JIA 6.1 (2019) 41–80 Journal of Islamic Archaeology ISSN (print) 2051-9710 https://doi.org/10.1558/jia.37248 Journal of Islamic Archaeology ISSN (print) 2051-9729 Dating Early Islamic Sites through Architectural Elements: A Case Study from Central Israel Hagit Nol Universität Hamburg [email protected] The development of the chronology of the Early Islamic period (7th-11th centuries) has largely been based on coins and pottery, but both have pitfalls. In addition to the problem of mobility, both coins and pottery were used for extended periods of time. As a result, the dating of pottery can seldom be refined to less than a 200-300-year range, while coins in Israel are often found in contexts hundreds of years after the intial production of the coin itself. This article explores an alternative method for dating based on construction techniques and installation designs. To that end, this paper analyzes one excavation area in central Israel between Tel-Aviv, Ashdod and Ramla. The data used in the study is from excavations and survey of early Islamic remains. Installation and construction techniques were categorized by type and then ordered chronologi- cally through a common stratigraphy from related sites. The results were mapped to determine possible phases of change at the site, with six phases being established and dated. This analysis led to the re-dating of the Pool of the Arches in Ramla from 172 AH/789 CE to 272 AH/886 CE, which is different from the date that appears on the building inscription. The attempted recon- struction of Ramla involved several scattered sites attributed to the 7th and the 8th centuries which grew into clusters by the 9th century and unified into one main cluster with the White Mosque at its center by the 10th-11th centuries. This dating method chiefly utilizes terminus post quem dates and index fossils to differentiate between the 9th and 10th centuries. This article emphasizes the potential of archaeology as an alternative to written sources in the dating of sites and offers a fresh perspective on the history of this region. Introduction Dating is an essential but challenging task in historical archaeology. In comparison to estab- lished disciplines such as Roman, Bronze Age, and Western European Mediaeval archaeolo- gies, early Islamic archaeology is still struggling to develop a reliable chronology. Dating is chiefly based on pottery and coins, but both are portable and subject to indefinite usage. In some cases, chronology is supported by written sources that are roughly contemporary. Current research is often unable to differentiate between the periods of the 6th to the 8th Keywords: Early Islam, Ramla, Pool of the Arches, typology of installations, Big Data © Equinox Publishing Ltd. 2019, Office 415, The Workstation, 15 Paternoster Row, Sheffield, S1 2BX 42 Dating Early Islamic Sites through Architectural Elements and the mid-8th to the 10th or 11th centuries based on the archaeology alone. The inability to accurately distinguish between these relatively wide-ranging periods can result in misleading interpretations concerning settlement patterns and social and economic processes of change. This paper proposes the use of construction techniques as a primary dating tool, which has yielded, at least for the 9th and 10th centuries, more accurate dates. It provides a supplemental or an alternative method to analyze regional occupation trends and the development of sites over time. Archaeologically, it provides index fossils and terminus post quem dates for remains in surveys and un-stratified excavations. However, as with all dating techniques, it has its weaknesses, and other methods of dating should be utilized to supplement wherever possible. The method was put to the test for one region in central Israel. No new field work or re- examination of finds was undertaken for this project; only information from published exca- vations and surveys was assembled into a database and cross-referenced by element and type. This approach was inspired by Hodder (1986; Hodder and Hutson 2003) and resemble what is known in the field of Humanities as “big data” analysis (Gattiglia 2015). The first step was to organize the buildings and construction techniques by type, and then a relative chronology based on 30 seasons of excavations from several sites was drawn from Phase A to E. In Ramla, two sites occur in the earliest phase. In the third phase they became clusters, and by the fourth phase they had grown into one cohesive unit. Following this reconstruction, the phases were provided with absolute dates via several methods; first,terminus post quem dates were assigned and tested on one stratigraphic site. Furthermore, the Pool of the Arches in Ramla belonged to phase D, and based on its parallels, was re-dated to 886 instead of 789. Before addressing the data, this article will deal with theory and dating challenges such as terminus post quem and formation processes. The research area of this article forms a triangle on the Mediterranean coast, lying between Tel-Aviv-Jaffa, Ashdod and Ramla in central Israel. Its maximal dimensions are 41 km north- south, 21 km west-east, and 46 km along the shore, totaling an area of about 450,000 km defined geographically by the Southern Coastal Plain. The archaeological research in this region has been intensive, and includes surveys, designated digs and many salvage excavations. The stud- ies up to 2014 have recovered a total of 364 “coordinates” of the 7th–11th centuries from more than 50 sites (Figure 1). At least 20 of the excavations were published as final reports while others were published as interim reports in archaeological news journals. The research area comprises 11 regions from “The Map of Israel” survey project, of which six were published by 2014.1 The most famous and intensively excavated site in the research area is Ramla. Until 2014, more than 100 coordinates with early Islamic remains were recorded inside the municipality of Ramla, with another 20 in the adjacent villages of Mazliah and Yashresh (Figure 2). Some scholars debate over whether to regard Mazliah and Ramla as one site (Avni 2014, 171–173, and fig. 3.16; Gorzalczany 2014, 69–74, 139; Tal and Taxel 2008, 79, 211), but it will be argued that Ramla was composed of several sites, at least in certain phases of its history. In this article, most references to “Ramla” are actually referring to the three modern settlements. Excavations at Ramla include the White Mosque (Figure 3), the Pool of the Arches2 (Figure 4), Marcus Street, 1. Online at http://survey.antiquities.org.il/index_Eng.html#/. 2. Identified also as Biʾr or Birkat al-ʿAnaziyya and the Cistern of Saint Helene; see Van Berchem 1897, 4; Creswell 1940, 161. © Equinox Publishing Ltd. 2019 Hagit Nol 43 Figure 1. The research area. the police station, and Mazliah. Other important sites were Tell Qasile in northern Tel-Aviv, Yavne-Yam and Ashdod-Yam on the coast, Lod, Azor, and a cluster of sites around Rehovot and Nes Ziyyona. Regarding sites names, the current Israeli municipality name, a neighborhood name, or a known attribution (usually in Hebrew) were given in order to distinguish between the Ottoman/Palestinian settlement and the archaeological site, as well as to distinguish them from the toponym in the written sources. The challenge of dating Two essential characteristics of archaeological thought and practice are categorization and chronology, which concomitantly begs the question of periodization. The process of perio- dization is conducted in several stages of generalization, and includes typology, identifica- tion of index fossils, and the grouping finds into general periods, often correlating to political regimes. As a result, periods of cultural continuity are not representated in the archaeological record within an established sequence.3 Periodization creates static conceptions of time on the one hand and methodological “gaps” of time between periods on the other (see Van der Leeuw 1981, 230–232; Lenzen 1995). 3. Fortunately, cultural periodization has come to largely replace dynastic periodization in the Islamic archaeology of the Levant [editor’s note]. © Equinox Publishing Ltd. 2019 44 Dating Early Islamic Sites through Architectural Elements Figure 2. Coordinates with early Islamic remains in Ramla. Figure 3. Mamluk remains of the White Mosque in Ramla (Source: Limor Noah, https://commons.wiki- .(JPG.המסגד_הלבן_רמלה:media.org/wiki/File © Equinox Publishing Ltd. 2019 Hagit Nol 45 Figure 4. The subterranean structure of the Pool of the Arches (Photographer: Ron Peled). The challenge of developing a relative chronology depends on the identification of a suf- ficient number of portable artifacts that can be compared to dated parallels. However, the reliability of a relative chronology is contingent upon the questions being asked. For instance, the classification of periods according to political regimes might be irrelevant to the content being studied. Many objects had long periods of manufacture, and if something was considered to be of value, one can assume that it was used for an extended period of time. Similarly, struc- tures were often subjected to re-use. It should be assumed that objects and architecture served purposes that long surpassed the timeline of any given political regime. The issue of chronol- ogy becomes especially clear when analyzing material culture for everyday use. For example, many pottery and glass types produced in the 6th–7th centuries continued production into the 8th century (e.g. Avni 2014, 31–33; Tal and Taxel 2008, 79; Walmsley 2007, 108). Whitcomb has dealt with this issue by dating the assemblage as a whole. He devised a chronology for the Islamic period that uses time periods of 200 years, disregarding the political dynasties and instead using the peaks of each pottery type as chronological markers (Whitcomb 1987).