http://www.antiquities.org.il/articles/pdf/ofer1.pdf

Desert kites in the Negev desert and northeast Sinai: their function, chronology and ecology.

As a historian of the late Roman/early Islamic Middle East I read enviously the publications available to historians of western Europe for the same period, such as those by Patrick Geary, Walter Pohl, Peter Heather and others, which treat so well the Roman interaction with and integration of the ‘western barbarians’.1 Geary’s point regarding the Franks that ‘their very existence as well as every phase of their history makes sense only within the context of Roman presence in northern Europe, for their genesis as a people and gradual transformation into the conquerors of much of Europe were from the start part of the Roman experience’2 has long struck me as pertinent to understanding the rise of the Muslim Arab Empire. Yet sadly no such studies have been composed treating the same subject in respect of the ‘eastern barbarians’, i.e. the tribes on Rome’s eastern frontier, and these tribes never get more than the briefest of mentions in survey works on the Roman/medieval Mediterranean world. Irfan Shahid has done the great service of laying the groundwork with his exhaustively documented volumes on Byzantium and the Arabs,3 but no one has used these to produce a narrative/discursive study à la Geary or Pohl. Unable to claim to be intrinsic to the formation of Europe,4 these ‘eastern barbarians’ still suff er from a lack of focused attention and from a lingering sense that their role in the history of the late Roman Empire was minimal.5 Arabists are less likely to think along these lines, but they

From Hellenism To Islam: Arab kings, Arab tribes and the beginnings of Arab historical memory in late Roman epigraphy

Settlement, Land Use and Water Management Systems in Roman Arabia: an Integrated Archaeological Approach School of Archaeology and Ancient History, Leicester The aim of this thesis is to gain a greater understanding of water management systems, land use and settlement patterns in Roman Arabia. Using an integrated approach, based on Geographical Information Systems (GIS), archaeological data, historical sources, landscape and surface survey this thesis explores the application of water management systems, particularly those technologies used to capture and control floodwater. This information is then used to address some the major issues and models which have been postulated to account for, or contribute to, the settlement of marginal regions of the Levant during the Roman period. Many theories proposed in the recent past have attempted to explain the development of these peripheral zones, and these range from climate change, population increase, growth in trade and economy, through to imperialism and Romanization. The first part of this thesis critically assesses the range of evidence on which many key arguments have been constructed, and clearly shows that much of it is incomplete and/or inadequate to explain such a complex phenomenon. Using the site of Wadi Faynan, Jordan, as a case study, it has been demonstrated that the study of water management systems has provided a great deal of information with which to understand the dynamics present in the occupation, development and abandonment of marginal sites. Furthermore, an analysis of the regional evidence has emphasized the regional diversity of Roman Arabia and the major factors affecting such diversity. In particular, the innovative use of a GIS has provided a clear analytical tool with which to model large amounts of complex data, and move towards exciting new interpretations and new applications of such technology.

Settlement, land use and water management systems in Roman Arabia : an integrated archaeological approach

Re-examination of known Roman roads and milestones, and of new evidence for both in north-east Jordan, has considerably improved on a survey of the same area published in 1982. The present study brings together published accounts from the intervening years, presents new data from fieldwork and air photographic analysis, and offers some suggestions for future investigations and academic priorities in this region.

Roman roads and routes in north-east Jordan

In an arid land water is vital. Mere rainfall is the only source of water, humans long ago found methods of collecting and concentrating it to supply their own needs and those of their stock and crops. Jordan is a region in which the methods used can be seen widely, not least in the fertile but ill-watered regions of the Southern Hauran along the border with Syria. This study explores water collection and use with special reference to two sites in that region, Deir el-Kahf and Umm el-Quttein. The data arise from fieldwork and the scrutiny of air photographs not normally available for Middle Eastern countries, and from comparison with evidence in other arid regions. The result is an insight into how water was collected, the potential of the enterprise, and its influence on both the location, extent, and morphology of individual sites, and on settlement patterns in general.

Water Supply and Use in the Southern Hauran, Jordan

Southern Hauran Survey 1995

The survey area extends from just west of Sabha to Dair al-Qinn in the east; and from the Syrian frontier south to the Baghdad Highway. Following a preliminary season in 1985, a season of fieldwork in 1992 extended the field survey over a wider area around the expedition base in Umm al-Quttain, experimented with the use of air photos of the region, and undertook a small scale excavation in Quttain on a circuit wall believed to be that of a Roman fort and from which it was hoped to obtain stratified pottery for application to the survey. The latter involved the recording of a number of important new sites and the air photos proved a valuable tool for prospection and interpretation.

Southern Hauran Survey 1992

Studies in the History of the Roman Province of Arabia: The Northern Sector@@@The Defense of the Roman and Byzantine East: Proceedings of a Colloquium Held at the University of Sheffield in April 1986

Philip Freeman

Papers

Southern Hauran Survey 1995

Southern Hauran Survey 1992

Studies in the History of the Roman Province of Arabia: The Northern Sector@@@The Defense of the Roman and Byzantine East: Proceedings of a Colloquium Held at the University of Sheffield in April 1986

Mining the mosaics of Roman Zeugma