Dr. J.L. Swerida
RMO: Leemanszaal (begane grond) & online
The Early Bronze Age of southeast Arabia (ca. 3200-2000 BC) is understood as a time of growing social complexity and increasingly sedentary lifeways. In the prevailing archaeological model conceptualizing this process, oases are viewed as pivotal nodes of concentrated resources and social interactions that were the primary stages for developments in cultural practice, agriculture, technology, and economic exchange. The privileging of oases in this model, however, risks introducing biases – terminological, chronological, and experiential – into interpretations of early Arabian complexity. Drawing on case studies from the archaeological landscape of the Bat UNESCO World Heritage Site in northwest Oman, this presentation problematizes the concept of oases in ancient studies broadly and in southeast Arabia in particular.
Bat is celebrated for its diverse assortment of third millennium BC tombs, tower monuments, and domestic structures situated in and around a modern date palm oasis. Early Bronze Age archaeological remains are also found dispersed across the ecologically diverse ‘greater’ Bat landscape, within a day’s walk of the oasis center. Viewing this as an anthropogenic space that developed in tandem with the communities that engaged with it, research by the Bat Archaeological Project works to contextualize the Bat oasis within its wider cultural landscape. The presentation details the project’s in progress research and discusses its implications for scholarly understanding of Early Bronze Age complexity in southeast Arabia.
Jennifer Swerida is universitair docent Archeologie van West-Azië aan de Universiteit Leiden.
De NINO/EOL-najaarslezing is een hybride lezing. Kom naar het Rijksmuseum van Oudheden (Leemanszaal) en drink na afloop samen met ons een drankje. Of volg de lezing online via livestream. Er wordt geen opname gemaakt; het is niet mogelijk de lezing later terug te kijken.