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In this paper a new petrographic study of ceramics from the late antique to the early Islamic period in the Gulf is presented. The paper considers samples from Siraf (Iran), excavated by David Whitehouse (from the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK), samples from the Iranian coast (recovered by Andrew Williamson, Durham University, UK), and samples from Fulayj, Oman (excavated by a team co-directed by Seth Priestman, Nasser Al-Jahwari, Eve MacDonald, and Derek Kennet). The technique of analysis is petrography, which offers compositional (mineralogy and petrology) and textural information (distribution and arrangement of inclusions). This technique can be used to interpret the technological procedures involved in the manufacturing of ceramics and to characterize products from particular areas, thus helping to clarify trends of distribution of wares across time. The samples of these collections have been classified according to Priestman's Indian Ocean Pottery Classification (IOPC; Priestman 2021), providing an important link between macroscopic and microscopic analyses. The results are also compared with samples previously analysed from Murwab and the Old Doha excavations, providing an overview of the production technology and exchange of ceramics in the early Islamic Gulf over the longue durée. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has long been considered that the authors of the earliest Islamic Arabic documents did not write hamzah, a sign for the glottal stop. For instance, the Qur'ān was compiled with an orthography representing the Hijazi dialect, which lacked hamzah. After the expansion of Islam to those speaking other Arabic dialects and to non-Arabs, hamzah was added to some Qur'ān manuscripts as coloured dots, but a universal rule did not exist. Hamzah only came to be written consistently after the new scripts, such as Thulth, gained popularity on paper in the eleventh century. However, during the last decade a new group of hamzah, referred to as 'proto-hamzah', was discovered in early Islamic inscriptions and graffiti. At present, twelve examples of hamzah that belong to this group are known. This paper introduces a new example of proto-hamzah in Wādī al-Khirqah, Saudi Arabia, which differs in appearance from any existing example. By analysing the new material, as well as the existing proto-hamzah, in its historical and geographical contexts, the position of proto-hamzah in the development of Arabic orthography will be reconsidered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper outlines some of the research goals and methodological objectives of the Maritime Endangered Archaeology (MarEA) project, taking the maritime and coastal archaeology of the Kingdom of Bahrain as a case study. The Arabian Gulf's exponential population growth and fast rate of urban development, particularly in the coastal margins, has had a profound impact on the maritime cultural heritage (MCH) of the region and in particular, on the coastal heritage of the Kingdom of Bahrain over the last decades. Therefore, the need to document and assess threats to the maritime and coastal archaeology of the island has never been so urgent. MarEA aims to document and record submerged and coastal archaeology of the Middle East and North Africa, through the analysis of satellite imagery, extant datasets, and literature, working closely with local partners. The project evaluates disturbances and threats acting upon the cultural heritage. It does so by consolidating the information in EAMENA's (Endangered Archaeology in the Middle East and North Africa project) open-access database. This paper highlights MarEA's methodology by demonstrating an analysis of threats and changes that have destroyed, impacted, or continue to impact maritime cultural heritage sites in Bahrain, including Qal'at al-Bahrain, the coastal towns of Manama and Muharraq, and offshore sites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Murwab is one of the most important early Islamic archaeological villages in the Arabian Peninsula and the Persian Gulf, and one of the best-known. Excavated since the 1950s, the site has yielded a complete pottery assemblage which allows the site to be dated from the late eighth to the late ninth century AD. This paper presents an analysis of the ceramics of Murwab. The analysis is undertaken on a selection of 134 pottery sherds of common ware/'kitchen' ware without glaze and encompasses a petrographic study and elemental analysis using wavelength dispersive X-ray fluorescence spectrometry (WDXRF). The results of the petrographic analysis and some preliminary thoughts on the chemical analysis are discussed in the text. Twelve ceramic fabrics have been detected in the assemblage studied. The composition of the fabrics allows some preliminary suggestions about provenance to be drawn: none of the fabrics was locally made in Qatar and most of them seem to come from Mesopotamia, eastern Arabia, and southern Iran. The technology of the ceramics reveals an approach to the manufacture of common wares that is characteristic of the Upper and Central Gulf (corresponding roughly to the Gulf coast west of the Musandam Peninsula, including Khuzestan and Bushehr in Iran). It is not known when this technological approach started, but it does not seem to be documented in the Bronze Age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Al-Mudhaybi Regional Survey seeks to produce a detailed and comprehensive knowledge of the landscape of the Al-Mudhaybi region in Central Oman. This paper presents the results of the 2020 field season, in which transects throughout the survey area were field-walked. The transects were equally spaced, at 4 km distance from each other, and ran north to south. Each transect was walked by a team of four, recording all surface finds with a hand-held GPS device. This method helped to identify more ephemeral structures, such as find scatters, thus providing statistically relevant data on site and artefact density in the region and, ultimately, on the settlement pattern and its diachronic development. At the southern end of the first transect completed in 2020, an Iron Age settlement was recorded near Sinaw. Additionally, this paper discusses small excavations carried out at three sites -- Al-Batha, Mukhtru, and Al-Fath -- which were conducted to provide a more precise chronology for them by radiocarbon dating. While radiocarbon dates on charcoal from the Mukhtru settlement site fall well into the Umm an-Nar period (2450-2050 BC), radiocarbon dates and pottery sherds from the presumably third-millennium BC tower at Al-Fath clearly indicate a reuse in the middle and late Islamic periods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]