Adams/Jordan, 15. The Umayyad and Abbasid Periods

In a volume such as this on the archaeology of Jordan, it would not have been surprising in years past to find the articles ending with the “coming of Islam.” The dominating model was that this momentous event sealed the past and began a new, fully historical Mediaeval period. This somehow implied that full historical documentation (would that such a thing existed) somehow obviated the need for archaeology. For scholars studying the period after this defining event, archaeological methodology was seen as subsidiary to historical, a scholarly tendency commonly encountered in the study of any society that left written sources. Although written records may provide details, thoughts, reasoning, and the like, broader trends, both temporal and spatial, frequently may be clarified only through the archaeological record.