Dumat al-Jandal, the emerging of a North Arabian oasis in the pre-Islamic era. The Nabataean period and the pottery evidence from the residential area.

Since 2009 the Italian archaeological mission of the University of Naples “L’Orientale” in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has conducted archaeological activities in the al-Jawf region and in the historical core of Dūmat al-Jandal. This paper intends to introduce two main topics: 1) by adopting a broader approach, to introduce the oasis formative process by the study of the al-Jawf paleo-environmental changes that lead to the beginning of the historical exploitation of Dūmat al-Jandal. 2) The definition of the main pre-Islamic phase of the oasis, the Nabataean one, by the preliminary classification of the pottery assemblage from the main excavated building in the historical core, the I-II cent. AD Building A. Remote sensing and field surveys in the Ḥarrat al-Harrah, along the northern edge of wādī al-Ṣirḥān, and along the Jabal Nejma, south of Dūmat al-Jandal, have provided evidence of the Neolithic occupation, as well as Bronze Age evidence already documented in Dūmat al-Jandal. This prehistoric evidence testifies of the middle Holocene Green Arabia and the transitional period of the desertification (Chalcolithic and Bronze Age) that gave floor to the formation of the historical oasis. To this date, in the historical core of Dūmat al-Jandal the most preserved evidence are the ones related to the Nabataean I cent. AD. In particular, two soundings carried out in the foundation level of Building A courtyard revealed a complex assemblage of domestic items composed by locally made ware and imported ware from the very core of the Nabataean kingdom.