5th International Seminar on the Archaeology of the Arabian Peninsula

Material culture within the Arabian Peninsula is still a growing field of research, particularly regarding the study of the artefacts dated within the end of the Sassanian empire to the Abbasid area. Since the 1960s and 1970s, archaeologists have proposed numerous hypotheses for a better understanding of the exchange networks, typologies of objects and their dating. Beyond the typological works, new research focused on chemical characterisation and function with a developing interest for their context location in domestic habitats or other types of occupations. The accumulation of recent data, pooled by the numerous archaeological missions, on the fields or in laboratories, allows us to a further comprehension of material culture in Arabian Peninsula, for the Late Antiquity until the beginning of the Medieval period.

This International Seminar represents an opportunity for researchers, working in and around the Peninsula, to present or answer many pending issues. Whether related to matters of typology, dating and provenance of artefacts or comparisons between the uses of materials in different archaeological sites. This gathering will allow the discussion between specialists of the different types of objects (pottery, glass, stoneware, metalwork, stucco) but also to propose a global synthesis on the material culture.