Well, it's been a while since I've posted anything here, in part because I've been pretty busy. But following my colleague Kyle Knabb, I thought I'd share an abstract I submitted, and which has been recently accepted. I unfortunately can't attend the ASOR Meeting this year, since I'll be digging in Faynan in November, but I submitted an abstract for the MIRI workshop on the Materiality of the Islamic Rural Economy (they, probably wisely, do not use the acronym MIRE), at the University of Copenhagen. I'll mostly be talking about the results of the small excavation we conducted at Khirbat Nuqayb al-Asaymir in 2011, but I also want to talk about the suggestions I've recently made (and which will, hopefully, be published soon) about the relationship between Faynan and the agricultural economy of Transjordan in the 13th and 14th centuries AD. This will be the first time I've really discussed this in a formal setting (other than submitting it for publication), so I'm looking forward to getting some feedback on it, but also a bit nervous about how it's going to be received, since it is rather speculative.Anyway, I'm looking forward to the workshop. Now all I have to do is write the paper and figure out how I'm going to get to Copenhagen. . .
Here's the abstract, in case you're curious (the title is perhaps a bit obscure, but it's a reference to Levy, et al. [2003]):
References:Levy, Thomas E., Russell B. Adams, James D. Anderson, Mohammad Najjar, Neil Smith, Yoav Arbel, Lisa Soderbaum, and Adolfo Muniz2003 An Iron Age Landscape in the Edomite Lowlands: Archaeological Surveys Along Wādī al-Ghuwayb and Wādī al-Jāriya, Jabal Ḥamrat Fīdān, Jordan, 2002. Annual of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan 47:247-277.Beyond Iron Age Landscapes: Copper Mining and Smelting in Faynan in the 13th Century ADIan W. N. Jones, Thomas E. Levy, and Mohammad Najjar
Although work in the area has been expanding, many aspects of the Middle Islamic period in southern Jordan remain poorly understood. This is perhaps less true of the Faynan district, where several survey projects have investigated and published material from copper production sites of the Middle Islamic period. On the other hand, these projects have understandably tended to focus on periods of more intensive copper exploitation in Faynan, with the Middle Islamic period occupying a somewhat peripheral position in their research. This is unfortunate, as Faynan contains probably the best-preserved Middle Islamic copper smelting sites in the southern Levant.With this in mind, in the fall of 2011 the Edom Lowlands Regional Archaeology Project conducted a sounding at Khirbat Nuqayb al-Asaymir, a copper production site of the 13th century AD. This small excavation revealed the remains of a copper smelting workshop including, to our surprise, a well-preserved smelting furnace. Relatively complete furnaces of any period are rare in Faynan, and this workshop has the potential to greatly increase our understanding of Middle Islamic period copper production.This paper presents the results of the 2011 sounding at Khirbat Nuqayb al-Asaymir, and draws on the available evidence to offer a preliminary reconstruction of the process of copper production in 13th century Faynan. Additionally, building on our previous work, it attempts to locate Khirbat Nuqayb al-Asaymir’s place in several “levels” of regional economy, from the mostly pastoral economic base of Faynan to the expanding economy of central and southern Jordan.