Settlement & ceramics in Southern Iran: An analysis of the Sasanian & Islamic periods in the Williamson collection

Abstract

Between 1968 and 1971, Andrew George Williamson carried out one of the most extensive and ambitious archaeological surveys undertaken in the Near East. Williamson’s survey of over 1,200 archaeological sites distributed widely through southern Iran represents the most detailed archaeological study of the region. Williamson's untimely death in Oman in 1975 prevented the work from being completed or published, and as a result, the information from his pioneering study have remained generally obscure. A sizable portion of the finds that Williamson collected during the survey (17,000 sherds) were exported to the UK and deposited at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, along with much of the documentation associated with the project. A full synthesis of this material has not until now been attempted. Recognising the important scientific value of Williamson's survey, a detailed study of the Collection was initiated with the aim of: 1) providing a complete catalogue of the Collection; 2) creating a list and map of all sites that Williamson visited and 3) analysing the resulting dataset. The discussion presented below, which describes the results of the research on the Collection, has been broken into two sections. The first section describes Williamson’s work and the contents of the Collection (Chapter 1), and explains the methodology and approach that has been taken during this study (Chapter 2). The second section uses the data generated from the study to analyse regional settlement trends (Chapter 3) and the changing distribution of a selection of key ceramic wares (Chapter 4). Together these themes contribute towards a model for the long-term economic development along the northern shores of the Persian Gulf, ๒ an area that has previously suffered from a major lack of primary archaeological research. Drawing on this study and the more detailed now be possible, for the first time, to set out a scheme that covers the Persian Gulf region as a whole.