ABSTRACT
The ceramic analysis confirmed that Bilad al-Qadim had been occupied from the eighth or early ninth century through to the thirteenth/fourteenth century. Apart from a probable gap in the sequence during the tenth century, this occupation appears to have been continuous. From the pottery it can also be seen that the function of the site appears to have changed through time. The ceramics seem to indicate that an initial high-status occupation was followed by a period of comparative impoverishment, and eventually by a period of specialised pottery manufacture during the twelfth/thirteenth centuries. Following a final, perhaps village occupation, the site was abandoned to casual visitors and non-habitation use (for example as a graveyard or shrine).
