How Bronze Age Arabian traders invented ‘brand value'

The ad men of Madison Avenue might believe they invented the significance of brand recognition, but a recent archaeological study suggests its importance reaches back to the Bronze Age. Painted pottery vessels, known as Midianite, discovered in an oasis in Saudi Arabia are so distinctive, appealing, and sought-after that they should be regarded as a brand, researchers claim.

By examining the vessels unearthed in the Qurayyah oasis, scientists gained unique insights into trade practices from 3,200 years ago, they reported. Hundreds of these items were discovered at the site, but hundreds more had been exported overseas and found in the southern Levant. According to study lead Marta Luciani from the University of Vienna's Department of Prehistoric and Historical Archaeology, the oasis dwellers were resourceful and inventive enough to develop their own ceramic designs, cherish them at home, and eventually export them abroad.

Luciani told The National that the pottery featured a rich variety of red and black painted motifs, including geometrical patterns, flowers, and a wide range of animals such as lions, ibexes, ostriches, bulls, deer, foxes, dogs, gerbils, spiny-tailed lizards, and humans depicted in various activities linked to funerary rituals. Both men and women were represented, with men often shown as muscular warriors bearing daggers or chariot reins, and women dancing in long robes.

Study co-author Doralice Klainscek emphasized that the painted animals and humans "became the brand that was exported over hundreds of kilometers north to the Southern Levant, including sites like Tell El Kheleifeh and the Timna sanctuary of the Egyptian goddess Hathor, and south to North Arabia." However, the Qurayyah pottery tradition continued for another thousand years within the oasis, well into the final Iron Age.

The researchers also debunked previous misconceptions about the "Midianite Pottery," definitively proving its origin in the Qurayyah oasis. Luciani noted that this discovery sheds light on how local communities in arid desert oases, despite scarce resources like clay, water, and fuel, actively participated in broader networks of technological knowledge shared with neighboring regions such as the Southern Levant and Syria.

The study, published in the journal PLOS One, has implications beyond archaeology, touching on economic mechanisms that mediate producer-consumer relationships in resource-scarce environments. The research team comprised members from MIT, the Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East, OeAI/OeAW, TU Wien, and the University of Sydney, with support from the Heritage Commission of the Saudi Ministry of Culture.