Crossing Ancient Sacred Landscapes: Contacts and Continuities in the Ancient Desert Cults and Beliefs of Northern Arabia and the Arid Southern Levant

Crossing different landscapes and periods has been a major feature of the desert cults and beliefs of the Middle East, from prehistory to modern times. This book aims to study the sacred landscapes of northern Arabia and the southern arid margins of the Levant in ancient times throughout the longue durée, adopting an interdisciplinary approach at the intersection between archaeology, history, epigraphy, rock art research, and digital humanities.

Top-rated international scholars joined in a seminar held at the University of Oxford in December 2023 to present several case-studies with synchronic and diachronic analyses of the cultic and mortuary traditions of modern southern Jordan/Israel and northern Saudi Arabia, from the Neolithic to the Early Islamic period. The studies are particularly interested in the cultural continuity of cultic and ritual manifestations throughout large geographical spaces. These cults and beliefs cut across different landscapes and periods. Crossings were synchronic, with religious traditions, oral narratives, cultic material culture, and funerary architecture, crossing diverse geographical landscapes and socio-cultural entities of different complexity. Crossings were also diachronic, with certain features of the material culture and architecture crossing through different temporal periods.