A Re-evaluation of Stratigraphic and Ceramic Evidence from
the Bronze and Iron Age site of al-Ṣināʿiyyah at Tayma in
Saudi Arabia

Abstract

This work investigated the ceramics from Ṣināʿiyyah site in Tayma Area. In particular,
this study aimed to determine their types, source and chronology. Also, it aimed to find
out their distribution within and outside Tayma Area, in order to increase our knowledge
of the history of Tayma and its contacts.
Hausleiter (2014) has classified Tayma ceramics into a number of groups, of which four
of groups are attested in Ṣināʿiyyah assemblage. The features and the suggested dates for
these ceramics were reviewed below.
Moreover, several excavations have been conducted at Ṣināʿiyyah, and a large number of
ceramics were derived from these excavations. However, the ceramics in the published
reports are very few, and very important information related to these ceramics is not
avialable. Therefore, new excavations in Ṣināʿiyyah were expected to provide significant
results regarding the sequences and the dating of these ceramics.
For these reasons, as the main part of the current study, two new excavations were
conducted in Ṣināʿiyyah site. The ceramics derived from these excavations were divided
into six groups based on their physical attributes. These groups were made up of three
types of fabric which, according to previous petrographic studies, are related to the
geology of Tayma, and may therefore have been made there.
Ceramics parallel to the Ṣināʿiyyah groups were also attested in several sites in Tayma,
north-west of Arabia and southern Levant. Based on integrating the stratigraphic
evidence and C14 dates from our excavations at Ṣināʿiyyah, together with the evidence
from the other sites where these groups were found, the six groups from Ṣināʿiyyah were
dated (in general) between the early 2
nd
millennium BC to the 10
th
-5
th
century BC.
According to the suggested dating and distribution for each group of ceramics, the
contact between Tayma and Qurayyah is suggested to have started from the early 2
nd
millennium BC and endured more than ten centuries. Whereas, there is evidence which
indicates that Tayma was in direct contacts with south Levant and Egypt during the Early
Iron Age