iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Peter J Brown

Dan Lawrence @dl-arch.bsky.social · 18/11/2025

Thanks to the @antiquity.ac.uk team for making this cool video summarising our recent paper, featuring drone footage from the steppe hero @peterjbrown.bsky.social himself!

2174

Peter J Brown @peterjbrown.bsky.social · 18/11/2025

Our work, led by @dl-arch.bsky.social and Miljana Radivojević on the Bronze Age site at Semiyarka (NE Kazakhstan) published today in @antiquity.ac.uk

515451

Reposted by Peter J Brown

Durham University @durham.ac.uk · 22/08/2025

In this article, our Honorary Fellow in Archaeology @peterjbrown.bsky.social sheds new light on the story of the Zanj rebellion – a slave revolt that took place in the late 9th century in southern Iraq. Peter and his team have unearthed the timelines. Read more 👉 www.durham.ac.uk/research/cur...

132

Reposted by Peter J Brown

Antiquity Journal @antiquity.ac.uk · 21/08/2025

Earthworks cover southern Iraq, built by slave labour during the Early Islamic period A slave rebellion was thought to have caused their abandonment, but new research suggests other factors, such as Mongol invasion and the plague, were responsible 🏺 #Archaeology Learn more 🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...

CORONA satellite imagery of a landscape covered in linear ridge/earthwork features. A dotted line annotates a canal channel running through the earthworks. Photograph number DS1035-1040DF019 captured 23 September 1966 (reproduced courtesy of the US Geological Survey).

0114

Reposted by Peter J Brown

Antiquity Journal @antiquity.ac.uk · 16/06/2025

Did enslaved people build the monumental agricultural earthworks of Early Islamic Iraq? #MedievalMonday 🏺 Scientific #archaeology sheds light on the impact of the Zanj rebellion, Mongol invasion, plague and climate change on the Iraqi landscape. Learn more 🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...

Aerial; view of several linear ridge features stretching across a desert landscape.

0116

Reposted by Peter J Brown

Antiquity Journal @antiquity.ac.uk · 09/06/2025

NEW Did a slave revolt cause the decline of medieval farming in southern Iraq? 🏺 New dates suggests earthworks in the region stayed in use following the 9th-century-AD Zanj rebellion, questioning the traditional historical narrative. Learn more 🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...

0103

Reposted by Peter J Brown

Archaeology Magazine @archaeologymag.bsky.social · 09/06/2025

The Shatt al-Arab floodplain, an agricultural system outside of the Iraqi city of Basra, was likely dug by enslaved Africans exploited by the Abbasid Caliphate in the 9th century A.D. archaeology.org/news/2025/06/05/enslaved-africans-built-ancient-agricultural-system-in-southern-iraq/

056

Peter J Brown @peterjbrown.bsky.social · 09/06/2025

A fascinating and highly thought provoking volume!

110

Reposted by Peter J Brown

European Association of Archaeologists @archaeologyeaa.bsky.social · 06/06/2025

🏺 Recent research suggests that thousands of earthen ridges and canals in the Shatt al-Arab floodplain outside Basra in Iraq, part of an ancient agricultural system, were constructed with slave labour during the early Islamic period associated with the 'Zanj rebellion'. #Archaeology #Iraq

cambridge.org

The landscape of the Zanj Rebellion? Dating the remains of a large-scale agricultural system in southern Iraq | Antiquity | Cambridge Core

The landscape of the Zanj Rebellion? Dating the remains of a large-scale agricultural system in southern Iraq

0156

Reposted by Peter J Brown

Brian Ulrich @brianjulrich.bsky.social · 03/06/2025

New dating of ridges in southern #Iraq show the agricultural system developing not only in the 800s, but until the 1200s This was the landscape at one point worked by the Zanj, slaves from sub-Saharan Africa whom I talked about in my @archumanities.bsky.social book The Medieval Persian Gulf

cambridge.org

The landscape of the Zanj Rebellion? Dating the remains of a large-scale agricultural system in southern Iraq | Antiquity | Cambridge Core

The landscape of the Zanj Rebellion? Dating the remains of a large-scale agricultural system in southern Iraq

1102

Reposted by Peter J Brown

Antiquity Journal @antiquity.ac.uk · 02/06/2025

A slave revolt, Mongol invasion, spread of plague and climate change. Find out how agricultural features in southern Iraq can teach us about all of these in this great thread, then check out the new Research Article in Antiquity 🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...

0144

Reposted by Peter J Brown

Louise Rayne @louiserayne.bsky.social · 02/06/2025

Our latest article is out today. It describes results of remote sensing and OSL dating of archaeological earthworks near Basra in Iraq. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

053

Peter J Brown @peterjbrown.bsky.social · 02/06/2025

Big thanks to our funders @gerda-henkel-stiftung.de, co-authors Jaafar Jotheri, @louiserayne.bsky.social, Nawrast Abdalwahab & @ericandrieux.bsky.social & all other contributors at Radboud University, @arcdurham.bsky.social, @newcastleuni.bsky.social & the universities of Al-Qadisiyah & Basrah.

040

Peter J Brown @peterjbrown.bsky.social · 02/06/2025

While our work provides more details about this field system, it also opens many new questions which we hope to answer more fully in the future. Read more about these enigmatic features in our new paper published #OpenAccess in @antiquity.ac.uk today: doi.org/10.15184/aqy...

doi.org

The landscape of the Zanj Rebellion? Dating the remains of a large-scale agricultural system in southern Iraq | Antiquity | Cambridge Core

The landscape of the Zanj Rebellion? Dating the remains of a large-scale agricultural system in southern Iraq

140

Peter J Brown @peterjbrown.bsky.social · 02/06/2025

Climate change could have played a contributory role as any reduction in the amount of water flowing downstream in the Shatt al-Arab would have meant the tidal effects on the river would have been less pronounced, reducing the area that could be irrigated using this method.

100

Peter J Brown @peterjbrown.bsky.social · 02/06/2025

The spread of plague in the 14th century, on the other hand, and the drop in population numbers this caused, may have impacted both the available workforce and the number of local consumers to such a degree that farming on this scale was no longer viable.

120

Peter J Brown @peterjbrown.bsky.social · 02/06/2025

Possible explanations for the decline of this system might include the Mongol invasion of Iraq which caused significant disruption during the late 13th century.

100

Peter J Brown @peterjbrown.bsky.social · 02/06/2025

While the ultimate origins of the system remain debatable, the ridges we sampled continued to accumulate between the 9th and 13th centuries meaning the surrounding area was farmed during this period.

100

Peter J Brown @peterjbrown.bsky.social · 02/06/2025

Our results demonstrate that, while the ridges were likely there at the time of the slave revolt in the ninth century, the soil in the ridges continued to accumulate in the centuries that followed - so this agricultural system has a longer history than was previously assumed.

100

Peter J Brown @peterjbrown.bsky.social · 02/06/2025

To provide more certainty, we retrieved samples from within the ridges themselves for analysis using ‘Optically Stimulated Luminescence’ methods. These date the last time individual grains in the soil were exposed to sunlight - when the earth was piled up to form the ridges.

100

Peter J Brown @peterjbrown.bsky.social · 02/06/2025

But this narrative lacked any definitive evidence - it was based on very limited evidence from textual sources which was difficult to link beyond doubt with the features we can see on the ground today.

100

Peter J Brown @peterjbrown.bsky.social · 02/06/2025

Most scholars who have studied these landscape features in the past, therefore, have associated them with these slaves - constructing and maintaining these features could even have been the catalyst for the 9th century revolt.

100

Peter J Brown @peterjbrown.bsky.social · 02/06/2025

Historical sources tell of a slave revolt in the region in the late 9th century (869-883 CE). We have little information about the tasks these slaves undertook prior to the rebellion, but this almost certainly included agricultural labour of some kind.

110

Peter J Brown @peterjbrown.bsky.social · 02/06/2025

But when exactly was this system created? How long did it last for and why was it abandoned?

100

Peter J Brown @peterjbrown.bsky.social · 02/06/2025

In a few areas, farming still takes place among these ridge features today. These areas capitalize on the Shatt al-Arab river’s tidal effects. Since it lies close to the Gulf, the tide pushes freshwater upriver which can be drawn off via canals to irrigate farmland.

100

Peter J Brown @peterjbrown.bsky.social · 02/06/2025

Looking at the areas between these ridge features, we can see traces of canals and in some cases field boundaries - so it is clear that, together, these features form an old agricultural system through which a large area, that is abandoned today, was farmed in the past.

100

Peter J Brown @peterjbrown.bsky.social · 02/06/2025

These ridges are massive! Most are around 1 km long, with earth piled up to about 2m high AND there are a lot of them - if you could put each one ‘end to end’, so they formed one continuous line, it would run for over 3000 kilometres! Creating these was a huge amount of work!

110

Peter J Brown @peterjbrown.bsky.social · 02/06/2025

Our new article published today in @antiquity.ac.uk focuses on interesting archaeological landscape features in southern Iraq. Groups of long linear earthen ridges sit on the banks of the Shatt al-Arab river in the Basra region, north of the shores of the Gulf… 🧵

1135