REGISTRATION IS NOW OPEN https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/56th-seminar-for-arabian-studies-tickets-633862508827

 

From 4 – 6 August 2023, the 56th Seminar for Arabian Studies will take place at Moesgaard Museum and Aarhus University, Denmark. This year we celebrate the 70^th jubilee of the pioneering Arabian Gulf expeditions (est. 1953-). The seminar has been jointly organized by the department of Archaeology at Aarhus University and the Orient Department at Moesgaard Museum and is under the patronage of the International Association for the Study of Arabia.

This year’s Seminar is generously supported by the C. L. David Foundation, the Carlsberg Foundation, the Frimodt-Heineke Foundation, the Dr M. C. Holsts Foundation, and the Beatrice de Cardi Fund of the Society of Antiquaries of London.

The Seminar for Arabian Studies is the only annual international forum for the presentation of the latest academic research on the Arabian Peninsula. Topics covered include archaeology, history, epigraphy, languages, literature, art, culture, ethnography, and geography from the beginnings to the present or, in the case of political and social history, to the end of the Ottoman Empire (1922).

Historically, the Seminar has had an exemplary track record of timely publication of its proceedings and also this year’s papers will after peer-review be eligible for publication in the 54^th Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies (2024). Approximately 75 papers will be delivered during the conference ranging from the Paleo/Neo-lithic of the Arabian Peninsula to early Islamic times. On 5th August, 11 of these papers will be delivered in a special session, Bronze Age Arabia – 70 years on…  – What we have learned, and what we still don’t know?, in which invited international experts will treat the latest research on Bronze Age Arabia and explore new directions. There will also be approximately 20-30 thematically oriented posters.

On 4th August, Adrian G. Parker Professor in Geography at Oxford Brookes University, will give the keynote Beatrice de Cardi Lecture of this year’s Seminar (sponsored by the Society of Antiquaries, London). The title is Arabian Palaeoenvironments and climate change during the Arabian Bronze Age (3500-1000 BC). This year’ keynote is lecture will be held in the new main auditorium of Moesgaard Museum and is followed by a vine party also at Moesgaard Museum. The vine party will be a celebration of the 70^th jubilee Moesgaard Museum and Aarhus University pioneering expeditions to Bahrain and will as something special be attended by a number of long retired senior pioneers of the first expeditions (1953-1978).

We cordially invite you to participate in the conference, which will be held as a hybrid event in presence and virtually. Registration is being finalized and will be available shortly through a link where you can book the entire event as well as individual days. As the interest in this year’s seminar has already been overwhelming and since a limited number can participate, we strongly encourage you to book hotel and register as soon as possible.

Please note before you reserve accommodations in Aarhus that the Seminar will be held at Moesgaard Museum only on the first day (4^th Aug.) and at Aarhus University on both the second and third day (5-6^th Aug.). It is highly recommended that reservations are made in Aarhus Town in proximity to Aarhus University and not near Moesgaard Museum.

Please direct any queries to Steffen Terp Laursen (stl@moesgaardmuseum.dk).

On behalf of AU, MOMU and IASA and the Organizing Team.

 

A brief history of the Seminar for Arabian Studies

The Seminar began as an informal study group set up in 1968 at the time of the first official British archaeological survey in Saudi Arabia, led by Peter Parr of the Institute of Archaeology, University of London. The purpose of the group was to promote archaeological research in the Arabian Peninsula and, after an initial meeting, the group formed itself into the Arabia Society, with John Dayton as Honorary Secretary.

After two relatively small conferences in 1969 and another two in 1970, the Seminar for Arabian Studies, as it had now become, settled into a pattern of annual conferences, of ever increasing size, in 1971, 1972, and 1973. From 1974 onwards, the present pattern had been established of a three-day conference in July, with the publication of its Proceedings in time for the conference of the following year. For many years, the conference circulated between London, Oxford, and Cambridge with occasional visits to Durham, Edinburgh and Manchester. From 2002 to 2018 it was hosted in London by the British Museum. In 2019 the Seminar took place in Leiden, Netherlands and in 2020 will be held in Cordoba, Spain.

Summaries of some of the papers presented at the first Seminar and a list of those given at the second (in January and June 1969 respectively) were published in the Bulletin of the Institute of Archaeology, University of London 8-9, 1968-1969: 243-258. These were later republished, together with papers from the third to sixth Seminars (the 3rd Seminar held in January 1970, the 4th in June 1970, the 5th in September 1971, and the 6th in September 1972) in a cumulative volume together with the Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies vol. 1-3 in 1973. This was in addition to the separate volumes of PSAS 1 (1971), 2 (1972) and 3 (1973).

From volume 1 (1971), containing the papers from the fourth Seminar held in Cambridge in June 1970, the Proceedings have been published each year and 2020 saw volume 50, containing the papers from the 53rd Seminar held in the University of Leiden in 2019.

Special Sessions

As well as the wide range of subjects covered in its main sessions, the Seminar also offers the opportunity for more detailed discussion of a particular area of research by invited speakers in a Special Session, lasting either half a day or a full day. The papers read at a Special Session will be considered for publication either in the Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies (PSAS) or in a separate volume as a Supplement to PSAS.

Past Special Sessions:

2017: Languages, scripts and their uses in ancient North Arabia (published in a Supplement to PSAS 48, 2018).
2016: Textiles and personal adornment in the Arabian Peninsula (published in PSAS 47, 2017).
2013: Languages of Southern Arabia (published in a Supplement to PSAS 44, 2014).
2012: Museums in Arabia (not published).
2011: The Nabataeans in Focus: Current archaeological research at Petra (published in a Supplement to PSAS 42, 2012).
2009: The development of Arabic as a written language (published in a Supplement to PSAS 40, 2010).
2007: Defining the Palaeolithic of Arabia (a summary of the discussion was published in PSAS 38, 2008 and it was developed in M D Petraglia and J I Rose (eds), The Evolution of Human Populations in Arabia, 2010)