A re-evaluation of stratigraphic and ceramic evidence from the Bronze and Iron Age site of al-Ṣināʿiyyah at Tayma in Saudi Arabia

• Main Author: Alonazi, Majed Turki F.
• Published: Durham University 2018
• Subjects: 930
• Online Access: https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.753822

This work investigated the ceramics from Ṣināʿiyyah site in Tayma Area. In particular, this study aimed to determine their types, source and chronology. Also, it aimed to find out their distribution within and outside Tayma Area, in order to increase our knowledge of the history of Tayma and its contacts. Hausleiter (2014) has classified Tayma ceramics into a number of groups, of which four of groups are attested in Ṣināʿiyyah assemblage. The features and the suggested dates for these ceramics were reviewed below. Moreover, several excavations have been conducted at Ṣināʿiyyah, and a large number of ceramics were derived from these excavations. However, the ceramics in the published reports are very few, and very important information related to these ceramics is not avialable. Therefore, new excavations in Ṣināʿiyyah were expected to provide significant results regarding the sequences and the dating of these ceramics. For these reasons, as the main part of the current study, two new excavations were conducted in Ṣināʿiyyah site. The ceramics derived from these excavations were divided into six groups based on their physical attributes. These groups were made up of three types of fabric which, according to previous petrographic studies, are related to the geology of Tayma, and may therefore have been made there. Ceramics parallel to the Ṣināʿiyyah groups were also attested in several sites in Tayma, north-west of Arabia and southern Levant. Based on integrating the stratigraphic evidence and C14 dates from our excavations at Ṣināʿiyyah, together with the evidence from the other sites where these groups were found, the six groups from Ṣināʿiyyah were dated (in general) between the early 2 nd millennium BC to the 10 th -5 th century BC. According to the suggested dating and distribution for each group of ceramics, the contact between Tayma and Qurayyah is suggested to have started from the early 2 nd millennium BC and endured more than ten centuries. Whereas, there is evidence which indicates that Tayma was in direct contacts with south Levant and Egypt during the Early Iron Age.