Lecture | Leiden Yemeni Studies Lecture Series
Research on ancient southern Arabia: Current situation and outlook
- Christian Robin (CNRS)
- Date
- Monday 23 September 2024
- Time
- Series
- Leiden Yemeni Studies Lecture Series
- Location
- Online via Zoom (register below)
As an introduction to the conferences which will be devoted to ancient southern Arabia, an examination of the state of this field of research seems desirable. I am encouraged to do so because the progress in knowledge since the start of my career more than 50 years ago has been dizzying. I am also encouraged to do so because the Yemeni terrain has been impassable for around fifteen years and it is not pointless to examine the consequences of this disaster. Finally, if we like anniversaries, we should also note that the collapse of the kingdom of Ḥimyar, which then dominated the entire Arabian Peninsula, dates back exactly 1500 years. The event that precipitated the fall was the massacre of the Christians of Najran in November 523.
Over the past 50 years, there have been considerable developments. We can mention the fixing of the chronology; the demonstration that monotheism took root in Arabia from the 4th century of the Christian era; an appearance of Arabic writing in the Najrān region from 470 CE, 50 years before the oldest Arabic inscriptions in Syria; or a radical revision of tribal geography.
But, if this field of research is growing, it is also very unevenly developed. Philological studies are doing rather well, although there are insufficient researchers for a plethora of documentation. Archeology, on the other hand, is the poor relation. The archaeological excavations that have been undertaken are very few in number and those that have been properly published are even rarer.
In the methodological field, the articulation of archaeological and epigraphic sources is still in its infancy. But an important advance has been made in the treatment of the Arab-Muslim scholarly tradition: it is now clear that contemporary sources of events take precedence over reminiscences noted in very later manuscript sources. As for traditional methods used in linguistics or paleography, it appears that their validity is reduced when they do not take into account all the data.
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About the speaker
Prof. Christian Robin, a member of Institut de France (Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, since 2005) and emeritus Directeur de recherche, classe exceptionnelle at Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, where he served since 1970. His research interest is History of Arabia since ancient times to the early centuries of Islam.
Prof. Robin studied Political Science (Science Po, Service public, Paris, 1964), Classical Arabic (INALCO and Paris III 1967 and 1977), History (Paris I, 1968); MA (Paris I, 1970), PhD, “The Land of Hamdân and Khawlân Qudâ‘a”, supervisor, Maxime Rodinson, Ancient History, Panthéon-Sorbonne, Paris I, 1977), and Doctorat ès Lettres (habilitation) (“Saba’ and Himyar”, supervisor André Caquot, Sorbonne nouvelle, Paris III, 1993).
He is the founder of the French Center of Research in Sanaa “Centre français d'Études yéménites” (Yemen) and was his first Direcector (1982-1986).
He directed several research institutions: Institut de Recherches et d’Etudes sur le Monde arabe et musulman (CNRS, Aix-Marseille, 1997-2000), Laboratoire des Études sémitiques anciennes (CNRS, Aix-Marseille I, II & III, 2001-2006), Orient & Méditerranée (CNRS, Paris IV, Paris I, EPHE and Collège de France 2006-2010).
He also led and directed two Archaeological teams: the French archaeological Mission in Yemen (1978-2008), and the French Saudi archaeological Mission in Najrân, Saudi Arabia (since 2006). He was honored to receive a Festschrift in the same year (Sabaean Studies) and a second one in 2023 (Arabie — Arabies). He is Fellow of Deutsches Archäologisches Institut (Berlin) and ex-Istituto Italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente (Rome) and received the decoration of the Légion d'honneur on 2008.
He published 20 books and 300 articles and chapters of books.
The Leiden Yemeni Studies Lecture Series is supported by the Horizon-2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions project EMStaD YEMEN.
An overview of all events in this series can be found on the series page.