Intent and Identity in Late Antique-Islamic City Foundations of the Near East A paper presented at the 2008 Annual Meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America (AIA) in the POST-ROMAN WORLD session.

4 January 2008 in Chicago, IL

"The city" has long been a contentious notion and designation for scholars, particularly among Classical and Islamic archaeologists. Can we identify one essential or fundamental type of an urban phenomenon from which various other guises spring? Is it even useful to discuss such thing as "the Roman city" or " the Islamic city" in the first place? Such questions have given rise to essentialist conclusions focusing on physical attributes of a static and universal nature rather than on dynamic and unique considerations such as socio-cultural or temporo-spatial contexts. Approaching a city as a process rather than simply as a product enables scholars to move away from traditional modes of analysis and to discuss characteristics such as intent and the creation of identity.

In this paper, I look at the process involved in one pattern of urbanism that took place in the Near East during Late Antiquity: the establishment of new Islamic settlements immediately beyond the limits of earlier Roman settlements. Two case studies serve as examples in this discussion, the building of Islamic Fustat outside of Roman Babylon in Egypt, and the building of Islamic Ayla outside Roman Aila in Jordan. It will be shown that this particular pattern was not only about the creation of a specific type of new settlement (the product), it was also about a movement which intended to make nearby centers obsolete and to relocate political, social, and economic activity and foster a new sense of local identity (the process).

Issues of Trade and Technology in a Changing World: More evidence for glassmaking A paper presented at the 2007 Annual Meeting of the American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR) in the THE BYZANTINE AND EARLY ISLAMIC NEAR EAST session.

15 November 2007 in San Diego, CA

In 2006 I raised issues about glassmaking technology in the Near Eastern region as a whole and in the southern Levant in particular, questioning the degree of correlation between cultural change and stability on one hand and industrial change and stability on the other. To summarize, using chemical analytical methods, I found that my sample of Early Islamic glass from the site of Ayla in southern Jordan utilized the same raw materials and basic technological processes as the Roman and Byzantine glassmaking traditions. Thus, my findings suggest that a degree of industrial stability existed during a time of significant cultural or socio-political change, which challenges the premise that an Islamic 'technological package' or tradition directly accompanied the 'Islamification' of the region in the 7th-10th centuries CE. Rather, the replacement of natron-based recipes (characteristic of Roman and Byzantine glass) with plant-ash-based recipes (characteristic of later Islamic glass) appears to have occurred gradually over the course of the first 300 years of Islamic history and in a particular geographic direction as a response to localized disruptions and constraints on supplies and trade networks rather than change in some sort of 'internal technical logic.'

A key point to keep in mind is that technology is not purely technological--this is not a case of a clear linear evolution from one technique to another; there were complex and dynamic social factors involved in the production and consumption of glass. Technological analysis has traditionally focused on the properties of materials only, rather than on the people and choices involved in their making. Historical and anthropological analysis can provide a fuller explanation for the reasons behind the episodes of stability and change that are observed in the production activities during this critical period by considering the changing relationships between groups and regions, and the interplay of such relationships with the glass industry.

Maintaining Traditions or Making Transitions? Glass from Byzantine and Early Islamic Jordan A paper presented at the 2006 Annual Meeting of the American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR) in the THE BYZANTINE AND EARLY ISLAMIC NEAR EAST session.

18 November 2006 in Washington D.C.

While the history of glassmaking in the Levant has been studied for decades, there remain many questions about production traditions and transitions. Applying scientific methods to artifact analysis has enabled us to understand much more about the intrinsic nature of glass objects, and allows comparisons to be made that surpass mere stylistic or art historical criteria. Not only do we strive to understand the precise nature of the archaeological evidence, we also seek to place the technological information we garner within a cultural context that clarifies the social history of ancient glass production and consumption. In 2004, a study was undertaken to chemically compare glass from Southern Jordan dating from the Byzantine to Early Islamic eras, in order to evaluate the extent of any change in glass technology and production within this region.

A primary sample of Byzantine (5th-6th centuries A.D.) glass fragments from the North Ridge Church in Petra was chemically analyzed using electron-probe microanalysis (EPMA). These results were compared to those of glass fragments from Early Islamic contexts at Ayla (8th-9th centuries A.D.). Both assemblages were soda-lime-silica glasses belonging to the low magnesium (LMG) natron-based tradition of the Romans (which dominated production from the 1st c. B.C. to the 8th c. A.D.). The Roman and Late Antique industry clearly influenced the Early Islamic industry in this area, as LMG continued to be made alongside Islamic high magnesium plant ash-based glass. The results of this study demonstrate that regional glassmaking traditions continued uninterrupted during periods of cultural change.