Ruwayda Archaeological Project

10/01/2019

Al Ruwayda, features in this recent article from Marhaba. The exhibition is still currently running at the Old Police Station and is well worth a visit. Other sites of interest within Al Ruwais and beyond are discussed in this article.

Driving north on Al Shamal Road on a typical weekend, the traffic peters out soon after passing Al Khor. Those who venture further head either to Ras Laffan for work, or, in the cooler season, to take a dip in the waters of the popular beaches at Fuwairit and Al Ghariya on the east coast. …

16/12/2018

The 'Window to the Past' exhibition is currently on going at the old Police Station at Al Ruwais. Here are some pictures from opening day. See our earlier post for details of the exhibition.

14/12/2018

Qatar Museums are launching a number of cultural activities, one of which is an exhibition at the old Police Station at Ruwais. This exhibition is designed to inform visitors about traditional life in Qatar and will use different archaeological sites around the country, including Ruwayda, in doing so. The exhibition will be begin December 15th and will continue into March.

Qatar Museums press statement on upcoming events.

'The old Police Station at Al Ruwais, only a 15-minute drive north of Al Zubarah, has been restored and now serves as a permanent exhibition space with an onsite café. The “Window to the Past” exhibition, on show at the police station, will feature objects found during excavations at nearby sites and encourages visitors to explore historical buildings in the neighbourhood, such as the recently restored, oldest mosque in Qatar.
The exhibition will open tomorrow at 11am with free traditional Qatari food, which will also be served on Qatar National Day. The onsite café will operate on weekends from 10am to 5pm through March, while the museum will be open all year 9am to 5pm and is free for visitors.
This initiative comes as part of QM’s continued efforts to increase awareness of Qatar’s history, develop youth appreciation and respect for heritage, and put local communities, young and old, in touch with their past.'

The old Police Station at Al Ruwais can be located using the following link through google maps https://goo.gl/maps/5pXCuANSapx

20/05/2018

WELSH TRADE MISSION VISITS RUWAYDA

At the beginning of May this year Qatar Airways started a new direct flight from Cardiff which not only raises the profile of Wales in Qatar but also means that it is much easier to get to Ruwayda from west Wales. As part of the programme of events marking the first direct flights a Welsh Government trade Mission flew to Doha to explore new methods of collaboration.
Recently some members of the Trade Mission asked to visit Ruwayda in order to get a better idea of Qatar outside Doha. Although most of the team wanted to make the visit the hectic cycle of meetings meant that in the end only two people were able to create time to visit the site in the company of Andrew Petersen. The visitors were rewarded with unusually cool weather and were able to make an extended visit to most of the site. The visitors were Derek Davies of Axium Process from Swansea and Anita Richard’s from Rachel’s Dairy in Aberystwyth.

For more information on the trade mission, and Qatar Airways new route from Cardiff to Doha follow these links.

https://gov.wales/newsroom/international/2018/180430-destination-qatar/?lang=en

https://www.qatarairways.com/en/press-releases/2018/april1/-qatar-airways-touches-down-for-the-first-time-in-cardiff--the-c.html?activeTag=Press-releases

03/03/2017

British Ambassador to Qatar, Ajay Sharma, recently visited Ruwayda and was given a tour of the site and surrounding landscape.

05/12/2016

Ben Barbour has agreed to become the Resident artist for the Ruwayda Project. In this capacity Ben will make visits to the site both during the excavations and at other times and will make work based around aspects of the site and its investigation.

http://www.qatar.vcu.edu/people/ben-barbour

Ben and Andrew Petersen made a recent visit to a particularly wet Ruwayda.

On January 24th Andrew Petersen will give a talk on Ruwayda at the Khalili Research Centre in Oxford, further details to follow.

18/01/2016

The British Association for Near Eastern Archaeology Annual Conference was held this year at the Lampeter Campus of UWTSD from the 6th-8th of January. The conference was divided into a number of panels- or themes- one of which was Islamic Archaeology. Within this panel Qatar was well represented with three papers including Rob Carter from UCL talking about the origins of Doha Project, Peter Chomowicz talking about the heritage themes underlying the development of the modern city and Austin Hill talking about the recent UAV aerial survey of a number of sites in Qatar including Ruwayda, Murwab and Jazirat bin Ghanim. Other papers in the Islamic archaeology session included Alison McQuitty talking about the Khirbat Faris Project in Jordan, Karol Juchniewicz talking about Muslim shrines in Lebanon, Hagit Nol talking about methods of dating features from early-medieval Islamic sites in Palestine and Ros Cook who discussed recent survey work on late Ottoman houses in Palestine.

13/01/2016

In December 2015 the Ruwayda UAV Survey team extended their coverage to a number of other archaeological sites in Qatar including Zubara, Jazirat bin Ghanim (popularly known as Purple Island) and the early Islamic site of Murwab. The team comprised of Austin Hill, UAV pilot and data analyst, Murtada Kodi the surveyor form Qatar Musems and Andrew Petersen. The team was met with challenging conditions including some very high winds as well as technical set backs. Despite these problems the team managed to complete a high resolution survey of Jazirat bin Ghanim which has been used to produce a 3D representation of the island. In addition the suq area within the walls at Zubara was surveyed indicating the potential for a full 3d topographic survey of the site. At Murwab some oblique photographs of the site were taken togethern with a series of vertical images which were used to produce a topographic map of the latests excavations at the site. The UAV survey was made possible by a grant from QNRF (NPRP grant 4-998-6-026)

18/11/2015

Hannah Russ is the zooarchaeologist with the Ruwayda Archaeological Project, and her work sees her identify, analyse and interpret fish remains from sites throughout Qatar. On November 27th Hannah will present some of her work in a presentation entitled 'Fishing and fish consumption practices during the Islamic period in Qatar' as part of the George Pitt-Rivers Laboratory Seminars at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research. More information is available through this link. http://www.mcdonald.cam.ac.uk/events/gpr-seminars

The George Pitt-Rivers Seminars are generally given by researchers based in or around the University of Cambridge. They are primarily aimed at researchers working in the archaeobotany, genetics and isotope laboratories in the McDonald Institute but cover a wide range of topics.

16/11/2015

The Al Jazeera International Documentary Film Festival takes place from the 26th - 29th of November. The archaeological remains at Ruwayda was used in the creation of an advert for the festival which can be seen here.
https://vimeo.com/139320957

This is "Horizon Al Jazeera Film Festival-Dig Site" by Ahmed Ezzat on Vimeo, the home for high quality videos and the people who love them.

12/10/2015

A symposium on “Qatar History in Light of Archaeological Evidence” will take place at Qatar University on Tuesday 13th of October.http://www.qu.edu.qa/events/event.php?id=2048&
Andrew Petersen will be among the speakers with a presentation entitled 'Ruwayda- An Eighteenth Century Garden by the Sea'. Details on time and location can be found on the Qatar University website. Anyone with an interest in Qatar history, archaeology and or heritage is encouraged to attend.

29/09/2015

ISLAMIC ARCHAEOLOGY SESSION AT BANEA 2016
Papers are invited for a special session on Islamic Archaeology at BANEA 2016 which will be held on January 6th-8th 2016 at UWTSD Lampeter, Wales.

Those interested in attending or presenting a paper are encouraged to register first register on the BANEA website http://www.banea2016.org/ and also to email their abstract to Andrew Petersen at the following email addresss; [email protected]

Following on from the successful Islamic session at the 2015 BANEA in London this panel would like to continue the theme of Islamic archaeology and in particular to encourage students to consider this as an area of research. Whilst Islamic culture is encountered in excavations and sites throughout the Middle East the emphasis of European and American archaeologist has generally been on the pre-Islamic periods. The aim of this workshop is to demonstrate the relevance of archaeology for understanding medieval and modern Middle Eastern society at this particularly challenging time. This workshop will address the latest developments in the archaeology of the Islamic period in the Middle East (circa 630- 1918 AD). In addition to the fieldwork reports the workshop encourages submissions which address the role of archaeology in understanding Islamic societies and also question the scope of this research area.

The Schools of Archaeology History, and Anthropology and Classics are pleased to be hosting BANEA 2016 at Lampeter (University of Wales Trinity Saint David) from January 6th-January 8th 2016.