Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 53 (2024) 104355
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Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jasrep
The ramparts of Khaybar. Multiproxy investigation for reconstructing a
Bronze Age walled oasis in Northwest Arabia
Guillaume Charloux a, *, Shadi Shabo a, Guillaume Chung-To a, Bruno Depreux b,
François Guermont d, Kévin Guadagnini a, Thomas Terrasse d, Mylène Bussy d, Saifi Alshilali c,
Diaa Albukaai b, Rémy Crassard b, Munirah AlMushawh c
a
French National Centre for Scientific Research CNRS, UMR 8167, Orient et Méditerranée, Paris, France
French National Centre for Scientific Research CNRS, UMR 5133, Archéorient, Lyon, France
Royal Commission for AlUla, Riyadh, Khaybar and AlUla, Saudi Arabia
d
Independent scholar
b
c
A R T I C L E I N F O
A B S T R A C T
Keywords:
Khaybar
Hijaz
Oasis
Archaeological survey
Fortifications
The multidisciplinary investigation carried out between 2020 and 2023 by the Khaybar Longue Durée Archaeological Project (CNRS-RCU-AFALULA) demonstrates that the Khaybar Oasis was entirely enclosed by a rampart
in pre-Islamic times, like several other large regional walled oases in north-western Arabia (Tayma, Qurayyah,
Hait, etc.). The cross-referencing of survey and remote sensing data, architectural examinations and the dating of
stratified contexts have revealed a rampart initially some 14.5 km long, generally between 1.70 m and 2.40 m
thick, reinforced by 180 bastions. Preserved today over just under half of the original route (41 %, 5.9 km and 74
bastions), this rampart dates back to the Bronze Age, between 2250 and 1950 BCE, and had never been detected
before due to the profound reworking of the local desert landscape over time. This crucial discovery confirms the
rise of a walled oasis complex in northern Arabia during the Bronze Age, a trend that proved to be central to the
creation of indigenous social and political complexity.
1. Introduction
Walled oases are a key component of the archaeological landscape
and the socio-political evolution of north-western Arabia through time
(Charloux et al., 2021a; Luciani, 2021, Fig. 1). In contrast to looser
defensive systems of fortresses, isolated towers or city walls implanted in
“open oases” (e.g., Fiema and Villeneuve, 2018 (Hegra); Charloux et al.,
2021b (al-Bad), the monumental defensive system of walled oases is
characterized by an agricultural and sedentary territory in the desert
entirely protected by an external enclosure wall. Studies of the two longknown walled oases of Tayma and Qurayyah had previously shed light
on the presence of these monumental enclosure walls, reaching up to
around 19 km in length at Tayma (Parr et al., 1970; Abu-Duruk, 1986;
Edens and Bawden, 1989; Hausleiter, 2018). The presence of a “new”
walled oasis of Khaybar had only been previously suspected by the examination of satellite imagery, and has emerged in the context of a reevaluation of oasis fortifications in north-western Arabia (Charloux
et al., 2021a; Schneider, 2010; Schneider, 2016; Klasen et al., 2011;
Hausleiter, 2018; Hausleiter et al., 2019; Luciani, 2019; Luciani, 2021;
Lüthgens et al., 2023; Villeneuve, 2014;). The recent study of satellite
images enabled the identification of four walled oases - Khaybar in
addition to Huwayyit, Dumat al-Jandal and Hait (and more recently
Al-Wadi, Al-Ayn (Dalton et al., 2021), and al-Tibq). These were part of
an original regional development process, possibly inspired by the urban
trajectory of the southern Levant (Charloux et al., 2021a). This indigenous defensive system seems to characterize the emergence of a process
of urbanization and oasis protection in north-western Arabia during the
Bronze Age (Charloux et al.). Later, in the Iron Age, this phenomenon
persisted, through redevelopment or new constructions, and played a
major role in the rise of the caravan kingdoms.
No rampart walls had previously been identified at Khaybar, apart
from the famous Islamic-period fortresses located on mesas in the centre
of the oasis’ great wadis (Charloux et al., 2022; Alshilali, 2019). In
addition to the numerous methodological difficulties arising from the
dismantled state of the walls, the distances considered, the difficulty of
the terrain and, of course, a starting hypothesis based solely on satellite
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: guillaume.charloux@cnrs.fr (G. Charloux).
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2023.104355
Received 22 September 2023; Received in revised form 1 December 2023; Accepted 11 December 2023
Available online 10 January 2024
2352-409X/© 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
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Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 53 (2024) 104355
Fig. 1. Location map of the Khaybar walled oasis (red and white circle) and other major sites in north-western Arabia, © G. Charloux, ESRI.
2. Methods
imagery, demonstrating that the oasis was entirely encircled by an outer
enclosure constitutes a significant scientific challenge. In the basaltic
environment of Khaybar, where plateau sedimentation is very low,
archaeological remains have been exposed above ground and superimposed for millennia, creating a lunar landscape dotted with thousands
of megalithic archaeological structures from all periods: desert kites,
mustatils, funerary avenues and dense necropolises, encampments,
forts, plot walls, and so on (Kennedy et al., 2021; Barge et al., 2022;
Charloux et al., 2022). Ongoing surveys have counted over 16,000 such
structures within the 56 sq. km sample area. The examination of the
often dismantled, rearranged and segmented ramparts presented here is
established on an empirical, interdisciplinary, systematic and comparative approach. Only such a scientific approach, with several levels of
verification, can reconstruct a coherent defensive ensemble in such a
dense archaeological landscape. Here, we demonstrate and precisely
date the existence of a monumental defensive “belt” at Khaybar in
pre-Islamic times. (Figs. 2 and 3; SM1 Figs. S1-S12).
2.1. General framework
The study was carried out from October 2020 to March 2023 (six
field seasons) as part of the Khaybar Longue Durée Archaeological
Project (CNRS-RCU-AFALULA, henceforth Khaybar LDAP). The Khaybar
Oasis was an important agricultural centre of the Hijaz in early Islamic
period, located midway between Medina and AlUla. Measuring around
8 x 7 km at an average altitude of 670 m, the Khaybar Oasis is located in
three alluvial valleys (Wadis al-Suwayr/ Halhal, al-Zaidiyyah, al-Sulamah), forming the Wadi Khaybar to the west. These wadis, where
agriculture developed near water sources, cut through the surrounding
western basalt plateaus of Harrat Khaybar of Neogene and Quaternary
age (Figs. 1 and 4) on which a number of sedentary settlements from
various periods are perched. Before the Aerial Archaeology in Kingdom
of Saudi Arabia project (AAKSA) from 2018 (e.g., Kennedy et al., 2021,
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Fig. 2. Aerial views of the dry-stone basement of the outer rampart: A. Segment KH00911 facing south; B. Segment KH01130 facing north; C. Segments KH00904KH00905 and KH00906 facing south; D. segment KH00922, © Khaybar LDAP, G. Charloux.
topographic maps, world data, etc.) and a database combining the results of the architectural, archaeological and geomorphological surveys
and those from the 19 archaeological test pits conducted on the ramparts. Following the initial identification of part of the northern sections
of the walled oasis by Google satellite imagery in 2020 (Charloux et al.,
2021a), the main stages of the study were the creation of a preliminary
map of the wall network, indicating the nature of the walls and the
presence of associated remains, followed by cross-referenced architectural, archaeological and remote sensing analyses, the results of which
were compared with radiocarbon dating of stratified contexts (SM2).
2.2. Classification criteria
Archaeological exploration revealed the existence of 15 km of hitherto unknown rampart walls, 5.9 km of which are part of an exterior
network enclosing the oasis area (Fig. 4; SM2 for an explanation on
research stages and selection of walls). The initial survey stages led to
the identification of 146 large wall segments as part of the fortification
network of the oasis (SM2 Table S1). They are sometimes only a few
metres long, as a result of combined anthropic and natural deteriorations, but can extend up to hundreds of metres. In order to
illustrate the construction layout, we classified the ramparts into five
groups (Gr.A-E) according to three main hierarchical criteria (Fig. 5):
1. Layout
- ‘Aligned’ walls: wall segments extending without any major
discontinuity, with and without bastions, corresponding to the enclosure
walls of the oasis (Group or Gr.A-C, D). These walls extend over a length
of 12050.25 m.
- ‘Isolated’ walls (Gr.E). These non-aligned wall segments, or walls
Fig. 3. View of the ramparts KH00905-KH00906 and a bastion KH00974
during excavation (see Fig. 9), looking west, © Khaybar LDAP K. Guadagnini.
without forgetting the brief survey of the area in Kennedy et al., 2015)
and our own research from 2020 onwards inside the 56 sq. km RCU
jurisdiction perimeter (Charloux et al., 2022), no systematic archaeological survey had been carried out in the oasis.
The survey was based on spatial analysis carried out using GIS
(©ArcGis Pro Online), combining aerial documentation (orthophotographs and DTM) georeferenced at very high resolution (0.5 to 2 cm/pix
and 5 cm/pix) on an up-to-date map base (geology, 1/50,000
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Fig. 4. Map of the main ramparts of Khaybar, with identification of main segment walls and location of bastions and soundings in 2021–2023, © Khaybar LDAP, G.
Charloux. Feature numbers KH00000 are written for ease of reading without KH0 or KH00.
3. Results: The outer enclosure wall of Khaybar
without an observed extension, and without bastions, are often later
additions, and were excluded from our analysis (3272 m).
2. Presence or absence of associated/abutting structures
- Absence (or almost total absence) of bastions (Gr.D [& E]).
- Presence of bastion(s) (Gr.B-C). These segments alone constitute
7193 m – corresponding to 47 % of the total length of the preserved
ramparts in Khaybar.
- Presence of bastions and towers (Gr.A) around al-Natah Site only.
3. Type of masonry and wall thickness (Figs. 6 and 7; SM3 Figs. S1314)
- Gr.A: accretion wall masonry (masonry Typ.e) between 2.4 and 4.5
m.
- Gr.B-C: main masonry type comprising two faces and a rubble-filled
core, sometimes with wall juxtaposition, between 1.4 and 2.4 m (masonry Typ.b-d mainly, except wall KH00911 on top of Jabal Mushaqqar:
1.1 m).1
- Gr.D-E: multiple types of masonry (between 0.5 and 4 m, mainly
masonry Typ.a-b and others not mentioned).
By mapping the walls, determining their hierarchy and interpreting
the position of the bastions on the ramparts, it is possible to distinguish
two main sets of enclosures in Khaybar (Fig. 8): the inner enclosure walls
(Gr.A, B and D), which are briefly discussed in SM4, easily differentiated
from the outer enclosure wall (Gr.C), the subject of the present study.
3.1. Architecture and layout of the outer wall
The outer enclosure wall completely surrounding the oasis is the
main line of ramparts at Khaybar (SM1 Figs. S1-S12). Its preserved
perimeter is 5912.78 m, estimated to represent 41 % of the original
layout of about 14.5 km, for an enclosed area of approximately 1180 ha.
The wall segments are generally interrupted by later routes, modern
destruction (new facilities, houses, gardens, etc.), and wadis. In some
cases, this makes it difficult, even unsure, to reconstruct the routes over
long distances, for example, in the southern part, where no trace of a
rampart has been found between ramparts KH00904 and KH00909 in
the Wadi al-Sulamah, which has been heavily impacted by erosion and
modern development (Fig. 4). This is also the case to the north between
segments KH00918 and KH01130, where a rectilinear trace almost 850
m long is still clearly visible on aerial images, but with no preserved
masonry in the field.
1
The similarity of the layout and the low variability in the thickness of the
walls suggest that they were built or used at the same time, but this remains to
be proven.
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Fig. 5. Methodological framework for the classification of the groups of ramparts in the oasis, © Khaybar LDAP, G. Charloux.
Seventy-four bastions are still positioned on the exterior face of this
outer rampart, always facing towards the desert and never towards the
interior of the oasis. This observation is a strong argument for demonstrating the coherence of this enclosure and its construction during a
single stage (but with later additions or reconstructions).
Another argument is that the segments of the outer rampart (Gr.C)
are also very similar from a technological viewpoint. The vast majority
are rubble-filled, double-faced dry-stone walls, mostly between 1.8 m
and 2.4 m thick. Occasional aggregations of walls are used for reinforcement. The walls were built by separate unbonded segments–of
impossible to establish length at this stage–and partly by the juxtaposition of walls (accretion), consistent with well-known processes in the
region (Charloux et al., 2021a: 21-23). In the homogeneous group, wall
KH00911 on the slopes and summits of Jabal Mushaqqar, built in
rhyolite from the latter, is much thinner than other walls (1.1 m) and
was built with elementary dry-stone masonry (masonry Type a), which
can be explained by its high position along a ridge on the top of a
rhyolite mountain (Fig. 6C; SM1 Figs. S2-S3). For construction purposes,
stones were not only extracted from the neighbouring ground, but preexisting structures were also used as quarries, and recycled as building
stones.
We observe that the lines of the outer enclosure walls most often
follow the contours of the plateaus. They cut into valleys in the past to
connect distant aligned walls, but at the narrowest possible locations.
The layout of walls is systematically curvilinear, with a construction
opportunism based on the best use of the variations of the topography.
The ramparts are located 250 m away from the cliff at most and on
average 120 m from it. The aim of leaving this distance was to avoid
topographic irregularities, and to allow for the relatively linear and flat
development of the walls (average altitude az.720–740 m, except for
KH00911). It also makes the wadi accessible, minimises the area to be
protected on the plateau, and optimizes visibility over the desert and
oasis, without encroaching on agricultural zones. Several gates
(posterns?) were observed, but nonetheless, at this stage of research, the
reconstruction of the whole rampart does not enable us to identify oasis
circulation networks and the adjacent desert zones.
It is difficult to determine the original wall height, especially as only
the stone masonry is still standing, whereas the top of the wall in stone
or mudbrick – as possibly shown by mudbrick traces found on Gr.A
(Charloux et al.) – has entirely disappeared. The optimal conservation of
stone walls (3 m) was observed at Makidah. As no walk walls (if they
once existed) have been reached in any of the segments, we could
perhaps add at least 2 m of mud brick elevation (just over guard height,
if any), for a total estimated height of 5 m for Gr.C, although this height
remains hypothetical. In Tayma, the preserved elevation is higher than
6 m (possibly even higher than 14 m in the central core) (Schneider,
2016: 349), and in Dumat al-Jandal, wall height was estimated at
around 6.5 m, but with an identified wall walk (Charloux et al., 2021a).
3.2. Dating the outer wall
The high degree of erosion of the basaltic surfaces due to aeolian
weathering and annual runoff, as well as the absence of contemporaneous settlements connected to the outer walls, results in a lack of
archaeologically datable sediments related to the enclosure wall. However, it has now been dated by a cluster of concordant data, owing to the
discovery of radiocarbon dating elements and relative chronology.
First of all, the lines of the protohistoric funerary avenues of pendant
tombs dated to the mid-to late third millennium (Dalton et al., 2021;
Kennedy et al., 2021) were overbuilt or had their masonry reused or
sectioned by builders of the inner and outer enclosures, which constitutes the early limit of the phenomenon around 2600–2200 BCE (e.g.,
SM5 Figure S15). Wall blocks and the reuse of wall lines in recent times,
notably the stone circles/marabid (Philby, 1957; Charloux et al., 2022),
establish the later limit in the 19th-20th century (Figure 2B,D).
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Fig. 6. Study of the masonry of the ramparts. A. Variability of the range of thickness of each rampart group; B. View of the currently preserved masonry of the outer
enclosure wall (rampart KH01130) facing north; C. Example of architectural study conducted on outer enclosure wall segments showing inner masonry variability,
© Khaybar LDAP, G. Charloux. T. Terrasse.
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Fig. 7. Diagrams showing the hierarchy and organization of walls inside the oasis (length in meters; blue line for the number of bastions), © Khaybar LDAP,
G. Charloux.
Then, within this broad time frame, the most reliable chronological
markers were established by radiocarbon dating eight charcoal samples
taken from five test pits located on segments of the outer rampart:
KH00905, KH00919, KH9039, KH00965 and KH01130 (Table 1; Figs. 8,
9 and 10; SM5). The earliest date for the construction of the rampart is
based on the dating of charcoals sampled beneath it, i.e., prior to or
contemporary with its construction (terminus post quem TPQ): layer
KH00906.006 beneath rampart KH00905 (Fig. 9) and charcoal in layer
KH09039.004 beneath an overhang of gate KH09039 of rampart
KH01130 (Fig. 10). Samples KH00906.005 and KH00919.006 come
from layers abutting the rampart or in the immediate vicinity of its
foundation, and also yield a TPQ for the construction (or first use) of the
ramparts. Sample KH09066.005 from the stone fill of the bastion also
indicates a TPQ for the construction of this structure built against
rampart KH01130 and is indicative rather than actually connected to the
rampart itself, but supports the idea of a single coherent project
including the bastions (SM5 Fig. S17). Charcoal samples KH00905.006,
KH00965.004 and KH09039.009, in the gateways or against the upper
part of rampart KH00905, testify to a terminus ante quem for their
construction around 1980 BCE, and a probable period of use of the
ramparts before its collapse (Figs. 9, 10; SM5 Fig. S15).
Considering the dates obtained (Table 1; Fig. 11), rampart segment
KH00905 was built after 2279 BCE at the earliest, and before between
1878 and 1626 BCE. This date seems to be supported by the post-2139
BCE construction of rampart KH01130, indicated by sample
KH09039.004, although the gate may have been added some time after
the construction of the rampart. The terminus ante quem of rampart
KH00918 between 2201 and 1980 BCE is confirmed by sample
KH00965.004. Passages through gate KH09039 of rampart KH01130 are
still attested between 1741 and 1542 BCE.
All these highly consistent dates derive from test pits located at
significant distances from one another (Fig. 8). Considering the hypothesis that the rampart was built in a single operation - it is unlikely
that such an operation to encircle the oasis would have been halted for
centuries before being resumed - the outer rampart was built in the
Bronze Age, between around 2250/2150 and 1950 BCE. Its period of use
probably lasted at least four centuries, until around 1626–1542 BCE,
based on the dating of charcoal samples coming from a pathway in gate
KH09039 and a fireplace KH00905.006 against rampart KH00905,
below stone collapse. This chronological range corresponds well to the
surface pottery sherds lying around the ramparts (and a few rare specimens from test pits), generally associated with the turn of the second
millennium BCE (Shabo and Charloux, 2023, Fig. 11). Another argument for this chronological range comes from the contemporary occupation of the Bronze Age town of al-Natah at Khaybar in the Late third
millennium and the first half of the second millennium BCE, not discussed here (Charloux et al.).
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Fig. 8. Map of the “rampart” groups and, in particular the outer enclosure wall in red (Gr.C), with dating results from soundings, in the oasis of Khaybar, © Khaybar
LDAP, G. Charloux.
4. Discussion
destroyed by natural events, could support this argument. The last
reason was the resolve to inscribe a mark of control in the landscape and
to ostentatiously demarcate the oasis territory. In this way, this specific
territory was identified with a local authority, in order to impress visitors and desert groups. It was about delimiting a living space, a rural
settlement, and separating it from a desert area. The monumental construction of the rampart in the Bronze Age thus strengthened group
cohesion while acting as a territorial marker and defining social identity
(e.g., de Miroschedji, 2018: 137 in the Southern Levant). For these
reasons, the construction of the fortification does not appear to be totally
rational when considered solely in protective terms, as from a strategic
and defensive perspective; it is imperfect in places (Charloux et al.,
2021a: 8; for comparison with the Southern Levant: Nicolle, 1999: 77;
Ashkenazi, 2019). The walled enclosure in the oasis is therefore reminiscent of other types of symbolic barriers delimiting a territory in the
Near East, such as the contemporaneous “Very Long Wall of Syria”, but
also of other monumental fortifications for passive defense (Geyer et al.,
2010; Nunn, 2009).
The impressive dimensions of the outer enclosure walls and the scale
of the workforce required to build it indicate that the rampart construction necessitated centralized management by a local political entity. For later periods, we previously envisaged a substantial workforce
controlled by a powerful entity (Charloux et al., 2021a), but the evaluation of the human resources required to build the enclosure walls in
the Bronze Age seems to suggest a different scenario. As a rough guide,
the construction of the outer rampart, estimated to be 5 m high, would
The study of the outer rampart network in Khaybar makes it possible
to delimit the territory of the Khaybar Oasis as it was materialized in the
Bronze Age around 2000 BCE. It is exceptional both in terms of its size one of the two largest in Arabia - and in terms of the technical and
collective efforts, as well as for its implications for understanding longterm development related to urbanization processes.
Recently, we evoked three main reasons to explain such monumental
architectural investment in an oasis environment, the so-called ‘walled
oasis’ phenomenon (Charloux et al., 2021a). The first, and the most
evident, was the need for physical protection against mobile groups of
populations from the desert, potentially carrying out raids on oasis
settlements (Gawlikowski, 1986: 52; Burckhardt, 1829: 323) (and
possibly armies in later periods, see Charloux et al., 2021a: 29–30). This
was a well-known danger for sedentary populations during pre-Islamic
and Islamic times, but not documented in Bronze Age contexts in
North Arabia up until now (despite the presence of the so-called
“warrior burials”, evidencing social differentiation around 2000 BCE,
Hausleiter et al., 2018; Greenberg, 2019: 197–200 for the Southern
Levant). The second, more specific reason relates to the daily struggle
against natural erosion, in particular silting up, salinization of agricultural soils and violent destructions by flash floods in the wadis
(Schneider, 2010: 20–22; Wellbrock et al., 2018, 2019; Charloux et al.,
2021a,b). Although it was not neither observed in Bronze Age Khaybar,
the rampart segments, which were located in the wadis and therefore
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Fig. 9. Location of dating samples on rampart KH00905 (plan on orthophotography and sections). Section 1: KH00906.002 and KH00906.004 are filling layers above
ash area KH00906.005 on top of construction floor KH00906.006; Section 2: KH00905.002 is a collapse layer above a thin ash dump above fills KH00905.003 and
KH00905.005 above possible construction floor KH00905.004, © Khaybar LDAP, G. Charloux, F. Guermont and K. Guadagnini.
have required a volume of around 164,000 m3 of stones and/or bricks,
representing some 170,000 working days (SM6 Tables S2–3). By way of
illustration, a community of just 500 people from the nearby settlement
(Charloux et al.), only half of whom (250) would have been actively
involved in building the rampart for six months per year, could thus
complete the outer rampart in just four years, and only two years for half
of the community working full-time. This puts the scale of the operation
into perspective. Given the relatively low level of planning and preparation required (empirical choice of the enclosure route, simple and
systematic construction method, locally available materials, unsophisticated tools, etc.), a small local community would seem sufficient in
terms of numbers to plan and raise the outer enclosure wall. This
observation should not minimize the importance of this collective and
monumental phenomenon, but on the contrary, is a rich source of
information.
First of all, let us consider the people who built the ramparts.
Although this is not the primary subject of this paper, an interesting
avenue of research would be to compare walled oases with the creation
process of other fortified settlements on the desert margins of Southern
Syria and Jordan in the Bronze Age by indigenous groups (Müller-Neuhof et al., 2013; Nicolle and Braemer, 2021). As a working hypothesis, we might indeed suggest that the outer rampart of Khaybar was
built by local pastoralist nomadic populations (from the northwest of the
peninsula), that would have gathered together and then settled in the
Khaybar Oasis in the Early Bronze IV (Intermediate Bronze Age) (according to the chronology of the Southern Levant, see Greenberg, 2019).
This gathering episode would be testified by the construction of the
monumental funerary avenues between multiple oases in this region,
including Khaybar and Hait, during the mid-to late third millennium
BCE (Dalton et al., 2021). The collective practice of building a gigantic
rampart network is not unrelated to the process of edifying funerary
avenues, in terms of the amount of collective work carried out, in the
technics used for both construction types and in the transformation of a
landscape and the materialization of a cultural identity. It could be
therefore conceivable that funerary avenues were the first stage in this
transformation from a nomadic to a more sedentary way of life over
several centuries. Mobile pastoralist groups would have settled in the
Khaybar Oasis in a strategic area with a good water supply, ostentatiously demarcating their living and cultural space, in keeping with the
principles of plot demarcation for agriculture and grazing. While this
indigenous development possibly looked to defend areas of agricultural
and water resources from outside (even if amalgams of sedentary and
pastoralists lifestyles remain possible), the outer rampart certainly indicates a social and territorial marker. The hierarchical or heterarchical
control of social organization and the means of production required to
build the outer rampart would have been consolidated during these
stages of construction and lifestyle change towards a sedentary lifestyle
(for at least part of the population). We could envisage that this lifestyle
mutation could be one of the consequences of the aridification of the 4.2
BP climate event, although little is known of the paleoenvironmental
context in North-West Arabia (Bar-Matthews and Ayalon, 2011; Petraglia et al., 2020). In a possible stage of territorial competition between
groups of desert populations, social tension for food and water access
could have required group gathering in an ecological niche/refuge and
collective adaptation.
The second lesson can be drawn from the dating of the Khaybar
ramparts to around 2250–1950 BCE, thus more recent than that of
Qurayyah, founded in the first half of the third mill. BCE (Lüthgens et al.,
2023) and the vast development of the Tayma fortifications during the
second half of the third mill. BCE (Hausleiter, 2018; Hausleiter et al.,
2019; Hausleiter and Zur, 2016), but also older than Dûmat al-Jandal,
built in the Iron Age (Charloux et al., 2021a). This observation is
crucial as it confirms a recurring pattern of similar monumental phenomena over the long term. Shedding light on the walled oasis phenomenon, which probably stemmed from the transition of mobile
population groups to a sedentary lifestyle, should enhance our
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Fig. 10. Test pit in gate KH09039 on rampart KH01130 (plan on orthophotography and section), with location of dated samples. Outside the gate, KH09039.004 is a
small layer of brown gravel laying directly on the substratum below the stone collapse. Inside the gate, the collapse was underlain by KH09039.009, an occupation
level consisting of grey, coarse sandy sediment with some charcoal and animal bones. Below, a layer of brown gravel (KH09039.010) was laying on the bedrock,
© Khaybar LDAP, G. Charloux, F. Guermont, and K. Guadagnini.
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Fig. 11. Top: summarised C14 dating results for the outer rampart of Khaybar, C14 calibration after Reimer et al., 2020 (Bronk Ramsey, 2021); Bottom, diagnostic
red burnished sherds from surface layer in sounding KH09039, © Khaybar LDAP, G. Charloux & S. Shabo.
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Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 53 (2024) 104355
Fig. 12. Reconstruction view of the northern part of walled oasis of Khaybar around 2000 BCE. Pending the results of definitive archaeobotanical analyses, the plant
cover at this stage is based on the identified species listed in Table 1 (acacia, tamarisk, amaranth, cereals), © Khaybar LDAP, M. Bussy & G. Charloux.
Table 1
Identification and C14 dating of samples from test pits on the outer rampart of the oasis (Reimer et al., 2020; Bronk Ramsey, 2021), © ECO-Seed, E. Chambraud and C.
Bouchaud (MNHN, French National Museum of Natural History).
Sounding
Sample
Lab. ID
Sample Nature
Identification MNHN
Age (not calibrated)
±
95.4 (2 sigma)
KH00905KH00906
KH00905.006
DeA42268
DeA42277
DeA42269
DeA42270
DeA43982
DeA42271
DeA43983
DeA43984
Charcoal
Tamarix sp. (Tamarisk)
3436
35
cal BCE 1878–1626
Caryopsis (Seed)
3799
59
cal BCE 2457–2041
Charcoal
Triticum aestivum/durum (Naked
wheat)
Vachellia sp. (Acacia)
3729
36
cal BCE 2279–1984
Caryopsis + Wood charcoal
Cerealia + Amaranthaceae
3774
91
cal BCE 2464–1958
Charcoal
Vachellia sp. (Acacia)
3706
33
cal BCE 2201–1980
Wood charcoal
Tamarix sp. (Tamarisk)
3771
37
cal BCE 2336–2038
Wood charcoal
Tamarix sp. (Tamarisk)
3668
29
cal BCE 2139–1954
Wood charcoal
Vachellia sp. (Acacia)
3367
29
cal BCE 1741–1542
KH00906.005
KH00906.006
KH00919
KH00919.006
KH00965
KH00965.004
KH01130
KH09066.005
KH09039
KH09039.004
KH09039.009
Calibration after Reimer et al., 2020.
other oases in northwest Arabia, such as Tayma and Qurayyah. Dating
from the Late third millennium BCE, the ramparts of Khaybar were
probably built by indigenous populations as they settled down and
ostentatiously demarcated their oasis territory. These ramparts lasted
for several centuries before being dismantled or replaced by more recent
structures. In addition to the discovery of a unique and securely dated
monument, the recognition of the Khaybar walled oasis constitutes a
crucial landmark in the architectural and social heritage of north Arabia.
understanding of the socio-economic development of Arabia from the
Bronze Age to the Iron Age at the very least, in different geographical
contexts. It should also help bringing to light the "urban" trajectory in
this region (Magee, 2014; Luciani, 2021; Charloux et al.).
5. Conclusion
As a result of a series of field surveys and archaeological and architectural investigations, despite the difficulties of the terrain and the very
incomplete state of the ramparts, we are now in a position to confirm the
hypothesis that Khaybar was an immense walled oasis (Fig. 12), like
12
Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 53 (2024) 104355
G. Charloux et al.
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The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
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Acknowledgements
The Khaybar Longue Durée Archaeological Project (Khaybar LDAP),
codirected by GC, RC and MA, is led by the French National Centre for
Scientific Research (CNRS), steered and funded by the French Agency
for AlUla Development (AFALULA) on behalf of the Royal Commission
for AlUla (RCU) in Saudi Arabia.
Appendix A. Supplementary Material
Supplementary data to this article can be found online at https://doi.
org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2023.104355.
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