Michael C. A. Macdonald

michael c a macdonald
Research Associate
michael.macdonald@ames.ox.ac.uk

Position:

Research Associate of the Khalili Research Centre.
Honorary Fellow, Wolfson College, Oxford
Fellow of the British Academy

Faculty / College address:

Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies / Wolfson College

Research Interests:

The languages, scripts and inscriptions of ancient Syria, Jordan and Arabia, particularly Ancient North Arabian (Taymanitic, Dadanitic, Hasaitic, Thamudic (in all its forms), Hismaic, and Safaitic), Nabataean, and Developing Arabic.

Literacy in the ancient and late antique Near East.

The rock-art of ancient Syria and Arabia.

The history of the nomads of Syria and Arabia from the first millennium BC to the rise of Islam.

The use of camels and equids in ancient Arabia.

Current Projects

  • Founder, and co-academic director with Professor Ahmad Al-Jallad, of the Online Corpus of the Inscriptions of Ancient North Arabia (OCIANA), based on Macdonald’s Safaitic Database, and created at the Khalili Research Centre, Oxford, with a grant from the AHRC. It has now moved to Ohio State University where it is being updated and greatly enlarged and where it will be based from now on.
  • Co-director of the Badia Epigraphic Survey which records thousands of inscriptions in the basalt desert (ḥarra) of north-eastern Jordan, which are then entered into OCIANA. The first season took place in 2015 and, with a gap because of covid, has been undertaking annual expeditions ever since.
  • Leader of the UK section of the Saudi-British-German project Epigraphy and Landscape in the Hinterland of Taymāʾ, which combines epigraphic surveys in the deserts around the oasis of Taymāʾ in North-West Arabia with the results of landscape archaeology in the areas in which they found.

 

Recent Publications:

Books

  • 2024 with M. al-Najem, Taymāʾ III. Catalogue of the Inscriptions in the Taymāʾ Museum and Other Collections, with contributions by Frédéric Imbert, Jérôme Norris, and Peter Stein. Oxford: Archaeopress.
  • 2020 [2021] Taymāʾ II. Catalogue of the inscriptions discovered in the Saudi-German excavations at Taymāʾ 2004–2015. With contributions by A. Hausleiter, F. Imbert, H. Schaudig, P. Stein, F. Tourtet, and M. Tognitz. Oxford: Archaeopress, 2020 [2021]
  • 2018 (ed.) Languages, scripts and their uses in ancient North Arabia. Papers from the Special Session of the Seminar for Arabian Studies held on 5 August 2017. (Supplement to volume 48 [2018] of the Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies). Oxford: Archaeopress.
  • 2010 (ed.) The development of Arabic as a written language. Papers from the Special Session of the Seminar for Arabian Studies held on 24 July 2009. (Supplement to the Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies volume 40). Oxford: Archaeopress.
  • 2009 Literacy and Identity in Pre-Islamic Arabia. (Variorum Collected Studies, CS906). Farnham: Ashgate. Now translated into Arabic by Prof Fahd Muṭlaq Al-ʿUtaibī as القراءة والكتابة في الجزيرة العربية قبل الإسلام وهوية ممارسيها (King Saud University Press, 1442/2020)
  • 2005 with C.S. Phillips (eds) F.L. Beeston at the Arabian Seminar, and other papers. Oxford: Archaeopress.

Articles and contributions to books (see also academia.edu)

  • 2024 (with A. Al-Manaser) Ancient and Modern inscriptions in the basalt desert: New from the 2023season of the Badia Epigraphic Survey in north-east Jordan. Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy: 1–18.
  • 2024 Contributions to the Thematic Dictionary of Ancient Arabia (https://ancientarabia.huma-num.fr/) on Baʿal-šamīn, Marʾ-al-qays, Ṣalm, and Al-ʿUzzā
  • 2023 Babel around Taymāʾ and Dūmat. Pages 207–224 in I Gajda, F. Briquel-Chatonnet & D. Aigle (eds), Arabie — Arabies: volume offert à Christian Julien Robin par ses collègues, ses élèves et ses amis. Paris: Geuthner.
  • 2023 Voices in the Wilderness: Some unexpected uses of graffiti. Pages 355–382 in O. Škrabel, L. Mascia, A.L. Osthof & M. Tatzke (eds), Graffiti scratched, scrawled, sprayed. Towards a cross-cultural understanding. Berlin: de Gruyter.
  • 2023 Languages and scripts in ancient North Arabia and their use at AlUla and Hegra. Pages 150–155 in L. Nehmé & A. Alsuhaibani (eds), AlUla Wonder of Arabia. Catalogue of an exhibition at the Palace Museum, Beijing. Paris, Skira
  • 2022 The Oral and the Written in the religions of ancient North Arabia. Pages 17–41 in F. Donner (ed.), Scripts and Scriptures. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
  • 2022 Contributions on “The desert and its people” (pp. 327–333) and “The Arabs” (397–401), in T. Kaizer (ed.), The Blackwells Companion to the Hellenistic and Roman Near East. Oxford: Blackwells.
  • 2022 Appendix 2: Concordance of the inscriptions recorded by Huber in his first Arabian journey. Pages 293–304 in W. Facey, in collaboration with M.C.A. Macdonald, Charles Huber. France's greatest Arabian explorer. With a translation of Huber's First Journey in Central Arabia, 1880–1881. Cowes: Arabian Publishing.
  • 2021 A preliminary analysis of the Ḥawrān Aramaic script. Eretz-Israel 34 (Ada Yardeni Volume), *95–*119.
  • 2020 with Ali Al-Manaser, The 2018 and 2019 seasons of the Badia Epigraphic Survey. Archaeology in Jordan 2 :2–3.
  • 2020 Camels in the rock art of Arabia. Pages 135–158 in D. Alexander, S.ʿA. Al-Rashid, A.B. Warren & J. Sisk (eds), The camel through the ages. A compendium dedicated to Dr. Abd Al-Rahman Al-Tayyib Al-Ansari. Volume 2. Al-Riyāḍ: King Abdulaziz Public Library and Layan Cultural Foundation.
  • 2020 Tribes and Space in the Syro-Arabian ḥarrah as revealed by the Safaitic inscriptions (ca. 1st century BC to ca. 4th century AD). Semitica et Classica 13: 189–204.
  • 2020 Graffiti and complexity: ways-of-life and languages in the Hellenistic and Roman ḥarrah. Pages 343–354 in P.M.M.G. Akkermans (ed.), Lanscapes of Survival — The archaeology and epigraphy of Jordan's north-eastern desert and beyond. Leiden: Sidestone.
  • 2020 Juggling languages and scripts in North-West Arabia between c. 500 BC and AD 300. The IASA Bulletin 25: 24–27.
  • 2019 Languages and scripts in ancient North Arabia and their use at AlUla and Madain Salih. Pages 56–59 in L. Nehmé & A. Alsuhaibani (eds), AlUla Wonder of Arabia. Catalogue of the exhibition at the Institut du monde arabe, Paris, 9 October 2019 to 19 January 2020. Paris: Gallimard/Institut du monde arabe.
  • 2019 with Ali Al-Manaser, Recording graffiti in the Black Desert: past, present, and future. Journal of Eastern Mediterranean Archaeology & Heritage Studies 7, no. 2: 205–222.
  • 2019 Pages 18–19 in The Encyclopaedia of Islam Three. Leiden: Brill.
  • 2019 Liḥyān. Pages 131–134 in The Encyclopaedia of Islam Three. Leiden: Brill.
  • 2019 Horses, asses, and hybrids, and their use as revealed in the ancient rock art of the Syro-Arabian desert. Pages 149–168 in P. Raulwing, K.M. Linduff, & J.H. Crouwel (eds), Equids and Wheeled Vehicles in the Ancient World. Essays in memory of Mary A. Littauer. (BAR International Series, 2923). Oxford: BAR.
  • 2019 with D. Burt & A. Al-Jallad, The Online Corpus of Ancient North Arabian Inscriptions. Pages 102–117 in I. Rossi & A. De Santis (eds), Crossing Experiences in Digital Epigraphy. From Practice to Discipline. Warsaw: De Gruyter.
  • 2018 The Ancient North and South Arabian inscriptions. Pages 227– 284 in Nehmé (ed.), The Darb al-Bakrah. A caravan route in north-west Arabia discovered by Ali I. al-Ghabban. Catalogue of the inscriptions. With contributions by F. Briquel-Chatonnet, A. Desreumaux, Ali I. al-Ghabban, M. Macdonald, L. Nehmé, and F. Villeneuve. (Series of Archaeological Refereed Studies, 50). Riyadh, Saudi Commission for Tourism and National Heritage.
  • 2018 Texts in Imperial Aramaic? Pages 23– 24 in Nehmé (ed.), The Darb al-Bakrah. A caravan route in north-west Arabia discovered by Ali I. al-Ghabban. Catalogue of the inscriptions. With contributions by F. Briquel-Chatonnet, A. Desreumaux, Ali I. al-Ghabban, M. Macdonald, L. Nehmé, and F. Villeneuve. (Series of Archaeological Refereed Studies, 50). Riyadh, Saudi Commission for Tourism and National Heritage.
  • 2018 Clues to how a Nabataean may have spoken, from a Hismaic inscription. Pages 231–239 in J. Brooke, A.H.W. Curtis, M. al-Hamad, & G.R. Smith (eds), Near Eastern and Arabian Essays: Studies in Honour of John F. Healey. (Journal of Semitic Studies Supplement, 41). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • 2018 Towards a re-assessment of the Ancient North Arabian alphabets used in the oasis of al-ʿUlā. Pages 1–19 in M.C.A. Macdonald (ed.), Languages, scripts and their uses in ancient North Arabia. Papers from the Special Session of the Seminar for Arabian Studies held on 5 August 2017. (Supplement to volume 48 [2018] of the Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies). Oxford: Archaeopress.
  • 2018 Tweets from antiquity: Literacy, graffiti, and their uses in the towns and deserts of ancient Arabia. In Ragazzoli, Ö. Harmanşah, C. Salvador & E. Frood (eds), Scribbling through History. Graffiti, places and people from antiquity to modernity London: Bloomsbury Academic.
  • 2018 with A. Lemaire, Some Ancient North Arabian Notes. Semitica 60: 295–308.
  • 2017 How much can we know about language and literacy in Roman Judaea? A Review of M.O. Wise, Language and Literacy in Roman Judaea. A Study of the Bar Kokhba Documents. (The Anchor Yale Bible Reference Library). New Haven CT: Yale University Press, 2015. Journal of Roman Archaeology 30: 836–846.
  • 2016 Three Dimensions in Two: Convention and Experiment in the Rock Art of Ancient North Arabia. Pages 316–335 in M. Luciani (ed.), The Archaeology of North Arabia: Oases and Landscapes. Proceedings of the International Congress held at the University of Vienna, December 5–8, 2013. (OREA Series, 4). Vienna: Austrian Academy of Sciences.
  • 2016 with B. Overlaet and P. Stein, An Aramaic-Hasaitic bilingual inscription from a monumental tomb at Mleiha, Sharjah, U.A.E. Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy 27: 127–142.
  • 2015 [2016] with A. Al-Jallad, A few notes on the alleged occurrence of the group name ‘Ghassān’ in a Safaitic inscription. Archiv für Orientforschung 53: 152–157.
  • 2015 On the uses of writing in ancient Arabia and the role of palaeography in studying them. Arabian Epigraphic Notes 1: 1–50.
  • 2015 Was there a “Bedouinization of Arabia”? Der Islam 92/1 (‘The Arab East and the Bedouin Component: From Late Antiquity to the Ottoman Period’): 42–84.
  • 2015 Arabs and Empires before the Sixth century (including a new edition of the Ruwāfa Inscriptions), with contributions by A. Corcella, T. Daryaee, G. Fisher, M. Gibbs, A. Lewin, D. Violante, & C. Whately. Chapter 1 (pp. 11–89) in G. Fisher (ed.), Arabs and Empires Before Islam. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • 2015 The emergence of Arabic as a written language. Pages 395–417 in Chapter 7 of G. Fisher (ed.), Arabs and Empires Before Islam. Oxford University Press.
  • 2015 with L. Nehmé, Bny, ʾl and ʾhl in Nabataean and Safaitic. Pages 69–75 in G. Charloux & R. Loreto (eds), Dûma 3. The 2012 Report of the Saudi-Italian-French Archaeological Project at Dûmat al-Jandal, Saudi Arabia. Paris & Riyadh: Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities.
  • 2014 “Romans go home”? Rome and other “outsiders” as viewed from the Syro-Arabian desert. Pages 145–163 in J.H.F. Dijkstra & G. Fisher (eds), Inside and Out. Interactions between Rome and the Peoples on the Arabian and Egyptian Frontiers in Late Antiquity. (Late Antique History and Religion, 8). Louvain: Peeters.
  • 2014 with A.J. Nabulsi, P.-L. Gatier & S. Timm, Epigraphic Diversity in the cemetery at Khirbet es-Samrāʾ. Palestine Exploration Quarterly 38: 149–161.
  • 2013 with A.J. Drewes, T.F.G. Higham & C. Bronk Ramsey, Some absolute dates for the development of the Ancient South Arabian minuscule script. Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy 24: 196–207.
  • 2012 Goddesses, dancing girls or cheerleaders? Perceptions of the divine and the female form in the rock art of pre-Islamic North Arabia. Pages 261–297 in I. Sachet & Ch. J. Robin (eds), Dieux et déesses d'Arabie Images et représentations. Actes de la table ronde tenue au Collège de France (Paris) les Ier et 2 octobre 2007. (Orient et Méditerranée, 7). Paris : De Boccard.
  • 2012 Inscriptions, Rock Drawings and wusūm from the Ayl to Ras an-Naqab Archaeological Survey. Pages 433–465 in B. MacDonald, L.G. Herr, D.S. Qaintance, G.A. Clark & M.C.A. Macdonald, The Ayl to Ras an-Naqab Archaeological Survey, Southern Jordan (2005–2007). (American Schools of Oriental Research Archaeological Reports, 16). Boston, MA: American Schools of Oriental Research.
  • 2012 Wheeled vehicles in the Rock Art of Arabia. Chapter 12, pages 356–395, in M. Khan, The Arabian Horse. Origin, Development and History. Riyadh: Layan Cultural Foundation.
  • 2012 With S. Brock, S. Canby. O. al-Ghul & R.G Hoyland, Chapter C.12. The Semitic Inscriptions. Pages 417–419 in K.D. Politis (ed.), The Sanctuary of Lot at Deir ʿAin ʿAbata in Jordan Excavations 1988–2003. Amman: Jordan Distribution Agency.
  • 2010 [2011] The “Abiel” Coins of Eastern Arabia: A study of the Aramaic Legends. Pages 403–547 in M. Huth & P. van Alfen (eds), Coinage of the Caravan Kingdoms. (Numismatic Studies, 25). New York: American Numismatic Society.
  • 2010 Ancient Arabia and the written word. Pages 5–28 in M.C.A. Macdonald (ed.), The development of Arabic as a written language. Oxford: Archaeopress.
  • 2010 The Old Arabic graffito at Jabal Usays: A new reading of line 1. Pages 141–143 in M.C.A. Macdonald (ed.), The development of Arabic as a written language. Oxford: Archaeopress.
  • 2009 Arabs, Arabias, and Arabic before Late Antiquity. Topoi 16: 277–332.
  • 2009 ARNA Nab 17 and the transition from the Nabataean to the Arabic script. Pages 207–240 in W. Arnold, M. Jursa, W.W. Müller, & S. Procházka (eds), Philologisches und Historisches zwischen Anatolien und Sokotra. Analecta Semitica In Memoriam Alexander Sima. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
  • 2009 with M. al-Najem, A new Nabataean inscription from Taymāʾ. Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy 20: 208–217.
  • 2009 The decline of the 'epigraphic habit' in late antique Arabia: some questions. Pages 17–27 in Schiettecatte & C.J. Robin (eds), L'Arabie à la veille de l'Islam. (Orient & Méditerranée, 3). Paris: De Boccard.
  • 2009 Wheels in a land of camels: Another look at the chariot in Arabia. Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy 20: 156–184.

 

On the Committee of:

The Seminar for Arabian Studies and the editorial board of the Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies.