www.pef.org.uk damage. Large areas of farmland and large Royal Asiatic Society numbers of livestock were also destroyed. royalasiaticsociety.org Wells have been contaminated. Over 37,000 beehives, a major source of income for the Saudi Arabian Natural History Society area, were washed away. For further information contact the acting coordinator Margaret Thomson, on Friends of Hadhramaut URGENTLY NEEDS [email protected], or the Secretary funds to help rebuild lives and property in the Janet Jacobsen, [email protected] area: please donate generously to Friends of Saudi–British Society Hadhramaut (registered charity 1062560). www.saudibritishsociety.org.uk

Seminar for Arabian Studies Friends of Soqotra www.arabianseminar.org.uk/aboutus.html www.friendsofsoqotra.org Society for Arabian Studies Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, www.societyforarabianstudies.org Exeter University www.huss.ex.ac.uk/iais UAE Interact, Culture Pages www.uaeinteract.com/culture Janet Rady Fine Art Janet Rady is dedicated to representing Middle Eastern Artists in the broadest possible sense, OBITUARIES

Abdelmalik Eagle, who died in November conscientious member of the Society for 2008 at the age of 69, was a longstanding and Arabian Studies. He was first confirmed an

59 Anglican, then became a Roman Catholic and Pinder-Wilson was admirably suited for the finally converted to Islam. He was a champion post, having as sharp an eye for objects as he of dialogue between Islam and the west and had for people. Like his colleagues, the was also a major contributor to the newsletter Indianist Douglas Barrett, the sinologist published by Al-Khoei Foundation of London. William Watson and Basil Gray during his After graduating from Cambridge, he took a long keepership, he was of a time when job in Saudi Arabia in 1964, learned Arabic scholarship was defined not by narrow and converted to Islam, changing his name specialisation but by a comprehensive from Donald Rossley Eagle to Abdelmalik knowledge of art and artefacts from the whole Badruddin. He took English to Saudi children of what, in those innocent days, was known as but eventually returned to the UK to care for ‘the Orient’. his elderly parents, despite being offered Saudi One of his outstanding exploits was, with citizenship. Douglas Barrett, the identification of a long- As a devout Shia Muslim he was deeply lost masterpiece of Islamic art, the Vaso troubled by the suffering of the Iraqi people Vescovali, a silver-inlaid Persian bronze of the and summarised the tragedy unfolding there as early 13th century which had been published ‘from Saddam’s tyranny to the gates of hell.’ by the Vatican librarian, Michelangelo Lanci, He was buried in the Yemeni cemetery in in 1845 but had then disappeared. It is now one South Shields, the Yemeni community of of the treasures of the British Museum and was which was the subject of a photographic published by Pinder-Wilson in the British exhibition in Newcastle last year. Museum Quarterly in 1951. Karen Dabrowska His skill as an epigraphist made him a valued colleague on excavations. He spent a Ralph Pinder-Wilson was a distinguished season (1959) on Storm Rice’s excavations at Persian scholar, Islamic archaeologist and Harran in southeastern Turkey, a site that in museum curator. He was born in 1919 in Late Antiquity had been notorious as a Wimbledon. His family had historical stronghold of the star-worshipping Sabaeans connections with the East India Company, and who nevertheless achieved prominence in the his father, a naval officer, compiled several Baghdad Caliphate in the ninth century. In pilot’s guides to the West African and South 1966 he took part in the first season of the American coasts. He was educated at British Institute of Persian Studies’ Westminster School and in 1937 he was excavations at Siraf on the Persian Gulf, a port elected Westminster Scholar at Christ Church, that had flourished in the early centuries of Oxford, where he read history and was granted Islam as a commercial centre rivalling a war emergency honours degree. medieval Basra and controlling the rich trade On the outbreak of war he was attached to between the caliphate in Baghdad, the Indian the Indian Army and posted to India, where he sub-continent and the Far East. He dug for learnt Urdu. He was later posted to Tripolitania several seasons at Fustat (Old Cairo) and later (in what is now Libya) and Egypt, and served in his career took a close interest in the British in Palestine, Jordan, Italy and Greece, ending excavations of the late 1970s of the citadel of the war as a captain. On demobilisation he Kandahar in Afghanistan. returned to Oxford to read Oriental languages, It was not merely his wide expertise, Arabic and Persian. however, that made him so welcome as a On graduating in 1949 he joined the colleague: he had an on-the-spot knowledge of Department of Oriental Antiquities in the much of the Middle East, he had an enviable British Museum, first as assistant and then as command of the languages, he submitted to the deputy keeper, and remained there till 1976. hardships of excavation life without complaint India, Oxford and the British Museum were and by his example did much to maintain the three loves of his life. morale in campaigns that frequently provoked The department in his time, and the controversy and at times may have appeared to neighbouring Department of Prints and lack direction. Drawings, was full of larger-than-life In 1976 Pinder-Wilson was appointed characters, with a fair degree of eccentricity, as Director of the British Institute of Afghan well as outstanding scholarship. Though Studies in Kabul. It was a return to the Greater modest and self-effacing by disposition, India that he had come to love during the war.

60 He cannot, however, have had many illusions. Soviet news agency, Tass, and the Kabul press, Afghanistan, which was already showing signs and by the refusal of consular access to him, of instability, has always struck travellers as while protests through official channels were immensely odd and distinctly reminiscent of simply ignored. Freedom came unexpectedly. the North-West Frontier under the Raj. The MP, George Galloway, who was about to Movement within the country was still largely go to Kabul, was asked to raise the case with unrestricted, however, and he exploited the authorities. His intervention was thoroughly the opportunities his position successful, and Pinder-Wilson was released on afforded of travel to its remotest corners. 15 July 1982. Among the chief achievements of his time as For the first six months of 1968 he had director were the restoration of the Buddhist been a visiting Fellow of All Souls, working stupa at Guldara and surveys of Ghaznavid and on a monograph on Islamic glass. After his Ghurid monuments in Afghanistan, which return to England from Afghanistan he also were particularly dear to his heart. spent a profitable year (1982-1983) as visiting The situation changed radically with the Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge, and Russian invasion of 1979 and the the year after a semester as Regent Professor at establishment of a puppet Government under UCLA Berkeley. Babrak Karmal. In these conditions it is The following two decades were especially doubtful that the institute could have continued fruitful. He was much in demand as an to operate satisfactorily for long, but he examiner and although he did not hold a remained as one of the few Westerners in teaching position he put his great knowledge Kabul. Matters were brought to a head by its and experience at the disposition of colleagues closure early in 1982, on the ground that it was and countless graduate students. a cover for espionage, and his trial and a ten- He continued to work on some of the more year prison sentence on a trumped-up charge recondite aspects of the Islamic arts — ivory, of attempting to smuggle Afghans out of the jade, rock-crystal and glass — of which he had country. He shared his cell with a stool-pigeon, in the course of his career made a speciality, a taxi-driver from Panjhir, with whom he though, sadly, his important work on would converse to improve his already monuments and memorials in the Khalili impressive command of the Afghan Persian Collection remains incomplete. dialect, Dari. His captors, trained in the already He was a valued consultant on Islamic art outmoded techniques of brain-washing, tried to at Christie’s, the auction house, and to the make him incriminate himself by writing collection of Shaykh Nasser al-Sabah in confessions of guilt, which because his Kuwait. But, rather than these activities and his offences were imaginary, and his imagination written works, his true memorial is his inevitably failed him, all displeased them. He unfailing kindness and generosity to so many was not conspicuously ill-treated, though once, friends and colleagues. he said, in the course of an interrogation that He was an enthusiastic chamber musician, was going nowhere, the interrogator threw a playing both the violin and the clavichord, in piece of chalk at him. In later years he was an ensemble directed by the ebullient Teddy quite ready to speak of his experiences but he Croft-Murray, the former Keeper of Prints and was never heard to utter any complaint about Drawings in the British Museum. He converted his ordeal, proof of exemplary fortitude, in to Catholicism at the age of 18 and remained a ultimately ludicrous but frightening and devout Catholic for the rest of his life. depressing conditions. Ralph Pinder-Wilson, Persian scholar, His family and friends campaigned Islamic archaeologist and museum curator, energetically for his release. The effectiveness was born on 17 January 1919. He died on 6 of any riposte by the British Government — October 2008, aged 89. which did not recognise the Karmal regime — This obituary first appeared in The Times on was hampered by the lack of information, 10 November 2008. which had mostly to be gleaned from the

61 Bulletin of the Society for Arabian Studies 2009

Society for Arabian Studies Monograph Series Series editors: D. Kennet & St J. Simpson

The Society for Arabian Studies Monograph Series was launched in 2004 with the intention of encouraging the publication of peer-reviewed monographs on the archaeology, early history, ethnography, epigraphy and numismatics of the Arabian Peninsula and related matters. Creating a specific monograph series within the British Archaeological Reports International Series is intended to allow libraries, institutions and individuals to keep abreast of work that is specifically related to their areas of research. While research and conference volumes in the series will be peer-reviewed according to normal academic procedures, the decision was taken to allow the publication of doctoral theses, field reports, catalogues and other data-rich work without peer review where this will permit the publication of information that might not otherwise be available.

PUBLISHED MONOGRAPHS Derek Kennet, with a contribution by Regina Krahl Sasanian and Islamic Pottery from Ras al-Khaimah Classification, chronology and analysis of trade in the Western Indian Ocean Archaeopress: BAR S1248 (2004). Society for Arabian Studies Monographs, No. 1, ISBN: 1-84171-608-1 £32.00

Paul Lunde & Alexandra Porter (eds) Trade and Travel in the Red Sea Region: Proceedings of Red Sea Project I held in the British Museum, October 2002 Archaeopress: BAR S1269 (2004). Society for Arabian Studies Monographs, No. 2, ISBN: 1-84171-622-7. £33.00

Janet C. M. Starkey (ed.) People of the Red Sea: Proceedings of Red Sea Project II held in the British Museum, October 2004 Archaeopress: BAR S1395 (2005). Society for Arabian Studies Monographs, No. 3. ISBN: 1-8417-18335 £30.00. iv+176 pages; 35 figures, plans, drawings and photographs; 7 maps; 7 tables; index.

Nadia Durrani The Tihamah Coastal Plain of South-west Arabia in its Regional Context c. 6000 BC – AD 600 Archaeopress: BAR S1456 (2005). Society for Arabian Studies Monographs, No. 4. ISBN: 1-84171-8947 £32.00. 164 pages, b/w tables, figs, pls.

Janet C. M. Starkey, Paul Starkey & Tony Wilkinson (eds) Natural Resources and Cultural Connections of the Red Sea: Proceedings of Red Sea Project III held in the British Museum, October 2006. Archaeopress; BAR S1661, Society for Arabian Studies Monographs No. 5. ISBN: 9781407300979. £36.00.

Michel Mouton La Péninsule d’Oman de la fin de l’Age du Fer au début de la période sassanide Archaeopress; BAR –S1776, (2008) Society for Arabian Studies Monographs No. 6. ISBN 978 1 4073 0264 5 £55.00. (250 av. – 350 ap. JC)

Eric Olijdam & Richard. H. Spoor (eds) Intercultural Relations between South and Southwest Asia Studies in commemoration of E.C.L. During Caspers (1934-1996) BAR –S1826, (2008) Society for Arabian Studies Monographs No. 7. ISBN 9781407303123. £54.00.



POTENTIAL CONTRIBUTORS Please contact the editors in the first instance: Dr Derek Kennet, Department of Archaeology, Durham University, South Road, Durham DH1 3LE, UK [email protected] or Dr St John Simpson Department of the Middle East, The British Museum, London WC1B 3DG, UK. [email protected]

MONOGRAPH ORDERS TO Hadrian Books, 122 Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 7BP, UK. Tel: +44(0)1865-310431. [email protected] or visit www.archaeopress.com

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