Pottery [Northwest Arabia]

From the 12th century BCE onwards, northwest Arabian pottery exhibits marked localism, as each oasis produced unique pottery repertoires, intermittently displaying shared traits with regional and distant counterparts. This dynamic may result from the strongly autochthonous nature of the oases and their role as trading hubs within a broader network. Furthermore, it might be influenced by a historical archaeological research bias, as the oases or temporal periods in this region have not been uniformly studied.

Despite occasional earlier mentions, pre-Islamic pottery from NW Arabia first became of scholarly interest with the archaeological surveys carried out from the 1960s to the 1980s (Parr et al. 1970; Parr et al. 1972; Ingraham et al. 1981). These first works identified both site-specific wares and wares distributed over larger geographical areas, including the Eastern Mediterranean. They focused in particular on the identification of regional painted wares dated between the late 2nd and the mid-1st millennia BCE at Dadan, Taymāʾ and Qurayyah, which resulted in disputes about the reliability of pottery for defining the cultural, economic and political ties between NW Arabia, Egypt, the (Southern) Levant and Mesopotamia in the Late Bronze Age and Iron Age (e.g., Bawden & Edens 1988; Parr 1993). Systematic excavations carried out in NW Arabia since the 1980s have provided further insights, but our knowledge remains largely incomplete. The stratigraphic sequences available for Taymāʾ and Hegra, two major oases extensively excavated since the early 2000s, place them at the centre of this contribution. These results are combined with those from other NW Arabian sites, such as Dadan, Umm Daraj, Dūmat al-Jandal, Qurayyah, ʿAynūna and al-Quṣayr, to name but a few, for which shorter chronological sequences and/or scantier data are available. This corpus should be significantly expanded in the coming years thanks to the recent launch of new excavation programmes, especially in the regions of al-ʿUlā (e.g., Dadan, Tell Saq, Mabiyat) and Khaybar. This article therefore provides a first regional overview of the data available so far.

12th–9th centuries BCE

Around the mid-2nd millennium BCE, painted vessels influenced by contemporary stylistic developments in the Eastern Mediterranean but produced in Northwest Arabia, mainly at Qurayyah but also at Taymāʾ, were identified throughout a large area encompassing the northern part of the Hijaz as well as the Southern Levant. Various names have been proposed but this production is now commonly referred to as “Qurayyah Painted Ware”. The dating, possible phases of production and possible influence of this ware on later painted styles of the region are still debated (Tebes 2013; Intilia 2016). Nonetheless, its wide distribution contrasts starkly with the distribution of painted pottery styles in the following centuries.

Indeed, in the late 2nd and early 1st millennia BCE, NW Arabia seems to be characterized by local styles, mainly restricted to the oases in which they were produced. This perception may however be biased as this period is still poorly known today.

At Taymāʾ, a new local production appears: the Taymāʾ Early Iron Age Ware (TEIAW; Fig 1: a–i). Its main characteristics are its bright red, quartz-tempered fabric and its morphological repertoire mostly restricted to cylindrical beakers and bowls, either plain or painted. When present, painted decoration is usually applied on a whitish slip. Reddish monochrome decorations are limited to two groups of several parallel lines dividing the interior of a vessel roughly into quarters (Fig. 1: b). Another monochrome, but blackish, decoration consists exclusively of a series of circular elements hanging from the interior vessel’s rim. Most characteristic of the painted TEIAW, however, are bi-chrome (reddish and blackish) decorations, combining geometric motifs (cross-hatched elements, parallel straight or wavy lines) with figurative ones (mainly birds depicted in profile), according to a standardized decorative syntax (Fig. 1: c–e). Both this syntax and the motifs suggest that painted TEIAW was a local, late painted pottery development in the mid and late-2nd millennium BCE in the region (“Qurayyah Painted Ware”; Hausleiter 2010: 240). The most stylistically similar vessel to TEIAW found outside Taymāʾ is a small juglet from Dadan (Fig. 1: j). No TEIAW sherd has been found yet at Qurayyah (Luciani in press), despite cautious comparisons of pottery from this site with TEIAW (Luciani & Alsaud 2018: 172; Luciani & Alsaud 2020: 64, with n. 52). The identification of possible TEIAW fragments at al-ʿUlā (Hausleiter et al. 2021: 127) has not yet been confirmed.

At Qurayyah, the local production of painted pottery, which started in the early 2nd millennium BCE, continued, displaying a broad zoomorphic repertoire (Luciani 2019: 241-246; Luciani 2021: esp. 282-284), thus contrasting with the restricted repertoire of the TEIAW. A more detailed characterization of the painted pottery of this period is still pending completion.

At Dadan, and more generally in the al-ʿUlā region, known occupation remains from this period have not yielded any securely identified contemporaneous pottery (Rohmer et al. 2022).

Up to now, imported vessels dated to these centuries are only known from Taymāʾ (Fig. 2). They come from the Eastern Mediterranean (Cyprus, Levant) and attest to the integration of NW Arabia in supra-regional networks.

9th–5th centuries BCE

Like in the previous centuries, between the 9th and 5th centuries BCE, NW Arabian pottery seems to be characterized by local styles, rarely attested outside the oasis in which each one was produced. It is likely that plain vessels were produced locally in each large oasis, as in the al-ʿUlā valley (Rohmer et al. 2022; Fig. 6: p–r). However, the apparent simplicity of many vessel shapes, the scarcity of contexts not disturbed by later activities, and the limited precision of radiocarbon dates due to the Hallstatt plateau, have hindered our knowledge of the local plain pottery of the first half of the 1st millennium BCE up until now. Also, during this period, some vessels seem to be part of supra-regional networks. Vessels related to the material koine of the Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian periods in the Levant and in Mesopotamia were identified at both Taymāʾ (Fig. 3: a–d, g–i; Tourtet et al. 2021: 64–67) and Dūmat al-Jandal (Fig. 3: e–f, j–l; Loreto 2019; 2020: 95–96). Isolated sherds have been found in oases outside their suggested production area, but, like in the preceding period, each painted ware seems to be a local production, characteristic of a single oasis. The exact chronology of these local painted wares is still debated. They are therefore presented here according to the established and published chronological sequence which places them in the first half of the 1st millennium BCE.

Painted pottery at Taymāʾ (“Sana’iye Painted Ware”)

The first archaeological work at Taymāʾ in 1979 revealed the existence of local painted pottery, soon referred to as “Taymāʾ Painted Ware” (e.g., Bawden & Edens 1988). However, later excavations demonstrated that this label encompassed distinct painted groups dating from different periods, and it was subsequently abandoned (Hausleiter 2014; Tourtet & Hausleiter 2018; Tourtet et al. 2021). For the first half of the 1st millennium BCE, the painted pottery of Taymāʾ is characterized by its light-coloured fabric, the use of geometric motifs mainly organized in series placed on top of each other, and the rare depiction of highly schematized birds. The motifs are generally painted either in a blackish brown or in a red colour, and both colours are only combined on specific motifs (e.g., checkerboard) (Fig. 4). This ware is particularly common at the burial ground of Sana’iye, where it was first identified, and is frequently referred to as Sana’iye Painted Ware (Hashim 2007: 139–169; Tourtet et al. 2021: 61–64). The association of this ware with a burial dates it to the 9th–5th centuries BCE (Beuger 2010: 133–137), but Sana’iye Painted Ware was found in a variety of contexts and is not restricted to funerary practices. The few sherds of this ware found at Tall al-Kathīb (al-Zahrani 2007: 224–225) and at Dūmat al-Jandal (Loreto 2020: 95) demonstrate contacts between these oases. However, their paucity suggests that this ware was not produced to be exported but mainly to meet local needs.

Painted pottery at Qurayyah

Like at Taymāʾ, painted pottery was produced at Qurayyah over a long span of time. Between the late 2nd and mid-1st millennia BCE, a change in the depicted animals was observed, with an increasing number of camels, whereas later, painted pottery seems to display exclusively geometric motifs (Fig. 5; Luciani 2019: 146, 151). This painted ware has not been identified in other places up until now (apart from a single sherd from Taymāʾ, Fig. 5: f), indicating that the production and consumption of painted pottery at Qurayyah in the first half of the 1st millennium BCE was primarily local.

Painted pottery at al-ʿUlā/Khuraybah/Dadan

Painted pottery found in the al-ʿUlā valley (Madāʾin Ṣāliḥ/Hegra, Tall al-Kathīb, Khayf al-Zahra, Tall Salimīyya, Dadan/Khurayba) is primarily characterized by relatively simple geometric motifs. The monumental statues found by Jaussen and Savignac at Khurayba have been dated to the late 4th–3rd centuries BCE and site occupation was initially considered to have lasted only a few centuries, suggesting that the painted pottery collected on the present-day surface of the site dates to the same period as the statues (Parr et al. 1970: 213). Nonetheless, a local production dating from the early occupation of the site in the 6th or 5th centuries BCE, i.e., before the statues were built, was considered likely (Parr et al. 1970: 213; Parr 1982: 130-131). Stylistic considerations based on excavations by the King Saud University at Dadan led the excavators to split the so-called Khurayba Ware into an older ware, which would have been produced at the time of the Kingdom of Dadan, and a more recent one, produced at the time of the Kingdom of Liḥyān (al-Saʿid et al. 2018: 140). A local production of painted pottery as far back as the early 1st millennium BCE was recently confirmed by radiocarbon dates from Tall Salimīyyah, ca. 450 m NW of Dadan (Rohmer et al. 2022: 172). While the heterogeneity of fabrics, shapes and decors points to the likely existence of various groups or phases of local painted pottery (Fig. 6), they cannot yet be clearly identified by the available data. The suggestion that the painted pottery from Khurayba could be a late derivative of the “Edomite”/Busayra Painted Ware/Southern Transjordanian-Negev Pottery of southern Transjordan (Parr 1982: 131) seems to be disproved by new chronological data, as well as by a reassessment of older data pertaining to both painted groups. Rather, the production of painted pottery was apparently contemporaneous in both regions (Tebes 2013: 324–329; Rohmer et al. 2022). Up to now, painted pottery from al-ʿUlā has not been identified outside its region of production, suggesting primarily local consumption

5th–1st centuries BCE

The second half of the 1st millennium BCE corresponds in NW Arabia to the development of the Lihyanite kingdom, supposedly centred in Dadan. The precise chronology and the extent of Lihyanite territory have yet to be clarified, but work carried out at Hegra is beginning to shed more light on the pottery of this period. Indeed, the pottery groups from the ancient levels of the city, dated between the late 5th/early 4th centuries BCE and the last third of the 1st century BCE, are quite comparable to the pottery material unearthed at Umm Daraj, a Lihyanite high place sanctuary located at the top of a rocky outcrop facing the site of Dadan (Durand & Bauzou 2022). Three main categories of local or regional productions can be distinguished in the al-ʿUlā area, which is for now the best-known region in NW Arabia for this period. The largest group identified so far only in the al-ʿUlā region consists of vessels characterized by a reddish fabric, sometimes with a dark grey core, and a white slip on the exterior (Fig. 7: c–d; Durand & Bauzou 2022: fig. 7). The fabric included vegetal temper, which gives a porous aspect to the pottery, leaving elongated vacuoles visible in the section and on the surface. Common vessel shapes are large storage jars/pithoi, bowls of various profiles, as well as a few cooking-pots. A second group of coarse ware is present in smaller quantities, and is characterized by its pale-pinkish to beige fabric, with coarse mineral inclusions of various colours (Fig. 7: a–b; Durand & Bauzou 2022: fig. 6). At Taymāʾ, a similar fabric (“Macrofabric 3”) shows the same kind of clay preparation and is related to similar vessel shapes (Tourtet & Müller 2011: figs. 1–2; Tourtet et al. 2021: 67–68, fig. 13). The last category consists in fragments of so-called pilgrims’ flasks with a very fine, whitish to beige fabric, usually slightly burnished on the exterior, with a light-greyish core or internal wall and characterized by numerous very small white mineral inclusions (Fig. 7: e–g; Durand & Bauzou 2022: fig. 5). Exact parallels have been found in Dadan (e.g., al-Shehry 2014: 122 fig. 5 no. 10, 134–135 figs. 17–18 nos. 34–35, 149 fig. 32 no. 64, 256 fig. 144 no. 161), Taymāʾ, and Qurayyah. The place of production of these vessels has yet to be confirmed but a Southern Levantine origin is suspected (Tourtet et al. in press). In addition to these regional productions, we must mention the presence of Mediterranean imports from the Aegean region. Hellenistic “black glazed” ware has been found in Tall al-Kathīb (al-Zahrani 2007: 165), Dadan (al-Saʿid & al-Ghazzi 2013: 120–124; al-Theeb 2013: 173), Hegra (Durand & Gerber 2014: 162–163, fig. 9, A) and Taymāʾ (Tourtet et al. 2021: 68, fig. 13a, j–m & 70). Moreover, many fragments of Rhodian amphorae, including two stamped handles, were found in Hegra (Durand & Bauzou 2022: fig. 8; Durand & Gerber 2014: 163–164, fig. 9, B-C), as well as two stamped handles in Dadan (al-Saʿid & al-Ghazzi 2013: 124). Lastly, evidence of contacts with the Nabataean kingdom is detectable as early as the 2nd century BCE in Hegra (Durand & Gerber 2022: 379), but also further north in al-Badʿ (Charloux et al. 2021: 115, fig. 14) and in Taymāʾ (Tourtet & Weigel 2015: 391, fig. 5/b & 9/b-f), through the presence of imported early painted bowls from Petra (Schmid phase 1).

1st century BCE – early 2nd century CE

The 1st century BCE saw the Nabataean expansion towards the south. In the mid-1st century BCE, contacts between Petra and the region of al-Badʿ (Charloux et al. 2021: 118, fig. 18) and al-Quṣayr (Fiema et al. 2020: 90–91, plates 6.7.e & 6.8.a) are attested. In al-Quṣayr, on the Red Sea coast, a monumental triclinium was identified, associated with Nabataean fine (Fig. 8: a–f) and common ware (Fig. 8: g–k), imported from Petra and dated to between the mid-1st century BCE and the early 1st century CE. In addition, the settlement yielded numerous fragments of Mediterranean and Egyptian amphorae, in particular a large quantity of Italian Dressel 2–4, probably imported from Myos Hormos, on the opposite shore (Fiema et al. 2020: 90, plate 6.7.c–d; Fig. 8: l–n). Further north, at the entrance of the Gulf of Aqaba, Nabataean painted fine ware was also reported from the coastal site of ʿAynūna, dated between the end of the 1st century BCE/early 1st century CE and the 2nd century CE (Gawlikowski 2022: fig. 8). In Dūmat al-Jandal, both the deep soundings in the city centre (Loreto 2012: 175–176, fig. 10/A.4–7) and the large triclinium unearthed on the surrounding heights (Charloux et al. 2016: 19–20, fig. 6) yielded Nabataean painted and unpainted fine ware from Petra dated to the late 1st century BCE/early 1st century CE (Fig. 9: a–e), associated with local pottery productions such as plain bowls (Fig. 9: f–i) and large storage jars/pithoi with incised decoration (Fig. 9: j).

In Hegra, the main Nabataean city in the region which supposedly marked the southern border of the kingdom, an increase in imports of fine wares from Petra (Fig. 10: d) can be observed from the last third of the 1st century BCE, alongside the appearance of a specific, probably local production of fine painted bowls imitating Petra’s productions (Fig. 10: b; Durand & Gerber 2014: 159–161, fig. 7; Durand & Gerber 2022: 380–386, fig. 4). Among the repertoire of common ware vessels, some seem to have been imported from Petra (Durand & Gerber 2014: 162, fig. 8/A–E), but the majority seem to have been produced locally (Fig. 10: c), although they sometimes imitate those of Petra. In parallel, a local repertoire continues to exist with a significant quantity of water jars (Fig. 10: a) and storage jars/pithoi (Durand & Gerber 2014: 157–159, fig. 5). A similar pottery facies can be observed in Taymāʾ during this period, with a combination of Nabataean imports from Petra, local imitations of common ware vessels, and a more autochthonous repertoire, comparable to those of Hegra and Dūmat al-Jandal (Tourtet & Weigel 2015; Tourtet et al. 2021: 70–73, fig. 14). Moreover, both in Hegra and Taymāʾ, local productions present technical similarities, in particular a sandy fabric which seems to be an innovation of the Nabataean period (Tourtet & Weigel 2015: 399; Maritan et al. 2017).

2nd-5th centuries CE

From the beginning of the 2nd century CE, the region came under Roman authority and was integrated into the new Provincia Arabia until the mid-4th century CE. Roman presence is particularly well illustrated at Hegra, where the excavations of the Roman fort have yielded large quantities of pottery. In particular, the cooking ware (cooking pots and casseroles, Fig. 11: a, b, c, e, f) is very comparable to that of the Roman sites in the Southern Levant. The same observation can be made in Taymāʾ, where archaeometric analyses have shown that pottery vessels from this period were produced locally, although they are very similar to those of Petra (Maritan et al. 2017).

After the departure of the Roman troops, the site of Hegra remained inhabited until at least the late 4th or the early 5th century CE. Among the ceramic material corresponding to this last phase of occupation, some forms — probably locally produced — are characteristic, such as the carinated cooking pots, sometimes with incised decorations (Fig. 12: a; Charloux et al. 2018: 54 fig. 6, A), or the large piriform jars with four handles and pinched clay strip applied decoration (Fig. 12: e; Charloux et al. 2018: 54 fig. 6, E).

Conclusion: The pottery of northwest Arabian oases, isolated and highly connected places

To date, one of the main features of pottery from NW Arabia is its markedly local character. From the end of the 2nd millennium BCE onwards, and whatever the period, each oasis seems to have developed its own unique pottery repertoire, not found in other NW Arabian oases, except for isolated items. Concurrently, these local productions usually share selected technological, morphological and/or decorative traits with contemporaneous productions from other NW Arabian oases, or occasionally from more distant regions. On the one hand, this interplay of local and regional aspects might be explained by both the strong autochthonous character of the oases and their high connectivity as resting and trading stations within a large network connecting the Arabian Peninsula with more distant regions. They were thus places where not only goods but also ideas and know-how could be exchanged, providing sources of inspiration to potters. On the other hand, it might also reflect the history of archaeological investigations in NW Arabia until now, focusing on larger oases and not investigating/being able to investigate every attested period with the same intensity. The current upsurge of archaeological research in this region of the Arabian Peninsula will surely rapidly contribute to a better understanding of the dynamics at stake in the production and consumption of pottery in NW Arabia in all periods, including the 5th-7th centuries CE, for which the pottery repertoire is still poorly known.

Francelin Tourtet & Caroline Durand

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_{Alternate spellings: Ceramic, Ware, Earthenware, Potsherd, Sherd, Shard}