Seth Priestman
Archaeologist and ceramic specialist working on the Middle East and Indian Ocean world from the post Iron Age to the later 20th century. Particularly interested in the Late Antique/early Islamic transition, global commodity exchange and quantitative economic history
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Books by Seth Priestman
The monograph provides new archaeological evidence on the long-term development of settlement in Southern Iran, in particular the coastal region, from the Sasanian period to around the 17th century. The work provides new insights into regional settlement patterns and changing ceramic distribution, trade and use. A large amount of primary data is presented covering an extensive area from Minab to Bushehr along the coast and inland as far as Sirjan. This includes information on a number of previously undocumented archaeological sites, as well as a detailed description and analysis of the ceramic finds, which underpin the settlement evidence and provide a wider source of reference.
By collecting carefully-controlled archaeological evidence related to the size, distribution, and period of occupation of urban and rural settlements distributed across Southern Iran, Williamson aimed to reconstruct the broader historical development of the region. Due to his early death the work was never completed. The key aims of the authors of this volume were to do justice to Williamson’s remarkable vision and efforts on the one hand, and at the same time to bring this important new evidence to ongoing discussions about the development of southern Iran through the Sasanian and Islamic periods.
This study sets out the case for the unique significance of quantified ceramic finds as an indicator of long-term changes in the scale and volume of maritime exchange in a period for which few other sources of systematic economic history survive. The publication presents archaeological data from thirteen sites distributed across the western Indian Ocean, including Siraf (Iran), Anuradhapura (Sri Lanka) and Manda (Kenya). The ceramic assemblages are considered in terms of their general compositional characteristics and the distinctions between local, regional and long-distance exchange. The volume concludes with a discussion of how this data can be used to address the broader issues of long-term economic change and the relationship between state power in the Middle East and the commercial networks of the Indian Ocean operating via the Persian Gulf.
Theses by Seth Priestman
Papers by Seth Priestman
the 20th centuries and were made at factories mostly located within northwest
Europe. After c. 1930, imitations of European ceramics are increasingly
represented from factories in Japan and later China. Combining the information
from archaeological excavations on the Arab coast of the Gulf and ceramics
from museum and private collections, information from the archives of the
British India Office and the Maastricht pottery order books for Arabia,
a relatively detailed overview of this market for trade ceramics can be
reconstructed. Three key points may be highlighted: First, the complex routes
via which European ceramics arrived within Arabia, second, the significance of
the link between producers and consumers on opposite sides of the globe,
exemplified by specific designs and types of vessels manufactured for the Arabian
market, and third, new layers of meaning that were given to such objects as they
were incorporated into the homes, social fabric and the lives of people in Arabia.
have been sourced from Kermanshah. These findings are in keeping with other similar geochemical studies undertaken on bitumen lined vessels from across the region.
Fulayj (Batinah, Sultanate of Oman) provides a unique opportunity to discuss food and fuel acquisition strategies
in an arid environment and to document periods that are little known from an archaeobotanical perspective in
Eastern Arabia. Seed assemblages include the first well-identified and directly radiocarbon dated evidence of
sorghum (Sorghum bicolor ssp. bicolor (L.) Moench.) in Eastern Arabia, which raises the question of whether the
grain was imported from distant sources (for example Yemen, East Africa or India) or locally cultivated. In
addition to sorghum, the food plant assemblage includes hulled barley (Hordeum vulgare), date (Phoenix dactylifera)
and jujube (Ziziphus cf. spina-christi). Date palm gardens may have existed near to the site as they do today
or food products may have been brought from date palm gardens on the Batinah coast where conditions for
agricultural production are particularly favourable. Charcoal analysis reveals that the main taxa used for fuel
(acacia, prosopis, jujube tree, tamarisk) were collected from local plant communities, occasionally supplemented
with firewood gathered in the foothills and mountainous areas.
The monograph provides new archaeological evidence on the long-term development of settlement in Southern Iran, in particular the coastal region, from the Sasanian period to around the 17th century. The work provides new insights into regional settlement patterns and changing ceramic distribution, trade and use. A large amount of primary data is presented covering an extensive area from Minab to Bushehr along the coast and inland as far as Sirjan. This includes information on a number of previously undocumented archaeological sites, as well as a detailed description and analysis of the ceramic finds, which underpin the settlement evidence and provide a wider source of reference.
By collecting carefully-controlled archaeological evidence related to the size, distribution, and period of occupation of urban and rural settlements distributed across Southern Iran, Williamson aimed to reconstruct the broader historical development of the region. Due to his early death the work was never completed. The key aims of the authors of this volume were to do justice to Williamson’s remarkable vision and efforts on the one hand, and at the same time to bring this important new evidence to ongoing discussions about the development of southern Iran through the Sasanian and Islamic periods.
This study sets out the case for the unique significance of quantified ceramic finds as an indicator of long-term changes in the scale and volume of maritime exchange in a period for which few other sources of systematic economic history survive. The publication presents archaeological data from thirteen sites distributed across the western Indian Ocean, including Siraf (Iran), Anuradhapura (Sri Lanka) and Manda (Kenya). The ceramic assemblages are considered in terms of their general compositional characteristics and the distinctions between local, regional and long-distance exchange. The volume concludes with a discussion of how this data can be used to address the broader issues of long-term economic change and the relationship between state power in the Middle East and the commercial networks of the Indian Ocean operating via the Persian Gulf.
the 20th centuries and were made at factories mostly located within northwest
Europe. After c. 1930, imitations of European ceramics are increasingly
represented from factories in Japan and later China. Combining the information
from archaeological excavations on the Arab coast of the Gulf and ceramics
from museum and private collections, information from the archives of the
British India Office and the Maastricht pottery order books for Arabia,
a relatively detailed overview of this market for trade ceramics can be
reconstructed. Three key points may be highlighted: First, the complex routes
via which European ceramics arrived within Arabia, second, the significance of
the link between producers and consumers on opposite sides of the globe,
exemplified by specific designs and types of vessels manufactured for the Arabian
market, and third, new layers of meaning that were given to such objects as they
were incorporated into the homes, social fabric and the lives of people in Arabia.
have been sourced from Kermanshah. These findings are in keeping with other similar geochemical studies undertaken on bitumen lined vessels from across the region.
Fulayj (Batinah, Sultanate of Oman) provides a unique opportunity to discuss food and fuel acquisition strategies
in an arid environment and to document periods that are little known from an archaeobotanical perspective in
Eastern Arabia. Seed assemblages include the first well-identified and directly radiocarbon dated evidence of
sorghum (Sorghum bicolor ssp. bicolor (L.) Moench.) in Eastern Arabia, which raises the question of whether the
grain was imported from distant sources (for example Yemen, East Africa or India) or locally cultivated. In
addition to sorghum, the food plant assemblage includes hulled barley (Hordeum vulgare), date (Phoenix dactylifera)
and jujube (Ziziphus cf. spina-christi). Date palm gardens may have existed near to the site as they do today
or food products may have been brought from date palm gardens on the Batinah coast where conditions for
agricultural production are particularly favourable. Charcoal analysis reveals that the main taxa used for fuel
(acacia, prosopis, jujube tree, tamarisk) were collected from local plant communities, occasionally supplemented
with firewood gathered in the foothills and mountainous areas.
The paper discusses the results of a field-walking survey undertaken in January 2023. The work involved mapping, surface collection, and integration of community-collected material (mainly pottery) into the analysis. It clarifies our understanding of the size, chronology, and spatial development of Seeb and the extent of its international connections. The project has been conceived in partnership with the local community, whose existing interest in local heritage was a motivating driver in the plan and design of future research. Public workshops, social media and continuing conversations with residents and other stakeholders form important channels in the pursuit of the project. Integration of community interests into Islamic-period archaeological project in Oman is unprecedented and will be discussed alongside the survey data.
Significantly, Fulayj was reoccupied and internally modified in the decades leading up to and following the Islamic conquest. As such, Fulayj represents one of the most relevant contexts currently known for a detailed archaeological analysis of this historic transformation in Eastern Arabia. A renewed investigation of the site began in 2022 with the support of the Anglo-Omani Society. Results from the current investigation shed further light and detail on the complexity of the fort’s occupational history. The presentation will outline the significance and importance of Fulayj, and detail some of the latest findings from our investigation. We will also consider the broader significance of the Sohar region and the Batinah as the historic breadbasket of Oman.
Excavations undertaken at Fulayj in 2015 and 2016 supported by the European Research Council confirmed our suspicion that it was built in the late pre-Islamic period around the 5th century AD. Significantly, Fulayj was then reoccupied and internally modified in the decades leading up to and immediately following the Islamic conquest of Oman. A renewed investigation of the site began in 2022 with the support of the Anglo-Omani Society and the Beatrice de Cardi Award. Recent results shed further light and detail on the complexity of the fort’s occupational history. The presentation will outline the significance and importance of Fulayj, and detail some of the latest findings from our investigation. We will also consider the broader significance of Fulayj within the context of the late pre-Islamic occupation of the Sohar hinterland. No similar sites or network of fortifications has so far been identified within the region. This poses obvious challenges concerning future research and the site’s wider interpretation.
The samples of these collections have been classified according to S. Priestman’s Gulf ware classification (2021), providing an important link between macroscopic and microscopic analyses. The results can also be compared with samples previously analysed from Murwab and other places of the Gulf. This will provide an interesting overview of the production technology and exchange of ceramics in the early Islamic Gulf.
DigNation, online public archaeology festival hosted by DigVentures 13th-14th June 2020
Materials and Technologies in the Age of Transition. The Byzantine, Sasanian and Islamic Near East, Wolfson College, University of Oxford, 10th July 2019
Part of the Albukhary Foundation Gallery of the Islamic World 'Voices' Project at the British Museum
Interview by the Anglo-Omani Society on Recent Fieldwork at the Late Sasanian/Early Islamic Site of Fulayj on the Batinah Coast of Oman, 20th April 2017
Research Seminar, Khalili Research Centre, University of Oxford, 25th November 2014.