The ancient port of Sumhuram is situated about 35 km east of the modern city of Salalah, in Dhofar, the southernmost region of the Sultanate of Oman. The settlement was built on a rocky outcrop dominating the Khor Rori lagoon, about 2 km from the seashore. The site was founded in the 3rd century BC and abandoned in the 5th century AD. The site and the area of Khor Rori has been under investigation by the Italian Mission to Oman (IMTO) of the University of Pisa, directed by Alessandra Avanzini, during the last twenty years.
Throughout its long history, Sumhuram was involved in an international network of commercial trades and contacts. Relations with Yemen, India, the Gulf, Egypt and the Mediterranean are attested by numerous small findings and a large amount of ceramic vessels.
This book is a comprehensive study of the imported and local pottery of Sumhuram.
A contribution by Roberta Tomber about late Hellenistic and Roman pottery completes and enhances the results of this volume. The discussion of the different types of pottery provides important new data about trade connections and maritime contacts in the Indian Ocean in the last centuries BC - first centuries AD.
Foreword by Alexander V. Sedov
Acknowledgements
introduction
General remarks
Method
Collection and selection of the material
Classification
Contents and coatings
Sealing procedures
Grafjiti and inscriptions
Chronology
1. notes on the wAres discovered in khor rori
Short compilation of the wares
Descriptions of the wares
2. kitchen vessels
Form I.1: pots
Form I.2: bowls
Form I.3: pans
Form I.4: lamps/lids
Form I.5: lids-cum-bowls
plAtes
3. tAble vessels
Form II.1: jars
Form II.2: jugs and juglets
Form II.3: flasks
Form II.4: spouted jars
Form II.5: bottles
Form II.6: bowls
Form II.7: plates
plAtes
4. storAge vessels
Form III.1: jars
Form III.2: bowls
plAtes
re-worked vessels And re-used sherds
plAtes
Bibliography
the lAte hellenistic And romAn pottery by Roberta Tomber
Introduction
Method
Assemblage composition, dating and inter-site comparison
Dating and intra-site comparison
cAtAlogue
Fine and Coarse wares
Black Gloss wares
hellenistic Fine wares
Eastern Sigillata A (ESA)
Eastern Sigillata B (EBS)
cypriot Sigillata
italian Sigillata (itS)
Unidentified Sigillata
African Red-slipped ware (ArS)
Unidentified Red-slipped wares
thin-walled wares
Asia Minor Lead-glazed ware
Lamps
Egyptian wares
?Egyptian coarse wares
Unidentified Coarse ware
Amphorae
Italy: Bay of Naples (Vesuvius)
italy: tyrennian coast, including campania
Brindisi
Spain
North Africa
Mareotis
Egyptian nile alluvium
'Aqaba
cilicia
Eastern Mediterranean
Kos
rhodes
Aegean
San Lorenzo 7
Unidentified types
Bibliography
Stratigraphy, Architecture, Material Culture
A lexical and onomastic index of the inscriptions
Corpus of the inscriptions
Khor Rori Report 4
Excavations of the Italian Mission to Oman 2004-2014
The Kitab al-ansab by al-'Awtabi
A History of South Arabia before Islam recounted from Inscriptions
The epigraphic collections of the museums of Baynun and Dhamar
