Select Publications by Red Sea Institute Personnel
The institute
was founded in the fall of 2014 and chartered in the city of Lansing in
the state of Michigan, USA as a private non-profit organization.
We are a 501 (c) (3) non-profit charity corporation as registered with the United States Internal Revenue Service.
Donations are tax deductible.
Our purpose
is to promote the scientific inquiry of the Red Sea and surrounding
areas-- focusing on the subjects of anthropology, archaeology,
ethnography, and history--to further our knowledge of the zone and its
peoples, to bring into better understanding the intercourse between
Africa and Southwestern Asia from the earliest times into the present,
and to provide opportunities for research.
Our goal is to increase mankind’s knowledge of Red Sea maritime activities of the past and present.
Our intent is to create a better understanding of the dynamics of intercultural maritime
connections and exchange, the involved ship-building and engineering
technologies, maritime exploitation strategies of coastal peoples and their
environmental adaptability to arid coastal zones, as well as maritime migration
from the prehistoric period into the modern era.
Between Castrum and Medina: A Preliminary Note on Spatial Organisation and Urban Development in Medieval Aqaba.
By Kristoffer Damgaard
The
results of archaeological field work conducted between the 23rd of
January and the 6th of March 2008 at the Early Islamic site of Aylah,
located in Aqaba in southern Jordan. The excavations were part of a
larger international scientific venture known as the Islamic Aqaba
Project (henceforth IAP), which was directed by Prof. Dr. Johnny De
Meulemeester (University of Gent), and included an international staff
from Belgium, France, Spain, Canada, Jordan and Denmark. The project
grew out of the Belgian-British and later Belgian-French Aqaba Castle
Project (ACP), whose groundbreaking work revealed that the castle site,
and indeed Aqaba in general, had far more complex patterns of occupation
than hitherto imagined, and that a reevaluation of the area’s
settlement history was crucial. In order to establish a more
comprehensive occupational framework, steps were taken to expand the
scope of archaeological investigation to include the Early Islamic site
of Aylah as well. These are the results of the first season of field
work conducted here.
A Preliminary Report on a Coastal and Underwater Survey in the Area of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
By Ralph K. Pedersen
In
March 2012, Philipps-Universität Marburg conducted a 12-day survey
along a section of the Red Sea coast of Saudi Arabia reaching from
Rabigh in the north to al-Shoaiba in the south. As the beginning of a
five-year archaeological project, with the author as principal
investigator, this preliminary venture sought to define the logistical
situation and to discover any sites of archaeological importance that
may exist within the zone. The survey included the search for and the
examination of harbor sites, as well as shipwrecks. Sites of antiquity
and the Early Islamic period were of particular interest. The results of
the survey included the discovery of a harbor and a shipwreck of the
late third or the fourth century that contained Roman amphoras, among
other objects. This project was created by institute vice president Dr.
Rupert Brandmeier.
| pedersen_a_preliminary_report_on_a__coastal_and_underwater_survey_in_the_area_of_jeddah,_saudi_arabia.pdf |
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The Byzantine-Aksumite Period Shipwreck at Black Assarca Island, Eritrea.
By Ralph K. Pedersen
In
1997, the author conducted an excavation of a shipwreck of late
antiquity off a desert island in the southern Red Sea. The wreck carried
a cargo of amphoras of three types, all of the kind now called "Aqaba
ware". The wreck is the oldest yet excavated in the Red Sea and has
yielded new insights into seafaring and trade of the period.
| pedersen_the_byzantine-aksumite_period_shipwreck_at_black_assarca_island,_eritrea.pdf |
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Under the Erythraean Sea: An Ancient Shipwreck in Eritrea.
By Ralph K. PedersenAn article from the INA Quarterly about the shipwreck at Black Assarca Island.
| pedersen_under_the_erythraean_sea_an_ancient_shipwreck_in_eritrea_inaq.pdf |
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A Palestinian Red Sea Port on the Egyptian Road to Arabia: Early Islamic Aqaba and its Many Hinterlands.
By Kristoffer Damgaard
This
article argues that many forms of hinterland exist, and that it is
possible to formulate an analytical methodology based on tiered levels.
Examples could be 'political', in the sense of adminstrative affiliation
and/or subordinance to centres of political power, economic, in regard
to a site's position within relevant economic networks; or
ethnoconceptual, that is pertaining to the perceived identities of a
locality's occupants.
| a_palestinian_red_sea_port_on_the_egyptian_road_to_arabia.pdf |
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Finding Fatimid Jordan: A Reinterpretation of Aylah's 'Fatimid Residence'.
By Kristoffer Damgaard
Fatimid
rule in Bilad al-Sham is relatively well understood in regard to major
events at important socio-political centres, however, ordinary life in
its more peripheral parts remains poorly documented and only
superficially examined. Southern Jordan, here defined as the area
between the Dead Sea and the Gulf of Aqaba, is one such region. In the
10th century CE this area was known as al-Sharat. While military control
over this area often depended on political circumstances elsewhere, it
remained important as both a transit corridor between the Fatimid
heartland in Egypt and the major urban centres of Syria-Palestine (e.g.
Damascus, Ramlah or Jerusalem), but also as a productive agricultural
region.3 Understanding the history of this region is thus highly
desirable, as it on one hand will help illuminate the impact of Fatimid
hegemony on local communities and, on the other, may assist in
explaining the dynamics between Fatimid, Saljuq, Frankish and local
political elites. Regrettably, relevant historical sources for Fatimid
South Jordan prior to the first Crusader incursions around 1100 CE are
scant, and this has led scholarship to perceive the region as culturally
and economically secondary to Egypt and Palestine.
| finding_fatimid_jordan_a_reinterpretation_of_aylahs_fatimid_residence.pdf |
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Nabataean Seafaring and the Search for Shipwrecks in the Red Sea
Ralph K. Pedersen and Rupert A. Brandmeier
The Second Conference on Nabataean Culture, Provo, Utah, USA, May 2015
Published in: Studies on the Nabataean Culture II. Nabil I Khairy, editor.
Published by the Deanship of Scientific Research, The University of Jordan-Amman (2016), pp. 11-24.
Abstract:
Seafaring by the Nabataeans is virtually an archaeological unknown:
Indeed, in the corpus of Nabataean studies the issue is not widely
addressed. The inhabitants of what is now northwestern Saudi Arabia and
southern Jordan are mostly known for their rock-carved buildings and
tombs, at least in popular venues. Ancient authors noted, however, that
Nabataeans plied the waters of the Red Sea as traders or pirates,
maintaining their major port at Leuke Kome, whose location remains
undiscovered. Several harbors containing Nabataean aspects have been
located along the Saudi coast through archaeological investigation, yet
the study of the maritime aspects and accomplishments of the Nabataeans
remains in its infancy. Nautical Archaeology in the Red Sea is also in
its early stages, but research has begun to reveal the ships of
antiquity and the cargoes they carried. This paper outlines the
archaeological researches of shipwrecks in the Red Sea, and examines the
potential of finding the remains of Nabataean sea craft on the sea
lanes reaching from Aqaba to points along the Red Sea littorals.
Echoes of Nabataean Seafaring
Ralph K .Pedersen
The Ancient Near East Today
February 2018
Vol. VI, no. 2.
http://www.asor.org/anetoday/2018/02/Echoes-Nabataean-Seafaring
When
one thinks of the Nabataeans, the desert comes to mind, with wind-blown
sands, the red rock-cut architecture of their capital of Petra, and
trade routes carrying incense from Arabia to the Mediterranean. There
is, however, another aspect of the Nabataeans, one that is only now
coming into focus: Seafaring.
The
land of the Nabataeans not only included the Jordanian desert but the
coast of the Red Sea, reaching southward from Aqaba and down into the
northwestern coast of what is now Saudi Arabia. These coasts, mostly
barren but containing harbors and access to water, were links to inland
trade routes and formed the maritime nexus between Nabataea and the
greater world.
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