Roads of Arabia

14 Arabie US_p218-261.qxd 23/06/10 21:51 Page 234
ROADS OF ARABIA
The Oasis of Tayma
before. At the time, the outer wall had already been covered by dunes for a long time and could
no longer fulfil its defensive function. In this context, the reduced size of the site could reflect
a loss of political importance attached to the oasis. 40 The space on the other side of the inner
wall, which during the early Iron Age was still occupied by public buildings housing sophisticated
objects (Area O), was at this point only used as a burial site, in which a number of funerary
stelae bearing a simple depiction of a face and sometimes an Aramaic inscription of a name
were reused to cover the tombs (cat. no. 105). The names recorded on these stelae have provided
a basis for Aramaic onomastics, but do not give enough information to draw any conclusions
about the social makeup or prosopographical nature of Tayma‘nite society. Moreover, this
is the only category of objects that show southern Arabian influences in Tayma, in terms of style
and morphology.
The last architectural level of the public building in Area E that served as a temple, and
that had a special importance for the Lihyanite kings (fig. 11), shows various stages of construction,
each one divided into several phases. At first the building consisted of a single large hall
with three naves separated by pilasters. Later, most likely under the Lihyanite dynasty or during
the Nabataean period, the southern part of the building was transformed into a portico,
while its northern part was divided into five rooms, which could indicate that the building was
no longer being used as a temple.
Fig. 11. Map of the E-b1 temple (Area E)
Fig. 10. Map of Qasr al-Hamra’
rate his twentieth, thirtieth and fortieth years on the throne. It was most likely during this time
that several larger-than-life statues of male figures were erected in al-Khuraybah and Tayma
(cat. no. 107). Given that one of the statues in al-Khuraybah bears a royal inscription, one may
deduce that the statues found in Tayma are also royal representations that, like the ones in
Dedan, stood next to the temple. However, the pedestal found in the Qraya temple whose
inscription mentions a Lihyanite king named ’Ulaym Shahru (P. Stein) probably served another
purpose, considering its smaller size.
Under the reign of King Lawdhan of Lihyan, a certain Natir-It served as governor of
Tayma, as indicated by an Aramaic inscription found in the fill in the ditch that runs along the
inner wall. This inscription is also the earliest sign of political and administrative organization
at the oasis. If the “breach” it mentions refers to the remains of a passage under the Nabataean
inner wall, this would indicate that the wall dates to earlier in the Lihyanite dynasty or shortly
40. Hausleiter 2009.
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