Qurayyah

Qurayyah is a megasite extending over 300 hectares and is, after Taymāʾ, the second largest urban oasis enclosed by continuous walls ever documented in the Arabian Peninsula. This permanent settlement since the early 3rd millennium BCE developed around a significantly older ceremonial landscape. In the 2nd millennium BCE, Qurayyah was the birth place of the Qurayyah Painted Ware, formerly known as “Midianite Pottery”, attested from the Southern Levant down to the Hejaz. The settlement continued throughout the entire 1st millennium BCE and until the late Roman period.

Location

The site lies east of the Ḥismā range, Hejaz’s eastern foothills; 45 km south of the modern Jordan-Saudi border and 120 km east of the eastern shores of the Red Sea; altitude ca. 800m a.s.l. (Fig. 1).

History of research

Qurayyah has been visited and described by travellers since the turn of the 20th century: in 1906 by B. Mortiz and in 1956 by St J. Philby (Luciani 2016); surveyed in 1968 by P.J. Parr et al. (1970) and as part of the Saudi Arabian Comprehensive Survey by M.L. Ingraham et al. (1981). Surveyed by the Taymāʾ team in 2008 and 2009, it was excavated by King Saud University in 2008. Since 2014 the Qurayyah Joint Archaeological Project of the Heritage Commission (formerly SCTH) of the Saudi Ministry of Culture and the University of Vienna, Austria is carrying out yearly systematic stratigraphic excavations and surveys on the site.

Place name (ancient)

The Bronze and Iron Age name of the settlement is not yet known. An identification with the Classical period site Ostama, mentioned in Ptolemy’s Geography (VI, 7, 27) has been put forward (Musil 1926, 312), but cannot yet be confirmed.

Archaeology

Layout

The foundation and hydrological setup of the river oasis depended on the construction and upkeep of a stone dam (Fig. 2, bottom left), two kilometres upstream from the settlement (Hüneburg et al. 2019). The carefully planned, highly specialized, walled megasite was composed of tightly integrated yet functionally different units (Fig. 3 top): a Rock Plateau, standing 50 m high above its surroundings and monumentalized with cross-walls and towers (Fig. 4); a Connective Area with burials and kilns for pottery production (Fig. 3 bottom); a stone-and-mudbrick walled Residential Area and an Agricultural District with irrigation canals watering an extended expanse of fields. All are encircled by a more than 13-km-long, stone-and-mudbrick wall, outfitted with towers and gates, making this the second largest planned settlement encircled by continuous walls in the entire Peninsula. Some agricultural fields also partially extended beyond the settlement’s enclosure to the north.

Chronology and occupation

Finds such as a flint bowlet (Luciani & Alsaud 2018: fig. 12), ‘jade’ and banded agate adzes and other lithic tools are attributed to the Neolithic period (Parr et al. 1971: fig. 19), whereas Chalcolithic vestiges consist solely of coarse pottery sherds. Neither period has yet yielded proof of permanent occupation.

Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL) provides dates for the city walls enclosing the 300-ha-large site and the dam on the Wādī Ghubay in the early 3rd millennium BCE (Luciani 2021a), i.e., the Early Bronze Age. These dates are confirmed by layers in Area M (Fig. 3 bottom), the semi-circular tower, engaged on the eastern cross-wall on top of the Rock Plateau. Four 14C samples date to the Early Bronze Age III (2900-2600 calBCE). By inference, comparable monumental architecture on the Rock Plateau (western cross-wall and the free-standing tower) should also date to this phase (Fig. 4).

The matching radiometric and OSL measurements date the foundation of the permanent settlement in Qurayyah to the first half of the 3rd millennium BCE (Luciani 2021a), over one thousand five hundred years earlier than previously thought (Parr 1992).

Contiguous to (but most likely preceding) the engaged tower in Area M, stands a circular stone grave used for multiple burials (Fig. 5). The latest human remains date to the 26th–24th centuries calBCE. The burials contain over one thousand beads, ranging from lapis lazuli (Fig. 6), hematite, amazonite, serpentine, rock crystal, green stone, calcite/alabaster, carnelian, mother-of-pearl, cowrie, shell, bone, ivory, clay, faience and Southern Levantine style pottery. It was the resting place of ten adults -mostly female- and three children high-ranking individuals belonging to Qurayyah’s elite.

At the end of the Early Bronze Age (22nd–21st centuries calBCE) the tower (Area M) became the location for the (s)melting and metallurgical production of copper and arsenic bronze artefacts (Fig. 7). Unexpectedly, the copper ore does not seem to originate from the close-by Wādī Faynān, but rather from either Oman or the Arabian Shield (Liu et al. 2015).

Contemporaneous (22nd–20th centuries calBCE) with the metallurgical production on top of the plateau but located at ground level in the Connective Area, are two very elongated, double-chambered stone graves (Areas B and C, Fig. 3 bottom), used through to the Middle Bronze Age (17th–16th centuries calBCE). Both graves (Fig. 8) contain the same Burnished Wares and Barbotine Pottery assemblage (Fig. 9) and hundreds of similar stone, faience, bone and shell beads, but different bronze weapons: five daggers and one spearhead in Area B and one long sword in Area C. Also, the age curve of the buried population is different in the two graves. Stable isotopes seem to confirm the diversity of the interred population. In Area C, bronze crucibles were deposited as burial gifts and it is possible that the deceased were metallurgists in life. The daggers and specific flat-bottomed cooking pots with applied finger-impressed decoration are identical to Middle Bronze Age burial kits in the Southern Levant (Luciani et al. 2018).

By the final Middle Bronze and initial Late Bronze Age (17th–14th centuries calBCE), Qurayyah developed an intensive, almost industrial pottery production. One of the several firing kilns (Area A in the Connective Area, Fig. 3 bottom) proves that the idea for Standard Qurayyah Painted Ware (SQPW, previously called “Midianite Pottery”, Parr 1988), emerged at the site and evolved locally from previous Barbotine Pottery. SQPW (Fig. 10) presents a repertoire of simple ware and bichrome/monochrome painted vessels with geometric, floral and zoomorphic designs, including animals such as the lion and ibex. SQPW echoes but never imitates contemporaneous pottery, such as Jordanian Chocolate-on-White, Levantine and Cypriot Bichrome Wares and Egyptian New Kingdom painted pottery. Approximately half of the repertoire is painted, proving the exceptionally high symbolic value of this ceramic assemblage (Luciani 2023a). After the demise of the pottery kiln, its fire chamber was used as a grave, mostly for children, in the 14th–12th centuries calBCE (Luciani et al. 2018).

Located on the shore of the wadi flowing into Qurayyah’s fields, the mudbrick-and-stone, multi-chamber, funerary complex in Area R (Fig. 3 bottom) belongs to the final Late Bronze Age/initial Iron Age (13th–10th centuries calBCE). Finds include well over one thousand pendants and beads (banded agate, carnelian, rock crystal, mother-of-pearl, stone, glass-paste, faience, shell, painted pottery); ostrich egg; bronze pins; iron bracelets, nails and arrowheads; one Middle Kingdom and one post-Ramesside Egyptian scarab and bichrome/monochrome painted pottery. These are the first ever documented intact elite burials of what scholars dubbed the ‘Midianite period’ (al-Ghazzi 2010). The youngest of these ceramic assemblages (Fig. 11), called Area R Painted Ware (ARPW 3 and ARPW 2), best compares with the Timna site 200 repertory (Rothenberg 2019). Besides well-known motifs such as the lion and ibex, humans, birds, bulls, dogs, fawn, jerbil, fox? and perfume burners are also painted on vessels.

Some ARPW 2 vessels are more coarsely manufactured than the previous assemblage (SQPW), but their genetic link with the older local repertoire is so evident that there is no need to postulate either a derivation from Aegean or Levantine prototypes (Parr 1996), nor a lack of technological know-how, but rather transformations in Qurayyah’s economic and labour organisation.

One room of the funerary complex may possibly have been a sanctuary: it displayed a very ornate stone frieze (Fig. 12) with the oldest depiction of a god (triangular shape with two eyes in the lower left) that looks like the prototype for the later image of the Semitic god Ṣalm, as known from later petroglyphs on Taymāʾ’s Jabal Ghunaym. Together with an upturned ibex, perfume burner, water and a human, this relief illustrates symbolic and material cult correlates and testifies to the outstanding artistic mastery of the oasis masons (Luciani 2021b).

The Area R multi-chambered complex was re-functionalised for burials during the mid-to-late Iron Age (9th–4th centuries calBCE) with finds ranging from granulated gold and banded agate beads, a re-cut ‘jade’ Neolithic adze, local bichrome painted pottery (ARPW 1), a simple ware imitation of a Neo-Assyrian shape, an iron bent dagger, pottery lamps and circular incense burners.

The Iron Age is also attested in two locations in the Residential Quarter. The stratigraphic sounding in a courtyard (Area D, Fig. 3 bottom) of the mid-Iron Age (8th–6th centuries calBCE), uncovered bichrome/monochrome painted pottery (ADPW 2) characterised by geometric, floral and animal motifs, the most prominent among them being the dromedary camel (Fig. 13), as if to underscore its importance in the economic and symbolic arena. In a later phase, the Late Iron Age pottery (ADPW 1) is still mostly bichrome but solely with geometric motifs (Fig. 14). Ostrich egg, beads, iron and alabaster artefacts, stone tools and bronze coins (Luciani & Alsaud 2018) point to a possible jewellery-making facility.

Area N (Fig. 3 bottom) revealed ca. 80 square metres of a dwelling featuring a multi-phase, upper-class stone architecture over multiple storeys, including a stone-paved basement and several parallel rooms used for storage and food preparation. Besides mid-Iron Age pottery, finds include an Egyptian rectangular seal amulet, a square incense burner and on the surface, North Arabian bronze coins from the Hellenistic period Owl series.

The so-called ‘Roman Site’ in the central part of the Agricultural Area was a Classical period water reservoir (Luciani 2019: fig. 14). ‘Nabatean Buildings 1 and 2’ must belong to the same phase (Parr et al. 1970). While this evidence has not been re-investigated, it is clear that the post-Iron Age occupation of Qurayyah never attained the grandiosity of the Bronze and Iron Ages. The settlement was possibly just another stop along the Nabataean caravan route to the Levant (Parr 1992).

The funerary landscape of Qurayyah was an integral part of the site inside the enclosure walls; on the Rock Plateau and in the Connective Area during the Bronze Ages (Areas M, B, C, then Areas A and R), on elevations during the Iron Ages (Area K: 8th–5th centuries calBCE and Area P, Fig. 3 bottom) and in the caves carved at the foot of the plateau in the Nabataean period (Area H: 2nd–first half of 1st centuries calBCE) (Luciani et al. 2018), where preserved leather indicates similar funerary body treatment of the deceased to that attested in Madāʾin Ṣāliḥ.

Almost 200 locations on Qurayyah Rock Plateau (Fig. 4) feature petroglyphs and epigraphs. The iconography ranges from humans, animals and trees to weapons and potential wusum marks. Inscriptions attest to six different types of ancient scripts and languages: Ancient South Arabian, Aramaic, late Dadanitic, Thamudic (Fig. 15), Nabatean and Early Arabic.

Overall historical significance

In the past, Qurayyah was interpreted as a short-lived, final Late Bronze Age foundation by the Midianites, a people attested in the Bible. However, it is now clear that the cultic and funerary landscape of the site originated in the Neolithic and evolved into a megasite in the Early Bronze Age, an urban river oasis with a highly sophisticated irrigation system (Lüthgens et al. 2022), so resilient that, notwithstanding increasing aridification, it thrived for over three millennia.

Qurayyah was a central place in Northern Arabia with recognisable social stratification, an interconnected hub where autochthonous elites used a monumental stela (Luciani 2023b: 36), developed a spectacular architecture towering on top of the Rock Plateau, including a grave with hundreds of precious stones. It was part of a network of similar North Arabian urban oases (Taymāʾ; Khuraybah? in the oasis of al-ʿUlā), a complex settlement that went on to produce its own metal artefacts in the late 3rd millennium BCE and honoured metallurgists with dedicated graves.

Burial practices at Qurayyah were similar to those of the Southern Levant in the Middle Bronze Age and joined the Eastern Mediterranean polities in the production of bichrome painted pottery on an industrial scale in the Late Bronze Age. Connections to the Greater Levant continued until the end of the 2nd and beginning of the 1st millennia BCE, when elite burials displayed a conspicuous assemblage of precious beads and bichrome painted pottery (‘Midianite pottery’), found in large swaths of the Southern Levant (Timna, Barqa el-Hetiye, Amman).

In the ensuing Iron Age, Qurayyah’s innovative thrust kept it interconnected to the Greater Levant and the south of the Peninsula through camel rearing and trade in precious stones and aromata. Pottery production, however, developed and transformed in keeping with local innovative trends.

Marta Luciani

References and suggested readings

• Al-Ghazzi, A.S. 2010. The Kingdom of Midian, in A.I. al-Ghabban et al. (eds) Roads of Arabia. Archaeology and History of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia: 211-216. Paris: Musée du Louvre, Somogy Art Publishers.
• Hüneburg, L., P. Hoelzmann, D. Knitter, B. Teichert, C. Richter C. Lüthgens, A.S. Alsaud & M. Luciani 2019. Living at the wadi – integrating geomorphology and archaeology at the oasis of Qurayyah (NW Arabia). Journal of Maps 15(2): 215–226. DOI: 10.1080/17445647.2019.1576068.
• Ingraham, M.L., T.D. Johnson, B. Rihani & I. Shatla 1981. Comprehensive archaeological survey program: Preliminary report on a reconnaissance survey of the northwestern province (with a note on a brief survey of the northern province). Atlal 5: 59–84.
• Liu, S., T. Rehren, E. Pernicka & A. Hausleiter 2015. Copper processing in the oases of northwest Arabia: technology, alloys and provenance. JAS 53: 492–503. DOI: 10.1016/j.jas.2014.10.030.
• Luciani, M. 2016. Mobility, Contacts and the Definition of Culture(s) in New Archaeological Research in Northwest Arabia, in M. Luciani (ed.) The Archaeology of North Arabia, Oases and Landscapes. Proceedings of the International Congress held at the University of Vienna, 5‐8 December, 2013 (OREA, 4): 21–56. Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften.
• Luciani, M. 2018. Pottery from the “Midianite Heartland”? On Tell Kheleifeh and Qurayyah Painted Ware. New Evidence from the Harvard Semitic Museum, in L. Nehmé & A. al-Jallad (eds) To the Madbar and Back Again: Studies in the Languages, Archaeology, and Cultures of Arabia dedicated to Michael C.A. Macdonald: 392–438. Leiden, Boston: Brill.
• Luciani, M. 2019. Qurayyah, in A. Capodiferro & S. Colantonio (eds) Roads of Arabia: Archaeological Treasures from Saudi Arabia. Catalogue of the Exhibit at Museo Nazionale Romano, Diocletian Baths in Rome: 140–155. Milan: Mondadori Electa S.p.A.
• Luciani, M. 2021a. On the Formation of ‘Urban’ Oases in Arabia: New Perspectives from the North-West, in M. Luciani (ed.) The Archaeology of the Arabian Peninsula 2: Connecting the Evidence. Proceedings of the Workshop held at the 10th ICAANE in Vienna, April 2016 (OREA, 19): 89–118. Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften.
• Luciani, M. 2021b. Canons of Iconography: Water, Animals, Gods and Humans, in C. Bührig et al. (eds) Klänge der Archäologie. Festschrift für Ricardo Eichmann: 277–88. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag.
• Luciani, M. 2023a. Transitions in Material Culture of the 2nd Millennium BCE: The Middle Bronze to Late Bronze Shift seen from Northwest Arabia. In A. Hausleiter (ed.), Material Worlds: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Contacts and Exchange in the Ancient Near East. Proceedings of the Workshop held at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World (ISAW), New York University 7th March 2016: 53-77. Oxford: Archaeopress. DOI: 10.32028/9781803276489.
• Luciani M. 2023b Archaeology in the Land of Midian. Excavating the Oasis of Qurayyah. Biblical Archaeology Review 39(4): 32-39.
• Luciani, M. [in press]. Farther Horizons: The Late Bronze Age to Iron Age Transition beyond the Southern Levant, in M.G. Masetti-Rouault, L. D’Alfonso & R. Hawley (eds) Between the Age of Diplomacy and the First Great Empire in Ancient West Asia (1200‐900 BC): Moving Beyond the Paradigm of Collapse and Regeneration. New York: ISAW Publications [Accepted 2020].
• Luciani, M. & A.S. Alsaud 2018. The New Archaeological Joint Project on the Site of Qurayyah, NW Arabia: Results of the First Two Excavation Seasons. PSAS 48: 165–183. www.jstor.org/stable/45163153
• Luciani, M., M. Binder & A.S. Alsaud 2018. Life and living conditions in NW Arabia during the Bronze Age. First results from the bioarchaeological work at Qurayyah. PSAS 48: 185–200. www.jstor.org/stable/45163154
• Lüthgens, C., M. Luciani, S. Prochazka, G. Firla, B. Rosner, P. Hoelzmann & A.M. Abualhassan 2023. Watering the Desert: Oasis Hydroarchaeology, Geochronology and Functionality in Northern Arabia. The Holocene 2023: 1-19. DOI: 10.1177/09596836231157292.
• Musil, A. 1926. The Northern Ḥeḡâz. A Topographical Itinerary (American Geographical Society, Oriental Explorations and Studies, 1). New York.
• Parr, P.J. 1988. Pottery of the late second millennium B.C. from North West Arabia and its historical implications, in D.T. Potts (ed.) Araby the Blest. Studies in Arabian Archaeology (The Carsten Niebuhr Institute of Ancient Near Eastern Studies Publications 7): 73–89. Copenhagen.
• Parr, P.J. 1992. Qurayya, in D.N. Freedman (ed.) The Anchor Bible Dictonary, vol. V: 594–596. New York.
• Parr, P.J. 1996. Further Reflections on Late Second Millennium Settlement in North West Arabia, in J.D. Seger (ed.) Retrieving the Past. Essays on Archaeological Research and Methodology in Honor of Gus W. Van Beek: 213–218. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns.
• Parr, P. J., G.L. Harding & J.E. Dayton 1970. Preliminary survey in N.W. Arabia, 1968. Bulletin of the Institute of Archaeology (University London) 8/9: 219–241.
• Rothenberg, B. 2019. Late Bronze Age IIB/Iron Age IA Midianite Pottery, in S. Gitin (ed.) The Ancient Pottery of Israel and its Neighbors from the Middle Bronze Age through the Late Bronze Age: 383–400, 444. Jerusalem.

_{Alternate spellings: al-Qurayya, al-Qurayyah, Qurayya, al-Kraje, al-Krajje, Kraia, Greie, Quraiya}