(in Polish) From Justinian to Saladin. An introduction to the archaeology of Late Antique and Early Medieval Syro-Palestine

This course introduces students to various problems of the Late Antique and Early Medieval archaeology of Syro-Palestine. The chronological span of the lecture covers the wide time span from the mid-6th century to the fall of Acre in 1291, and concentrates mainly on the settlement evolution and changing urban space of the selected cities in the region. Also of special interest is the interrogation of two major paradigms in the field of Near Eastern archaeology: the demographic boom of the 6th century and the decline/collapse of the 11th century. Additionally, students will obtain basic knowledge of the material culture of the region, including pottery, glass and numismatic records. This will be used to further explore broader issues such as communal identities and socio-economic structures of Near Eastern society.

The course will take the form of lectures, followed by an open discussion. It aims to tackle the following topics:

Subjects:

I. Introduction

- defining the geographical frames (territories of modern states of Jordan, Israel, Syria, Lebanon and the Palestinian Authority)

- discussion over the various systems of chronology and periodization

- Historical outline: an overview of the main sources

- how to define Late Antiquity

- what is Islamic archaeology?

- some reflections on the state of research

II. How to build an archaeological paradigm: the settlement boom of the 6th century

- the socio-cultural and economic condition of the Greco-Roman cities

- new foundations of the 6th century

- ecclesiastical and administrative architecture

- the phenomenon of Late Antique monasticism (Judea, Negev, Samaria, Southern Jordan)

- the role of the Levant in the Mediterranean trade (amphorae)

- the perspective from the countryside: olive oil and wine production

III. The world of the Madaba map: the religious life of Christians and Jews in Late Antiquity

- the collapse of pagan cults

- various religious groups

- pilgrimage and monasticism

- mosaics, wall paintings and icons

IV. Invisible Conquests: the impact of the Early Islamic conquests of the mid-7th century on the populations of the Levant

- historical outline

- the first Arabic inscriptions

- traces of the Arab conquests in the archaeological evidence

- the impact on the urban structure of Late Antique cites

- continuity in material culture (pottery, glass, numismatics)

- the rise of Islamic architecture

- fiscal and administrative reforms

- the relationship between Muslims and indigenous Christian and Jewish communities

V. From Polis to Madina: the changing landscape of Near Eastern cities during the Byzantine-Early Islamic transition

- the collapse of Late Antique public institutions

- change in the aesthetic approach to the cityscape

- the continuation of sacred space

- the encroachment of the main communication arteries of Late Antique cities

- development of trade and economic prosperity?

VI. Settling the desert: the new Umayyad foundations of the southern Levant

- desert castes in Jordan and Palestine

- palaces and residences

- new cities and new foundations

- change and continuity: Late Antique art in the context of Early Islam

- iconoclasm and Iconophobia

- the fate of Christian communities and churches during the Early Islamic period

VII. Production of goods and labor during Late Antiquity and the Early Islamic period

- mining and metallurgy

- irrigation systems and organization of agriculture

- textiles and clothing production

- patterns of pottery and glass distribution

- olive oil and wine production

VIII. Household archaeology

- the End of the Roman House

- household equipment

- the spatial structure of the Early Islamic house and family

- culinary practices and diet

- social stratification and communal identity

IX. After the earthquake: towards the new reality of the Islamic cityscape

- defining the Abbasid occupation of the southern Levant

- Islamization of the cultural landscape

- transition in the material culture: the disappearance of Late Antique traditions and appearance of new categories of pottery

X. Deconstructing the crisis: towards the new understanding of the 10th and 11th century occupation of the Levant

- environmental crisis

- the age of political instability

- economic crisis and demonetization

- traces of Fatimid occupation in the main cities of the Near East

- the Rise of Early Plain and Painted Handmade Wares

XI. Crusader Landscapes of the Near East

- historical outline and main sources

- Crusaders through the indigenous populations eyes

- new foundations in the Near East

- the impact on the local material culture

- feeding the Crusaders: the evolution of rural landscapes

- the new styles in architecture and art

XII. Diverging paths: the creation of the Middle Islamic society

- castles and their hinterlands

- sugar production: the new face of agriculture

- the new institutions of the Islamic world and a changing image of the Middle Islamic cityscape

XIII. Summary and discussion

General works:

Avni, G.

2014 The Byzantine-Islamic Transition in Palestine. An Archaeological Approach [=Oxford Studies in Byzantium], Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Boas, A.

1999 Crusader Archaeology: the Material Culture of the Latin East. London: Routledge.

Kennedy, H.

1985 From Polis to Madina: Urban Change in Late Antique and Early Islamic Syria. Past & Present 106: 3-27.

Nol, H.

2022 Settlement and Urbanization in Early Islamic Palestine, 7th-11th centuries. Texts and Archaeology Contrasted [Studies in the History of the Ancient Near East]. Abington, Oxon, New York: Routledge.

Magness, J.

2003 The Archaeology of the Early Islamic Settlement in Palestine. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns.

Milwright, M.

2010 An Introduction to Islamic Archaeology. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Pini, N.

2019 Arab Settlements: Tribal Structures and Spatial Organizations in the Middle East Between Hellenistic and Early Islamic Periods. Oxford: Archaeopress.

Taxel, I.

2018 Early Islamic Palestine: Toward a More Fine-Tuned Recognition of Settlement Patterns and Land Uses in Town and Country. Journal of Islamic Archaeology 5(2): 153-180.

2018a Fragile Biography: The Life Cycle of Ceramics and Refuse Disposal Patterns in Late Antique and Early Medieval Palestine (BABESH Annual Papers on Mediterranean Archaeology 35). Paris, Leuven, Bristol: Peeters.

Walmsley, A.

2001 Fatimid, Ayyubid and Mamluk Jordan and the Crusader Interlude, [in:] B. MacDonald, R. Adams and P. Bienkowski (eds), The Archaeology of Jordan, Sheffield: Sheffield University Press, 519-559.

2007 Early Islamic Syria: an Archaeological Assessment. London, Bristol: Duckworth.

Whitcomb, D.

1992 Reassessing the Archaeology of Jordan of the Abbasid Period. Studies in the History and Archaeology of Jordan 4: 385-390.

Short readings

Avni, G.

2011 From Polis to Madina - Revisited. Urban Change in Byzantine and Early Islamic Palestine. Journal of Royal Asiatic Society 21, 301-329.

Brown, R.

2016 Faunal Distribution from the Southern Highlands of Transjordan: Regional and Historical Perspectives on the Representations and Roles of Animals in the Middle Islamic Period, [in:] S. McPhillips and P. D. Wordsworth (eds), Landscapes of the Islamic World: Archaeology, History and Ethnography, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 71-94.

Ellis, S. P.

1988 The End of the Roman House. American Journal of Archaeology 92: 565-576.

Johns, J.

1998 The Rise of the Middle Islamic Hand-Made Geometrically Painted Ware in Bilād al-Shām (11th-13th Century A.D.), [in:] R. P. Gayraud (ed.), Colloque International d'archéologie islamique, IFAO, Le Caire, 3-7 février 1998 [=Textes arabes et études islamique 36], Le Caire: Institut français d'archéologie orientale, 65-93.

Jones, I. W. N .

2018 Rural communities and Labor in the Middle Islamic-period Southern Levant. [in:] A. Yasur-Landau, Y. M. Rowan, E. H. Cline (eds.), The Social Archaeology of the Levant. From Prehistory to the Presence, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 478–491.

Jones, I. W. N., T. E. Levy, and M. Najjar,

2012 Khirbat Nuqayb al Asaymir and the Middle Islamic Metallurgy in Faynan: Surveys of Wadi al-Ghuwayb and Wadi al-Jaziera in Faynan, southern Jordan. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 368: 67-102.

Nol, H.

2015 The fertile desert: Agriculture and copper industry in Early Islamic Arava (Arabah). Palestine Exploration Quarterly 147(1): 49–68.

Walker, B.

2013 The Islamization of central Jordan in the 7th-9th centuries: lessons learned from Ḥisbān. Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 40: 143-176.

Walmsley, A.

2007 Households at Pella, Jordan: the Domestic Destruction Deposits of the mid-Eighth Century., [in:] L. Lavan, E. Swift, T. Putzeys (ed.), Objects in Context, Objects in Use. Material Spatiality in Late Antiquity, [=Late Antique Archaeology 5], Leiden: Brill, 239-72

The students will learn basic nomenclature regarding the chronology and periodization of the Byzantine and Islamic Near East (KW02).

By completing this course, the students will be able to characterize the main trends in the urban transformation of the Syro-Palestinian cities between the mid-6th and 13th centuries. Looking more broadly, they will also gain basic knowledge of the changes in settlement patterns and land use of the region during the Byzantine to Middle Islamic periods (KW03). In addition, the students will learn how to recognize, interpret and contextualize the main pottery and glass categorizes and wares (KW08), which will further provide them opportunities to study such notions as communal identities and social structures of the Roman, Byzantine and Islamic societies (KW06).

The students can select, analyze, and evaluate information about the certain subjects related to the archaeology of the Near East using scientific literature, internet resources (KU01), and other sources of information (KU02), and later identify, and classify them (KU12). They can further interpret ceramics in their archaeological context and select proper analytical methods by themselves and finally present the results (KU03).

A short paper (max. 4000 words) and active participation in classes are required, including the obligatory reading of short texts.