Jérôme Rohmer
Dr Jérôme Rohmer is a researcher with the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), specialising in the archaeology of the Southern Levant and North Arabia from
the Iron Age to Late Antiquity. Since 2008, he has been doing research on North Arabia, where he participated in the Mada’in Salih Archaeological Project (2008-2017) and co-directed
the excavations of the pre-Islamic caravan city of Thāj, in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia (2016-2023). Recently, he co-launched a multidisciplinary archaeological project at the ancient city of Dadan, in north-western Arabia (2019-ongoing).

The Ancient Caravan City of Thāj and the Archaeology of Ancient North-eastern Arabia: From the Iron Age to the eve of Islam (7th/6th cent. BCE – 6th/7th cent. CE)
Located in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia, 90 km off the coast of the Arabian Gulf and c. 180 km south of the Saudi- Kuwaiti border, Thaj is by far the largest known pre-Islamic settlement in Eastern Arabia. Between 2016 and 2023, five large-scale excavation seasons were carried out at Thaj, co-led by the French CNRS and the Saudi Heritage Commission. They have shed critical new light on the site’s evolution through time, from its emergence in the Late Iron Age, through its heyday in the ‘Hellenistic’ period, to its gradual decline in Late Antiquity. This lecture will present an overview of these results and put them into perspective within the wider history of East Arabia in the ‘Late Pre-Islamic’ Period.