« Colosse d’Arabie. Voyage au cœur des royaumes antiques d’al-‘Ulâ » (EN)

« Colosse d’Arabie. Voyage au cœur des royaumes antiques d’al-‘Ulâ (Arabie saoudite) », par Jérôme Rohmer (CNRS, UMR 8167 Orient et Méditerranée) et Abdulrahman Alsuhaibani, (Commission Royale pour AlUla (RCU), le 16 mars 2023 à l'Auditorium Michel-Laclotte.

Cette conférence consacrée au site de Dadan propose, dans une formule inédite, un voyage à la découverte des antiques royaumes de l’oasis d’al-‘Ulâ, mais également un focus stylistique et technique sur un colosse de grès présenté aujourd’hui dans les salles du département des Antiquités orientales du musée du Louvre.
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Conférence en anglais
Colossus of Arabia. A journey to the heart of the ancient kingdoms of al-‘Ula (Saudi Arabia)
By Jérôme Rohmer, researcher at CNRS, UMR 8167 Orient et Méditerranée (East and Mediterranean research unit), and Abdulrahman Alsuhaibani, head of Archaeology, Heritage and Collections of the Royal Commision for AlUla (RCU)
Introduction by Ariane Thomas, director of the Department of Near Eastern Antiquities, Musée du Louvre.
Simultaneous interpreting into English by Cabinet Brusset.

This seminar focussing on the site of Dadan provides a unique opportunity to journey through the ancient kingdoms of the al-‘Ula oasis, as well as highlighting the stylistic and technical features of a sandstone colossus currently on display in the Department of Near Eastern Antiquities of the Musée du Louvre.

The ancient city of Dadan was located in the fertile oasis of al-‘Ula, in north-west Saudi Arabia, at the crossroads of the caravan routes of antiquity. The city prospered during the 1st millennium BC, largely due to long distance exchanges along the incense and spice trading routes. As a major caravan staging post between southern Arabia, Egypt, the Levant and Mesopotamia, the city formed the hub of the Dadan kingdoms (first half of the 1st millennium BC), before becoming the capital of the tribal kingdom of Lihyan (5th to 2nd century BC).

Excavations of the site since the early 2000s by King Saud University (KSU), Riyadh, and by a Franco-Saudi mission (Dadan Archaeological Project, CNRS/ French Agency for AlUla development/Royal Commission for AlUla) since 2019, have revealed countless architectural remains, including sanctuaries, settlements and burial grounds. Excavations conducted on the sanctuary yielded this sandstone colossus whose unprecedented style draws heavily on Egyptian statuary.

This dual presentation provides an exclusive insight into the results of recent excavations at Dadan, and offers an immersive experience around the sandstone colossus, with a view to deciphering this original masterpiece at the juncture of Eastern worlds.

Jérôme Rohmer is a research fellow at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) (UMR 8167 Orient et Méditerranée (East and Mediterranean research unit)), specialising in the archaeology of the southern Levant and North Arabia, from the Iron Age to Late Antiquity. While working on his PhD thesis on the history and archaeology of southern Syria from the Iron Age to the Early Roman Period (Université Paris 1, 2013), he began researching North Arabia in 2008 as part of the archaeological project at Mada’in Salih/Hegra. In 2016, he launched a Franco-Saudi archaeological project on the so-called ‘Hellenistic’ ancient caravan city of Thaj, in eastern Arabia (CNRS/Saudi Heritage Commission/MEAE), and since 2019 has co-directed a new archaeological programme dedicated to Dadan, one of the main Bronze and Iron Age sites in north-west Arabia (Dadan Archaeological Project, CNRS/RCU/AFALULA).

Abdulrahman Alsuhaibani is an associate professor in the Department of Archaeology at King Saud University (KSU), Riyadh, and director of the Collections of the Royal Commission for AlUla (RCU). A specialist in the archaeology of North Arabia in the 1st century BC, he focused his PhD thesis on the architecture of the ancient city of Dadan (Université Paris 1, 2015). He has been working on the Dadan site since 2006 and has published several articles related to it. Since 2019, he has co-directed the Franco-Saudi mission in Dadan (Dadan Archaeological Project, CNRS/RCU/AFALULA).

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