Thāj

The largest pre-Islamic archaeological site in Eastern Arabia, Thāj, was a major trade centre on the trans-Arabian caravan route linking South Arabia to Babylonia. Archaeological excavations indicate that it was founded in the 4thor 3rd cent. BCE and remained settled until the 6th or 7th cent. CE. It is still mentioned as a village or watering place in sources from the Umayyad and Abbasid periods.

Located 90 km west of the Gulf coast and the port of al-Jubayl, in a shallow north-south depression known as Wādī al-Miyāh (Valley of Waters), Thāj is by far the largest pre-Islamic site known in Eastern Arabia (fig. 1). It is located on the ancient caravan route running from al-Hufūf (see Hagar) to Kuwait and Baṣra through Wādī al-Miyāh – a stretch of the great trans-Arabian trade route which linked South Arabia to Babylonia, probably since Antiquity (Potts 1990: 33–34). Furthermore, it is connected to al-Jubayl and the Gulf coast by an old camel trail recently turned into a paved road (darb al-kunhurī).

The site lies on the southern edge of a large sabkha that is flooded in the winter until the end of spring (Mandaville 1963; Potts 1990). It covers ca. 600 ha in total and is composed of three parts (fig. 2). Its most distinctive feature is a ca. 38-ha-walled area in the shape of an irregular trapezoid, surrounded by a massive, ca. 5-m-thick fortification wall which is still visible on the ground for most of its course (fig. 3). The northern two-thirds of this walled area lie under the modern village of Thāj and its palm grove, but its southern third (expropriated and fenced off since the 1980s) features hundreds of wall lines, which represent the last architectural stratum of the ancient city (fig. 4). The second part of the site is an extramural suburb stretching ca. 10 ha to the southeast of the walled city, with levelled remains of large buildings, some of which seem to have had, at some point in time, a commercial or industrial function (Rohmer et al. 2018; Rohmer 2019; fig. 5). A huge necropolis surrounds the built-up area, except to the north where the sabkha lies (fig. 6). This necropolis is composed of burial mounds ranging in diameter from 10 to 60 m, and of shallow ring-mounds, 15 to 50 m in diameter, covered with fragments of white chalky limestone ('white circles'; see Laguardia et al. 2019).

Based on excavations carried out in 1968 (Bibby 1973), 1983 (Gazdar et al. 1984), the site is generally considered to have been settled from the 4th or 3rd cent. BCE to the late 1st or early 2nd cent. CE, with only sporadic, small-scale reoccupations in the 3rd and 4th centuries CE (Potts 1993; Kennet 2007: 95). New excavations launched in 2016 by a Saudi-Dutch-French project, however, suggest a longer occupational sequence, up to the late 6th or mid-7th cent. CE in some areas (Rohmer et al. 2018; Rohmer 2019), lending substance to the mentions of Thāj in two pre-Islamic poems dated to the mid/late 6th cent. CE (see complete references in Mandaville 1963: 16-17). Archaeologically, later occupations are only documented by graves and stray pottery finds, but written sources from the Umayyad and Abbasid periods still mention Thāj as a village or a watering place (Mandaville 1963: 17-19). A series of funerary gravestones found near the neighbouring village of al-Ḥinna suggest the existence of a local Nestorian Christian community, but evidence for an ancient church in Thāj itself remains very uncertain (Langfeldt 1994: 44-51).

During this long history, the major phase of urban development seems to have taken place quite early, probably in the 3rd cent. BCE when the city wall was built. The discovery of an aristocratic child burial with rich offerings under a 45-m-wide tumulus points to the continued existence of a wealthy social elite with international trade connections until at least the 1st cent. CE (al-Hashash et al., 2001, 2002, 2005, 2006; fig. 7).

The site has yielded 35 of the 61 Hasaitic inscriptions recorded so far (Rohmer et al. 2018; Al-Said 2019; fig. 8), and six or seven illegible Aramaic texts, including one to four Aramaic/Hasaitic bilinguals (Healey and Bin Seray 1999). According to Robin and Prioletta (2013), two Hasaitic inscriptions from Thāj refer to Characenian kings, suggesting Characenian rule over the site, but their reading and interpretation remain hypothetical (Rohmer et al., 2018: 299–300). The site has also yielded five East Arabian silver coins, imitating the coinage of Alexander the Great, as well as hundreds of debased variants of this coinage, mostly in bronze (Potts 1990: 62–65, 1991, 1994; Callot 2010; al-Zahrani 2014, pls. 44–49; Robin 2016). In the numismatic record, ties with the Characenian kingdom are only illustrated by one copper coin so far (al-Zahrani 2014, pl. 50) – a surprisingly low number, no higher than that of Elymaean (one) and Nabatean (two) coppers found at the site (Potts 1993: 96). Later occupations are only represented by two Sasanian coins, one denarius of Constantine the Great and one Christian token.

In light of the importance of the site, several scholars have suggested identifying Thāj with Gerrha, the famous East Arabian caravan city which Strabo (Geog., XVI, 4, 19), quoting Artemidorus of Ephesus, described as Arabia's wealthiest city with Saba. This hypothesis has notably been advocated by Potts (1984, 1990, pp. 86–90) on topographic and linguistic grounds. It has, however, been challenged by Robin and Prioletta, who locate Gerrha at modern al-Hufūf (Robin and Prioletta 2013; Robin 2016). Alternative identifications for Thāj include Ptolemy's Phigeia (Groom 1982) and the city of grḍ mentioned in a Sabaic inscription from the Sana'a Museum (Robin and Prioletta 2013: 157–158). On this debate, see Gerrha.

Jérôme Rohmer

References and suggested reading

• Bibby, G. 1973. Preliminary survey in east Arabia 1968, Reports of the Danish Archeological Expedition to the Arabian Gulf. Copenhagen: Gyldendal.
• Callot, O. 2010. A new chronology for the Arabian Alexanders, in M. Huth & P.G. Van Alfen (eds), Coinage of the Caravan Kingdoms: Studies in Ancient Arabian Monetization: 383–402. New York: American Numismatic Society.
• Gazdar, M.S., D.T. Potts & A. Livingstone. 1984. Excavations at Thaj. Atlal 8: 55–108.
• Groom, N. 1982. Gerrha. A "Lost" Arabian City. Atlal 6: 97–108.
• al-Hashash, A.M., Z. al-Saif, N.H. Aabdaljabar & M. al-Maliki. 2006. Taqrīr ḥufriyyat Thāj al-athariyya li-ʿam 1422h. Atlal 19: 31–48.
• al-Hashash, A.M., Z. al-Saif, S. al-Hawiji, M. al-Hamadi, S. al-Turki & N. al-Shaikh. 2005. Taqrīr ʿan ḥufriyyat Thāj li-ʿam 1421h. Atlal 18: 31–54.
• al-Hashash, A.M., Z. al-Saif, S.H. al-Sinaa & N.H. Aabdaljabar. 2002. Taqrīr ʿan ḥufriyyat Thāj li-ʿam 1420h / 1999m. Atlal 17: 29–41.
• al-Hashash, A.M., W. al-Zayir, Z. al-Saif, M. al-Hajiri, S. al-Sinaa & N. al-Shaikh. 2001. Taqrīr ḥufriyat Thāj, Tall al-Zāyir, li-mawsim 1419 / 1998. Atlal 16: 37–71.
• Healey, J.F., H. Bin Seray. 1999. Aramaic in the Gulf: Towards a Corpus. Aram 11–12: 1–14. DOI: 10.2143/ARAM.11.1.504450.
• Kennet, D. 2007. The decline of eastern Arabia in the Sasanian period. AAE 18: 86–122, DOI: 10.1111/j.1600-0471.2007.00274.x.
• Laguardia, M., O. Munoz & J. Rohmer. 2019. The necropolis of Thāj (Eastern Province, Saudi Arabia): an archaeological and anthropological approach (poster). PSAS 49: 199–206. https://www.jstor.org/stable/27014150.
• Mandaville, J.P. 1963. Thāj: A Pre-Islamic Site in Northeastern Arabia. BASOR 172: 9–20, DOI: 10.2307/1355711.
• Potts, D.T., 1984. Thaj and the location of Gerrha. PSAS 14: 87–91, https://www.jstor.org/stable/41223016.
• 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. 1991. The pre-Islamic coinage of eastern Arabia. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, University of Copenhagen, The Carsten Niebuhr Institute Publications.
• Potts, D.T. 1993. The sequence and chronology of Thaj, in U. Finkbeiner (ed.) Materialien zur Archäologie der Seleukiden- und Partherzeit im südlichen Babylonien und im Golfgebiet. Ergebnisse der Symposien 1987 und 1989 in Blaubeuren: 87–110. Tübingen: Wasmuth.
• Potts, D.T. 1994. Supplement to The Pre-Islamic Coinage of Eastern Arabia. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, University of Copenhagen. ed, The Carsten Niebuhr Institute Publications.
• Robin, C. 2016. Gerrha d'Arabie, cité séleucide, in F. Duyrat , F. Briquel Chatonnet, O. Picard & J.-M. Dentzer (eds) Henri Seyrig (1895-2013) (Syria, Supplément 3): 231–250. Beirut, Damascus: Presses de l'Ifpo.
• Robin, Ch. J. & A. Prioletta. 2013. Nouveaux arguments en faveur d'une identification de la cité de Gerrha avec le royaume de Hagar (Arabie orientale). Sem. Clas. 6: 131–185, DOI: 10.1484/J.SEC.1.103730.
• Rohmer, J. 2019. Aux marges des mondes hellénistique, parthe et sassanide : la ville caravanière de Thāj (Arabie orientale). Revue Archéologique 67 (Bulletin de la SFAC 2019): 167-176.
• Rohmer, J., A. Al-Jallad, M. al-Hajiri, R. Alkhatib Alkontar, T. Beuzen-Waller, P. Calou, D. Gazagne, K. Pavlopoulos. 2018. The Thāj Archaeological Project: results of the first field season. PSAS 48: 287–302. https://www.jstor.org/stable/45163162
• al-Said, S. 2019. Mudawwanat nuqūsh sharq al-jazīra al-ʿarabiyya. Riyadh: King Saud University Press.
• al-Zahrani, A. 2014. Thāj: dirāsa athariyya maydaniyya (Refereed Archaeological Studies). Riyadh: Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities.