Dhofar Through the Ages

LYNNE S. NEWTON received her doctorate from the University of Minnesota with research on the Iron Age and Islamic periods in the Mahra Governorate of Yemen. Since 2007, she has co-directed excavations at the Medieval port of Al-Baleed and the general archaeological survey of Dhofar. Between 2011 and 2014, she was Curator of Maritime History at the National Museum of Qatar. The author published numerous research articles on Dhofar and the Mahra Governate, including also her doctorate ‘A Landscape of Pilgrimage and Trade in Wadi Masila Yemen’ (2009) and is co-author of the ‘Atlas of Archaeological Survey in Governorate of Dhofar, Sultanate of Oman’ (2013); JURIS ZARINS is retired Professor of Near Eastern Archaeology at Missouri State University. He has excavated sites from the Lower Paleolithic to the Ottoman period in Mesopotamia (Turkey and Iraq) and more recently in the Arabian Peninsula, with a specific focus on the development of pastoral nomadism in Arabia and the origins of the Bedouin. Between 1992 and 2011, he worked in the Sultanate of Oman to uncover the Medieval port of al-Baleed and to conduct a general archaeological survey of Dhofar. The author has published many scientific research articles, including Dhofar: The Land of Incense (2001) and The Domestication of Equids in Ancient Mesopotamia (2014).

• Introduction; 1 The geomorphology and ecology of Dhofar and its larger ecological environs; 2 Prehistoric archaeological chronology in Dhofar prior to the Islamic period; 3 Late Antiquity and Early Islamic trade in the Red Sea, Indian Ocean and the Arabian Gulf; 4 The Medieval city of Zafar. Periods II-IV; 5 Archaeology of Zafar, Periods II-V (950-1700 AD); 6 Al-Baleed ceramic typology; 7 Al-Baleed and the international Indian Ocean trade; 8 The inland trade to the Hadhramaut and East Arabia; The historical chronology of Al-Baleed/Zafar; Suggested readings; Index