Conquest to Conversion: The Archaeology of Religious Transformation in Early Medieval North Africa

North Africa (west of Egypt) is a compelling locale to explore how and when a Muslim minority became the Muslim majority. Previous scholarly approaches to medieval religious change rely almost exclusively on much later written sources, and as a result, little is understood about the religious landscape in which believers operated in. This article examines critically the material evidence for mosque construction and church abandonment and proposes certain tipping points in the process by which Islam become the dominant religion. While mosque construction reveals more about state and elite religious investment than the believers who may have used them, other forms of evidence, including funerary evidence, dietary practices and inscribed material culture, occasionally give us an intimate glimpse into the practices of simple believers. The evi-dence shows that the chronology of religious change differs between those regions under Byz-antine rule (eastern Algeria, Tunisia, coastal Libya), and those ruled by Berber chiefdoms in late antiquity. Much of the latter converted in the 8th century, whereas the late 9th century marks the mass conversion of town dwellers from the Byzantine core and a first period of crisis for Chris-tianity. This early conversion was an important factor in the collapse of the caliphate in North Africa and the emergence of successor states that used Islam as the main idiom through which to establish and legitimize their right to rule

Urban life in early Islamic Morocco: new light from the excavations at Walīla (Roman Volubilis)

This article presents a research update from the INSAP-UCL excavations at the UNESCO site of medieval Walīla (Roman Volubilis), Morocco. Though the site is best known as the Roman city of Volubilis, in the Middle Ages, and by then called Walīla, it took on a new importance as a Berber centre, the probable locale of an Umayyad or Abbasid garrison and the capital of Idrīs I, the founder of one of the earliest Islamic states in Morocco. It is the only site in Morocco – and in North Africa more generally – where excavations have uncovered substantial evidence of eighth-century urbanism. As such, Walīla provides an exceptional opportunity to investigate the nature of a Berber town and its transformation into, for a short time, the centre of one of the earliest Islamic states in North Africa. This article presents a summary of our results from the four seasons of fieldwork that have taken place so far, between 2018 and 2022

Re-thinking the ‘Green Revolution’ in the Mediterranean world

From the seventh century AD, successive Islamic polities were established around the Mediterranean. Historians have linked these caliphates with the so-called ‘Islamic Green Revolution’—the introduction of new crops and agricultural practices that transformed the economies of regions under Muslim rule. Increasingly, archaeological studies have problematised this largely text-based model of agrarian innovation, yet much of this research remains regionally and methodologically siloed. Focusing on the Western Mediterranean, the authors offer a theoretically informed, integrated environmental archaeology approach through which to contextualise the ecological impact of the Arab-Berber conquests. Its future application will allow a fuller evaluation of the scale, range and significance of agricultural innovations during the ‘medieval millennium’

Coupling morphometric analysis and soil erosion modeling for the characterization of the geomorphological setting in the surrounding of the archaeological site of Chimtou (Central Medjerda Valley, Tunisia)

This study focuses on the characterization of the geomorphological setting in the hinterland of the archaeological sites of Chimtou and Bordj Hellal located in the central Medjerda Valley, North Tunisia. Our approach integrates the algorithm Geomorphons for semi-automatic landform classification with the soil erosion model Unit Stream Power-based Erosion Deposition (USPED), providing information on the intensity and regional distribution of erosional and depositional processes. Data from geomorphological field mapping provide a database for a ground-truth of the semi-automatic landform classification derived by the algorithm Geomorphons and complemented the database for the creation of a detailed map of the geomorphology in the hinterland of Chimtou. In line with the delineation of the spatial distribution of erosional and depositional processes, the results deepen the understanding of the geomorphology and the sediment routing of this region

Re-thinking the ‘green revolution’ in the Mediterranean world

From the seventh century AD, successive Islamic polities were established around the Mediterranean. Historians have linked these caliphates with the so-called ‘Islamic Green Revolution’—the introduction of new crops and agricultural practices that transformed the economies of regions under Muslim rule. Increasingly, archaeological studies have problematised this largely text-based model of agrarian innovation, yet much of this research remains regionally and methodologically siloed. Focusing on the Western Mediterranean, the authors offer a theoretically informed, integrated environmental archaeology approach through which to contextualise the ecological impact of the Arab-Berber conquests. Its future application will allow a fuller evaluation of the scale, range and significance of agricultural innovations during the ‘medieval millennium’

The technology of polychrome glazed ceramics in Ifriqiya: new data from the site of Chimtou

Ifriqiya (roughly Tunisia and eastern Algeria) is believed to have played a significant role in the diffusion of ceramic glazed technologies into other regions of the Western Mediterranean. However, due to limited analysis on North African glazed ceramics, its role in technology transfer remains poorly understood. This paper uses SEM–EDS and petrographic analyses to understand the technology employed in the production of Tunisian ceramics through the study of 30 polychrome glazed ceramics from a medieval settlement at the site of Chimtou (ancient Simitthus), Tunisia, dated to the late ninth-twelfth century. The results show that these are lead-rich glazes with varying contents of alkalis, coloured with copper, iron and manganese oxide and applied over a calcareous body. Opaque glazes were obtained using cassiterite crystals as opacifier or by adding crushed quartz. The use of lead stannate as a colourant and opacifier in one light yellow glaze raises questions about the mechanisms of introduction of tin opacification technology in North Africa. Scrap metal seems to have been used as a source of lead for the glazes; while iron slag was probably used as a source of iron to colour the glaze in one sample, pointing to a cross-craft interaction between glazemaking and metallurgy