Faisal Al-Naimi

This paper briefly summarizes the results of the 2010–2011 archaeological fieldwork at the late eighteenth–twentieth-century abandoned city of al-Zubārah in north-west Qatar. The excavations in five areas inside the town, covering courtyard houses, a suq, a palatial compound, and a midden are discussed.

This paper presents the results and preliminary conclusions of the 2016 season of the Crowded Desert Project, aiming to find out about the nomadic occupation and its relations with the settled peoples in the region. Activities includes extensive and intensive surveys and excavations in the area delimited by the areas of Umm al-Mā’ and Mulayḥa in the North West desert of the Qatar Peninsula. Conclusions so far complement and expand the ideas developed during the pilot season of the project in 2015, but also provide finer chronological detail and a wider coverage of the area of research. The distribution of glass, metal and pottery recovered shows important chronological differences in the patterns of occupation of the landscape. The paper also presents observed differences of spatial distribution of features, showing how cairns (presumably pre-Islamic tombs), Islamic burials and cemeteries and mosques and places of prayer (sing. muṣallā, pl. muṣallayāt) are distributed with respect t...

Summary It is no surprise that the integration of remotely sensed data from both terrestrial and marine sources is improving our discovery and interpretation of cultural heritage. As technological advances provide the capacity to produce and utilize large spatial datasets, their integration with existing data presents new challenges for heritage managers and future researchers. In terms of large datasets, countries such as Qatar are in a unique position given the vast amounts of commercially gathered geophysical and geotechnical data. These data can be used to model past landscapes and inform future research within the region, without the major expense of largescale geophysical survey. However, the true value of such datasets can only be achieved if this leads to the pro-active management and protection of the resource, from designation and curation to forward planning and future research. Over the past year, Qatar has developed a new National Historic Environment Record (known as Q...

Archaeological studies provide a powerful tool to understand the prehistoric societies, especially when combined to cutting-edge morphological and molecular anthropological analyses, allowing reconstructing past population dynamics, admixture events, and socio-cultural changes. Despite the advances achieved in the last decades by archaeological studies worldwide, several regions of the World have been spared from this scientific improvement due to various reasons. The Arabian Gulf represents a unique ground to investigate, being the passageway for human migrations and one of the hypothesized areas in which Neanderthal introgression occurred. A number of archaeological sites are currently present in the Arabian Gulf and have witnessed the antiquity and the intensiveness of the human settlements in the region. Nevertheless, the archaeological and anthropological investigation in the Gulf is still in its infancy. Data collected through archaeological studies in the area have the potent...

“Al Zubarah, as a fortified town linked to settlements in its hinterland, exemplifies the string of urban foundations that rewrote the political and demographic map of the Gulf during the 18th and early 19th centuries through building on the strategic position of the region as a trading conduit. Al Zubarah can thus be seen as an example of the small independent states that were founded and flourished in the 18th and early 19th centuries outside the control of the Ottoman, European and Persian empires. This period can now be seen as a significant moment in human history, when the Gulf States that exist today were founded” (UNESCO World Heritage Committee 37th session, 2013, Phnom Penh, Cambodia).

Ongoing excavations at the site of Al Zubārah, Qatar have revealed a number of images of boats and ships engraved into plaster on walls at the site. The images offer a new insight into the vessels used and encountered by the inhabitants of the settlement, which was occupied chiefly in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This paper presents the vessels within their archaeological contexts, describes their iconographic features, and proposes identifications of their types based on typological comparison with other iconographic evidence. It considers the functions of these craft within the maritime economy of Al Zubārah, and their meaning within the social and cultural life of the settlement. Indigenous depictions of pre-twentieth-century regional watercraft are relatively rare, making the Al Zubārah images a welcome addition to the field of nautical studies in and of the Gulf region. The images have also highlighted tension between iconography and written historical sources. Do some of these images depict an elusive and specific vessel type referred to as the dāw, as some sources suggest? Or should we accept that the familiar but etic term ‘dhow’ is an orientalist placeholder for a rich variety of regional craft? The problem is investigated through British colonial records and historical accounts and iconography.

The presentation will explore the historical development of Doha and Qatar through historical sources, archaeological excavations and ethnographic research (oral histories), through the work of the QNRF-funded Origins of Doha and Qatar project (NPRP 5-421-6-010). The historical perspective will encompass Qatar's involvement in 19th-20th century globalization, when Doha and other Qatari and Gulf towns were drawn ever more closely into international networks. We will demonstrate how the appearance, expansion and florescence of Doha was partly the result of international developments, but was locally and strongly rooted in the booming pearling industry, and the dedication and hard work of the Qatari people. It will show how historic Qatar's society and urban life was rooted in tradition but also outward looking and cosmopolitan, as today. The archaeological aspect will explore the results of joint excavations conducted by Qatar Museums and UCL Qatar in central Doha. The well-preserved buildings and material remains revealed in the excavation testify to the everyday lives of its people. We are able to relate them to the living experiences and memories of Qataris today. The data from the excavations runs from the foundation of Doha in this area up to the period of rapid transition as oil revenues began to make their impact. The ethnographic aspect explores how the historical memories of living Qataris have contributed to their identity, rootedness and their common experience of life in Doha. Oral histories are being gathered by a team of young Qataris who are keen to uncover how their families both shaped and were shaped by Doha, particularly with regard to traditional life in the town and the transition to its vibrant modern form. By referencing the past and drawing out the strands of continuity with the present, this work is creating contemporary cultural value. We consider that Doha's past can be embedded in modern consciousness through museums, online resources and ongoing dialogue with the past through its history, the evolution of its physical fabric and most importantly the experiences of its people. The presentation will specifically relate to Grand Challenge 8 (Holistic and Systematic Assessment of the Rapidly Changing Environment), particularly: &8a: Impact of rapid globalization, economic growth, and wealth on Qatar's national identity, history, customs, religion, education, employment, and adaptive capabilities. &8b: Role of behaviour and culture at multiple societal levels (e.g. individual, family, institutional, national) in change management in the Qatari context. &8e: Ensure that Qatar's rapid development brings cultural value. The aims of Grand Challenge 9 are also relevant (Transition to a Diversified, Knowledge-based society), in that the project provides the resources necessary to build a knowledge-based society.

SUMMARY: Ruwayda was first identified as an archaeological site in the 1970s and was excavated between 2009 and 2014. Despite a paucity of documentary evidence, this large settlement, which extends over an area of more than 90 hectares, contains a number of features indicative of an urban settlement including two mosques, a series of warehouses, a large multi-period fort, large courtyard houses interspersed with smaller, less substantial structures and a number of cemeteries. In addition to these buildings, there is also evidence for associated field systems and a walled garden.

Three small stone axes were collected by the joint Qatari-German South Qatar Survey Project (SQSP) at two places close to the eastern and western coast of Qatar in autumn 2012. Associated with settlement remains, flint artefacts and pieces of ʿUbaid pottery, the implements have been dated to the fifth millennium BCE. Non-destructive μ-XRD2 and μ-XRF analyses could, for the first time, prove the use of hematite as the raw material for the manufacture of these tools in Arabia. The absence of major hematite sources in the region and the special characteristics of hematite — a unique metallic shine of polished pieces and the blood-red colour that appears during the manufacturing process — suggest the highly symbolic character of these objects.

The seeming lack of evidence for a Palaeolithic presence in Qatar has been an incongruous conundrum. This has now changed. Our preliminary analysis of lithic assemblages: QSS25; QSS29 (PADMAC Unit, Scott-Jackson, et al., 2014); A-group Site 1 and A-group Site III (Kapel,1967), revealed the presence of large chopping tools and crude ‘Abbevillian’ cores, both indicative of an early stage within the Lower Palaeolithic, while the absence of classic Acheulean handaxes might suggest a date exceeding one million years. The particular suite of technological traits we identified in the (Umm Taqa), B-group Site XXXIV (Kapel) assemblage, are characteristic of Middle-Upper Palaeolithic transitional industries found in the Levant, Nile Valley, and southern Arabia. Hence, we tentatively assign the ‘Taqan’ industry to the Upper Palaeolithic. This is the first site with classic Upper Palaeolithic features discovered in Arabia. Specific QSS32 (PADMAC Unit) lithics, allude to further ‘Taqan’ sites in...

Archaeological survey by the Qatar National Historic Environment Record Project (QNHER) in 2009, led to the discovery of a Neolithic flint scatter, a settlement and an ancient, raised shoreline associated with higher, mid-Holocene sea levels at Wādī Ḍebayʿān, north-western Qatar (Al-Naimi et al. 2010, 2011; Cuttler, Tetlow & Al-Naimi 2011). The QNHER project is a collaboration between Qatar Museums and the University of Birmingham, which over the past five years has developed a national geospatial database for the recording of archaeological sites and historic monuments in Qatar. A significant aspect of the project involved archaeological survey and excavation in advance of major construction projects. Between 2012 and 2014 excavations at Wādī Ḍebayʿān revealed a burial of a typology previously unknown in Qatar, the unmarked graves (Cuttler, Al-Naimi & Tetlow 2013).

Abstract The Qatar National Historic Environment Record (QNHER) Project, developed by the University of Birmingham in collaboration with Qatar Museums, has been working in Qatar for five years helping to develop the country’s archaeological resource management. The need to develop a robust system to deal with development control is vital in Arabia, which boasts some of the most rapid and intensive development and construction in the world. Qatar is developing at such a rapid rate that, if left unchecked, it could destroy much of the nation’s heritage, whether it is known or unknown. Legislation cannot be the end of heritage protection but merely the starting point. The QNHER has developed a bespoke software package to manage the historic environment that enables heritage professionals to have control over geographical information system (GIS) functions such as a spatial database, map building, or thematic mapping. The introduction of this software has had a major impact on how Qatar manages its cultural heritage resources and is making significant changes to archaeological resource management in the country. This paper will discuss the approaches that have been taken in Qatar to develop modern systems for archaeological resource management which include the heritage professional in development control and enable them to manage the historic environment.

The petroglyph site in Jabal Jassasiyah Qatar is located approximately 60 km northeast of the capital city of Doha and has over 900 different types of petroglyphs. The most commonly found petroglyphs are cupules, which are almost always arranged in geometric patterns. A number of petroglyphs of boats are also found, usually seen from above, with a few seen in profile. As there is little evidence of what age to assign to these petroglyphs, samples of the calcium oxalate containing layers covering the petroglyphs were sent for radiocarbon dating to determine the minimum age they were created. The minimum ages of nine samples taken for analysis were found to be very short, the oldest minimum age being only 235 years BP (before present). No evidence was found for the petroglyphs dating back a few millennia as was previously postulated. Due to the lack of chronological data for Qatar’s archaeological past, the study data cannot completely rule out the petroglyphs dating back to ancient t...

Tomb ZKT109 in the Oasis of Zukayt (al-Dākhilyyah, Sultanate of Oman) yielded a small biconical Mesopotamian jar (dated to Jemdet-Nasr/Early Dynastic I–II period; c.3100–2700 BC) made of fine, buff-coloured paste. The vessel is entire and well preserved apart from severe abrasion of the external surface. This find testifies to the penetration of southern Mesopotamian material culture (or to the contextual production of local imitations) into central Oman during the first half of the third millennium BC.

The first season of the Crowded Desert Project has been made possible thanks to the generous funding of UCL Qatar and the Qatar Foundation and the enthusiastic support of Qatar Museums. Future work proposed in this paper will be carried out with the support of the Qatar National Research Fund, which has awarded the undersigning team with a National Priorities Research Program grant (NPRP8-1582-6-056). Many UCL Qatar students and other volunteers supported the Project with their work during the 2015 season and our thanks go to them. Equally, the good disposition of shepherds, hunters, and passers-by in the desert was instrumental in achieving the exciting results of this season.

إن الحفاظ على صورة منقوشة في الصخر سلوك بشري عالمي موجود في معظم مناطق العالم. فالنقوش الصخرية هي صور محفورة على أسطح الصخور لأغراض مختلفة، تُكوَّن عن طريق إزالة الصخور السطحية. لهذا يهدف هذا البحث إلى دراسة وتصنيف الأشكال والرموز المنقوشة على الصخور في ثمانية مواقع أثرية في قطر، ومناقشة تاريخ نحتها، وكذلك توجيه الانتباه إلى الحاجة الملحة إلى الحفاظ عليها وحمايتها من الاندثار.