The emerging of South Arabian urban societies: the material culture from abroad in context
Keywords:
southern Arabia , Levant , Mesopotamia , Bronze Age , Iron AgeAbstract
The emergence of South Arabian urban societies is a phenomenon that goes hand in hand with the emergence of confederate tribal entities, cities, and circulation of material culture, shaped around the twelfth–eighth century BC. However, the formative process of South Arabian societies and cities, as well as agricultural centres and towns, begins as early as the Bronze Age (third–second millennium BC), between the regions of the Ḫawlān highlands and the pre-desert foothills, where hydraulic technologies were developed.
The available data, looking at the turn of the first millennium BC as well as at the Bronze Age, make it possible better to define the formative process of southern Arabian cities and society. This paper aims — as others have, including de Maigret (2000), Nebes (2001), Sass (2007), Sedov (2005), Mouton & Schiettecatte (2014), Magee (2014), Avanzini (2009; 2016a; 2016b) — to communicate the latest developments and knowledge; furthermore, it intends to uncover those elements of material culture that shed light on the extent to which foreign influence — i.e. from Levantine (Syria-Palestine) and/or Mesopotamian contexts — may have contributed to the creation of urban societies of southern Arabia.
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