Programme MEDEE (Sea, Desert, Environnement) Saudi Arabia, UAE, Oman, Kuwait, French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, CEFREPA

Project summary

The program previously operated across the Arabian Peninsula and Central Asia funded by the Excavation Commission. For the sake of consistency institutional and geographic, it was decided by mutual agreement to attach the program to CEFAS and to focus it only on the Arabian Peninsula with a privileged partner SUAD (Sorbonne University Abu Dhabi).

The program favors the transversal pooling of the needs of partner archaeological missions around paleo-environmental studies. Two themes are privileged: the impact of relative variations in sea level and their consequences for human occupation since the Neolithic and the impact of climatic aridification since the Holocene optimum on water resources and their exploitation.

Project dates

January 2019 – ongoing

Partnerships

  • Sorbonne Université, Responsables : Éric Fouache et Stéphane Desruelles (SU, CNRS UMR FRE 2026 ENeC)
  • Arabie Saoudite : Mission franco saoudienne de Farasan (Responsable : Solène Marion de Procé (Université de Poitiers ) :Mission franco saoudienne de Thaj (Responsables : Jérôme Rohmer (CNRS UMR 8167) et I. al-Mshabi (SCTH) ,
  • Koweït : Mission archéologique franco-koweïtienne de Failaka (Responsables : Julie Bonneric (CEFAS, USR 3141, CIHAM,UMR 5648, IFPO) et Sultan Al Duwaish (Directeur Du Department of Antiquities and Museums, NCCAL, Koweit).
  • EAU : SUAD, Terrain de Thèse de Damien Arhan (Directeur :Éric Fouache, Co-Directeur : Kosmas Pavlopoulos)
  • Oman : Mission archéologique Française en Oman Central (Responsable : Guillaume Gernez, Maître de Conférences à l’université Panthéon-Sorbonne ; UMR 7041 ArScAn) Mission archéologique Française à Bat,(Responsable : Corinne Castel ; Directrice de recherche, UMR 5133,Archéorient).

Funding

Interdisciplinary and regional program financed by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, attached to CEFAS.
CEFAS (French Center for Archaeology and Social Sciences) helps French missions based on the Arabian Peninsula to carry out palaeoenvironmental studies and is major partner of Sorbonne University Abu Dhabi.