Morning session - part 1 9:15-10:45
Contents of Early Vessels in the Eastern Gulf: Organic Residue Analysis of Sixth-Fifth Millennia BC Imported Mesopotamian Vessels in South-Eastern Arabia
Akshyeta Suryanarayan (1) - Sophie Méry (2) - Nuria Moraleda Cibrian (3) - Joan Villanueva Ribes (3) - Martine Regert (4)
University of Oxford, Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, Oxford, United Kingdom (1) - CNRS, UMR 7041, Archéologies et sciences de l’Antiquité (ArScAn), Nanterre, France (2) - Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain (3) - CNRS, CEPAM, Université Côte d'Azur, Nice, France (4)
Keywords: Southeastern Arabia, ‘Ubaid pottery, Lipid residues
The earliest known pottery vessels in south-eastern Arabia are Mesopotamian in origin, known as ‘Ubaid or black-on-buff pottery, and date from the late sixth to the mid-fifth millennium BC. At this time, aceramic Middle Neolithic Arabian populations were mostly mobile; engaging in hunting, gathering, fishing and herding. They were also navigating around the Persian Gulf coast, exchanging products such as softstone, obsidian, haematite, livestock and pottery, with ‘Ubaid pottery either being exchanged directly or down-the-line with Mesopotamian communities. It is also hypothesised that ‘Ubaid pottery and/or the products within them carried connotations of prestige in Middle Neolithic Arabian communities, and were used in specific contexts to display wealth and/or status while serving food. As the possession and exchange of pottery was possibly a “profoundly symbolic and political act”, ‘Ubaid pottery may have been linked to new means of wealth accumulation and display, redistributed in acts of ceremonial gift-giving or exchange at communal or feasting events. This poster will present the results of organic residue analysis of ‘Ubaid vessels from two coastal sites in south-eastern Arabia, Akab and Umm al-Quwain 2, to discuss the contents detected within ‘Ubaid pottery and raise questions about ‘what pottery was good for’ for aceramic Middle Neolithic coastal Arabian communities. As indigenous pottery production in southeastern Arabia only began a millennia later in the third millennium BC, the results provide unique insight into the symbolic role of ceramics for a mobile population.
