09.05.2017

Desert Landscapes and their Oases: Material Culture of the Strategic Peripheries between Connectivity and Mobility.

Assoz. Prof. Mag. Dr. Marta Luciani (Institut für Orientalistik, Universität Wien

R I N G V O R L E S U N G

Dienstag, 9. Mai 2017 um 18 Uhr c.t.

Institut für Klassische Archäologie, Franz Klein Gasse 1, Seminarraum 12 (1. Stock)

Based on current field investigations in the NW of the Arabian Peninsula, this lecture will discuss the newest data shaping our understanding of an environment – desert and oases – and a region long neglected by archaeological research.
The case of Qurayyah, one of the main oases of the area, investigated by the University of Vienna since 2014, allows us to explore the mechanisms and agency that led to the formation of large, permanent settlements in the desert during the Bronze Age and the role played by mobility and contact not only among oases of the region but with more complex polities such as Egypt and the Southern Levant.