The ancient caravan city - Dr. Jerome Rohmer

Monday 29 April
7 PM –YCC
Language: English
We will wrap-up DAI’s 28th Cultural Season with a lecture titled “The ancient caravan city of Thāj and the archaeology of ancient north-eastern Arabia, from the Iron Age to the eve of Islam (7th/6th cent. BCE – 6th/7th cent. CE); a lecture presented by Dr. Jerome Rohmer.
Synopsis
Located in the Eastern province of Saudi Arabia, 90 km off the coast of the Arabian Gulf and c. 180 km south of the Saudi-Kuwaiti border, Thaj is by far the largest known pre-Islamic settlement in Eastern Arabia. As such, it is one of the likeliest candidates for ancient Gerrha, the wealthy East Arabian trading city that fascinated Greek and Latin authors. They have shed critical new light on the site’s evolution through time, from its emergence in the Late Iron Age, through its heyday in the ‘Hellenistic’ period, to its gradual decline in Late Antiquity. This lecture will present an overview of these results and put them into perspective within the wider history of East Arabia in the ‘Late Pre-Islamic’ Period.

Bio:
Jérôme Rohmer is a researcher with the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), specializing in the archaeology of the Southern Levant and North Arabia from the Iron Age to Late Antiquity. He wrote his PhD thesis (2013) on the settlement history of Southern Syria from the Iron Age to the Early Roman period. Since 2008, he has been doing research on North Arabia, where he participated in the Mada’in Salih Archaeological Project (2008-2017). Recently, he co-launched a multidisciplinary archaeological project at the ancient city of Dadan, in north-western Arabia (2019-ongoing).