A very successful season of fieldwork directed by Timothy Insoll was completed in mid-March with excavations again in Harlaa in the jeweller’s workshops and in a newly discovered settlement area (see below). Six test excavations were also undertaken in or adjacent to mosques and shrines in Harar at the Aw Meshed, Dine Gobana, Fakhredine, Abdal and Jami mosques and at the Aw Abadir shrine. Project partner for the mosques of Harar research, Ahmed Zekaria, also joined us for the latter part of the work in Harar. Extensive progress was made on the field survey by Nadia Khalaf, on the local ceramics analysis by Nick Tait, and on Chinese porcelain by Hannah Parsons. Rachel MacLean also supervised excavations and completed all the site planning. Veerle Linseele from KU Leuven, project partner for the faunal analysis, visited the sites and completed preliminary quantitative analysis of the faunal remains. Our good friend and ARCCH Antiquity Officer Misganaw Gebremichael made all the work possible with his good sense, charm, and patience, and we are grateful to him and all our Ethiopian friends and colleagues for their generosity and kindness in letting us complete the research.
– Tim
