International Association for the Study of Arabia (IASA)
IASA NEWS LETTER FROM THE EDITOR This is my first IASA Bulletin as Editor, and it has been a pleasure to receive so many contributions to the publication from around the globe. We may be focused on the Arabian Peninsula, but we are able to keep in touch with our members, followers and supporters all around the world. I am extremely grateful to all of our contributors who have taken the time to submit their research or items of interest. This first e-version of the Bulletin does not look very different, the main change is the increased use of hyperlinks, and the convenience of being able to zoom in on images, but as members will know we will be revamping our website shortly and will review the Bulletin design in tandem. Some sections of the Bulletin that don’t change between editions will move to the IASA website. If you are wondering what has happened to the Book Review section, do not worry. Book reviews will appear in the Autumn issue of the Bulletin, thanks to the hard work of Review Editor Alexandra Hirst. As you know, this is the first time we have had a Spring and Autumn edition of the Bulletin, and we had so many excellent submissions for the Spring we decided to leave something exciting for the Autumn issue which will appear in September. IASA Monographs will also be featured in the next edition. As Noel our Chair has pointed out, changes to the Bulletin have been driven by the response to last November’s member survey, but some are also consequences of the global pandemic. We are not able to report on as many 2020 conferences and exhibitions as usual, and some fieldwork activity has been suspended. This is a time of change and uncertainty for all, but I hope that you will find the activity reported on in this edition of the Bulletin to be as interesting and inspiring as I have. Thank you, Carolyn Perry
TRUSTEE NEWS Trustee biographies may be found on our website. Here we feature their latest news. Dr Robert Bewley I retired as the Director of the Endangered Archaeology in the Middle East and North Africa project in 2020, a project that began in 2015 and now has funding until 2024. More information on the project is available at http://eamena.arch. ox.ac.uk. In 2020, I was elected Chair of the Council for 4
British Research in the Levant (CBRL). I intend to continue working in aerial survey for archaeology wherever I can but especially Jordan and Oman (http://www.apaame.org/ ) as the director of those projects. I trained as an archaeologist (at Manchester and Cambridge Universities) and was initially employed at English Heritage as an Inspector of Ancient Monuments in 1984. I moved to the Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England in the Air Photography Unit in 1987, and became the Head of Aerial Survey until 2003 (by then back in English Heritage). I was Head of Survey 2003-4, and then English Heritage’s Regional Director for the South-West 2004-2007 and became Director of Operations for the Heritage Lottery Fund (2007-2014). My research interests are in aerial archaeology, prehistory, landscape archaeology and the Middle East and North Africa.
Dr Noel Brehony Our Chair Noel Brehony co-edited two books in 2020 and has another coming out this year. They are Building a New Yemen: Recovery, Transition and the International Community, co-edited with Amat Al Alim Alsoswa, published by I.B.Tauris; Global, Regional, and Local Dynamics in the Yemen Crisis co-edited with Stephen W Day, published by Palgrave Macmillan and Britain’s Departure from Aden and South Arabia: Without Glory but Without Disaster co-edited with Clive Jones, published by Gerlach Press.
Prof Clive Holes Prof Holes reports that he is in the process of compiling an annotated glossary of the Arabic dialects of the Sultanate of Oman, based on data he recorded there while he was Director of the Language Centre at Sultan Qaboos University (1985-7). The data was recorded in the field at many locations all over northern and central Oman, as far south as the Jaddat al-Harasis. This will complement his earlier work on the northern Gulf, Dialect, Culture and Society in Eastern Arabia, published by Brill in three volumes between 2001 and 2016. The Omani glossary will be published in the online Open Access Semitic Languages and Cultures Series, Cambridge University Press.
Who is the person that sends you all those emails? Meet our Membership Secretary... William Deadman I was born in Ireland, to an English father and a Welsh mother. We moved back to the UK when I was a baby, and then to Oman when I was eight. My father taught and conducted research in the College of Agriculture in Sultan
