Maritime Archaeology of the Arabian Gulf and Western Indian Ocean

(3 Credits)

What does it mean to become maritime? How have oceans and seafaring shaped the ways people, ideas, and cultures have converged across time and space? This course investigates the UAE’s ocean history and early global connectivity through the maritime archaeological lens. In 2500 BCE, Magan ships crossing the Gulf opened vast networks to create global societies. By 750 CE, the maritime landscape of the Islamic world spanned the Atlantic, Mediterranean, and Indian Ocean worlds, from Al-Andalus to the Tarim Basin, and south to Sofala. We explore how maritime history from the Bronze Age to the present shaped the modern world and investigate how becoming maritime catalyzed and facilitated many social changes. We study how Arabian seafarers spread ideas, religions, technologies, and goods, shaping global identities made possible by connectivity. Through fieldwork in Abu Dhabi, we will learn celestial navigation and analyze ancient navigational texts to reflect on how sailors cognized the seas and coasts around them. Finally, using maritime archaeological methodologies, we will document ship structures to understand five millennia of the technologies that made a globalized world possible. Students should know how to swim (2 days of pool training).