ʿAyn Jawān

ʿAyn Jawān is a coastal site in north-eastern Arabia, in Tarūt Bay. It comprises a large settlement mound, tentatively dated to the 1st–3rd centuries CE, and a vast cemetery with various types of tombs. In this cemetery, a large burial tumulus yielded a particularly rich funerary assemblage including an elaborate set of jewellery.

The site of ʿAyn Jawān is located in north-eastern Arabia, near the north-western shore of Tarūt Bay, ca. 3 km west of the current coastline. It lies on a ca. 1 x 1.2 km limestone ‘island’ surrounded by sabkhas. Before its large-scale destruction by quarrying and construction works, it was composed of a ca. 200 x 150 m settlement mound and a large cemetery. The latter included several dozen, generally small burial mounds, except for one exceptionally large, ca. 6-m-high and 30-m-wide tumulus (Bowen et al. 1950; Potts 1993; al-Saud 2010).

The site was first identified and studied between 1945 and 1947 by R.LeB. Bowen, during quarrying works for the construction of the nearby Raʾs Tanūra refinery. In the early 1950s, rescue excavations were conducted on the large tumulus by F.S. Vidal following looting with a bulldozer. Finally, several test trenches were opened on the settlement mound in 1977 by a team from the Peabody Museum, as part of the general survey of the Eastern Province.

In the cemetery, the small mounds covered various types of individual cists, either built or dug into the bedrock. All had been looted when Bowen investigated them. The discovery of three Hasaitic funerary inscriptions (SHI 32, 33, 39), however, suggests that at least some of these graves should be dated to the so-called ‘Hellenistic’ period (mid-4th to 1st cent. BCE), when the use of this script seems to have peaked.

The large tumulus contained a large cruciform-shaped chamber tomb made of limestone ashlars (figs 1–2). The six burial niches in the chamber had been looted, but four exterior abutting subsidiary cists were found undisturbed. The north-eastern cist contained the remains of a young girl with rich offerings, including an elaborate jewellery set made of gold and various precious stones (al-Saud 2010; fig. 3). The other cists contained individuals with gold hair rings and iron swords. Comparisons with jewellery from Palmyra, Dura Europos and Hatra suggest a 1st to 3rd cent. CE date for the burial.

The stratigraphy of the settlement mound is 2.5 to 4.5 m deep, with three occupation phases. Although the excavated pottery (made mostly of local East Arabian wares comparable to those found at Thāj) cannot be securely dated, a tentative dating of this sequence to the first three centuries CE, broadly in line with that of the chamber tomb, has been proposed (Potts 1993). Nevertheless, given the depth of the recovered stratigraphy and the epigraphic evidence for a ‘Hellenistic’ phase in the cemetery, an earlier date for the beginning of the occupational sequence of the settlement could be considered.

Jérôme Rohmer

References and suggested readings

• al-Saud, A.S. 2010. ʿAyn Jawan, in A.I. al-Ghabban, B. André-Salvini, F. Demange, C. Juvin & M. Cotty (eds) Roads of Arabia: archaeology and history of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia [exhibition, Paris, Musée du Louvre, 14 July-27 September 2010]: 398–403. Paris: Louvre Éditions, Somogy Art Publishers.
• Anonymous. S.d. The Jawan Chamber Tomb. Adapted from a report by F.S. Vidal, Dammam, December 1953. Anonymous Report. http://www.outintheblue.com/FTP/Jawan_Web.pdf. Accessed on June 29, 2016.
• Bowen, R.L., Jr., W.F. Albright, F.R. Matson & F.E. Day 1950. The Early Arabian Necropolis of Ain Jawan: A Pre-Islamic and Early Islamic Site on the Persian Gulf (BASOR Suppl. Studies 7-9). New Haven: ASOR. DOI: 10.2307/20066600.
• Potts, D.T. 1984. Northeastern Arabia in the later pre-Islamic era, in J.-F. Salles & R. Boucharlat (eds) Arabie orientale, Mésopotamie et Iran méridional, de l’Âge du Fer au début de la période Islamique: 85–144. Paris: Éditions Recherches sur les Civilisations.
• Potts, D.T. 1990. The Arabian Gulf in Antiquity, vol. 2. From Alexander the Great to the Coming of Islam. Oxford: Clarendon press.
• Potts, D.T. 1993. The sequence and chronology of Ayn Jawan, in U. Finkbeiner (ed.) Materialien zur Archäologie der Seleukiden- und Partherzeit im südlichen Babylonien und im Golfgebiet: 111–126. Tübingen: Wasmuth.

_{Alternate spellings: ‘Ayn, Ayn, Jawân, Jawan}