Al-Madam and the Archaeology of the Falaj in South East Arabia

Résumé En

J. Cordoba is famous in the U.A.E. for his investigations in the oasis of al Madam (Emirate of Sharjah) where he could demonstrate the use of a falaj (pl. aflaj) during the Iron Age period and associate it to a cultivation area and to a settlement. This settlement could be dated between the 8th and the 4th century BCE, that is, between the local Iron Age II and Iron Age III periods. The falaj system has been interpreted in the late 90ies as a technical innovation at the origin of a redevelopment and extension of the oases in SE Arabia during the Iron Age, itself favouring a demographic and economic growth during that period. Investigations carried out on the falaj AM-2 at al-Madam by J. Cordoba and his team brilliantly illustrated its characteristics and components as well as its progressive drying up at the beginning of Iron Age III, with a deepening of the falaj’s floor followed by a final abandonment of the system – an of the nearby settlement and cultivation. Recent investigations carried out at Masafi (J. Charbonnier, A. Benoist), at Bin Ati (T. Power, P. Sheehan), and at Salut (M. Degli Esposti) have brought to light new data on the archaeology of the aflaj, which suggest a more nuanced picture of the irrigation techniques used in Iron Age oases in SE Arabia. The robust dataset built at al-Maam can thus be compared and contrasted with these new data an with the documentation from other SE Arabian sites, in orer to show that nothing as an archetypal falaj probably existed.