Degree Date

2021

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology

Abstract

This dissertation proposes a method of combining formal, contextual, and geochemical ceramic analyses to investigate an encounter between imperial and non-imperial societies evidenced in the archaeological record. Glazed pottery from Mesopotamia appeared in southeastern Arabia and southeastern Iran during the late pre-Islamic period (c. 300 BCE – 7th century CE) and neither the mechanisms through which it arrived nor its use in local contexts is fully understood. It is found alongside a set of objects that signal an increased connectivity with the wider worlds of the Indian Ocean, MENA region, and the Mediterranean. Previous scholarship has focused on the extent to which the imperial powers of the Seleucids, Parthians, and Sasanians controlled trade routes in the region. Such approaches overlook local agency and simplify encounters to a center-periphery model. This study seeks to invert this model and return agency to local groups through an analysis of the trade in glazed pottery. The consumption of glazed pottery at Mleiha, Ed-Dur, and Dibba on the one hand, and Tepe Yahya on the other, demonstrates how non-local pottery was used in local contexts to suit the needs of local actors. The results of the investigation suggest that glazed pottery was transported into the regions via both maritime and overland trade, that its value in southeastern Arabia and southeastern Iran was not static over the long centuries of the late pre-Islamic period, and that it played a key role in negotiations of local identity outside the purview of imperial interest.

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