Alessandro de Maigret

AAlessandro de Maigret (14 August, 1943 – 14 February, 2011) studied Archaeology of the Ancient Near East at the Istituto di Studi del Vicino Oriente at the Università di Roma. He graduated in Classical Archaeology in 1971 and completed post-graduate studies in Eastern Archaeology in 1973. From 1970 to 1976, de Maigret was part of the Italian Archaeological Mission in Syria directed by Paolo Matthiae (Università di Roma) that performed excavations at Ebla (modern Tell Mardikh).

de Maigret field experience included direct responsibility for excavations at Ebla and Tell Afiss, as well as archaeological explorations in the region South of Aleppo. He complemented his fieldwork with academic research on the pre-Hellenistic Syrian-Palestinian culture.

At the end of the research at Ebla, de Maigret broadened his theoretical and methodological approach by studying the New Archaeology methods developed in America. From 1978 to 1979, he completed a fellowship in Environmental Archaeology at the Institute of Archaeology in the University of London. As a result of this new direction, de Maigret published a critical review of the excavations conducted at Hama in Syria (1979), and an article on the environment and economic resources of ancient Ebla (1981).

In 1980, following his appointment as Associate Professor at the Istituto Universitario Orientale in Naples, he created the Italian Archaeological Mission in the Yemen Arab Republic (MAIRAY) (Fig. 1), with funding from the Italian Foreign Ministry, the Ministero dell’Università and the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR). The Archaeological Mission, with the support of Sabatino Moscati and under the aegis, first, of the Istituto per l’Oriente of Rome and from 1983, of the Istituto per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente (IsMEO) directed by Gherardo Gnoli, is still actively engaged as Italian Archaeological Mission in the Republic of Yemen (MAIRY).

From 1981 to 1985, the Mission carried out a preliminary survey of the rich and diverse prehistory of Yemen at sites on the high-plateau, in the desert and coastal plain. In 1981, the Mission discovered the existence of a Bronze Age culture in the Yemen dating from the 3rd to the 2nd millennium BCE (Fig. 2). Over fifty sites from this pre-Sabaean phase were discovered in the mountainous region to the Southeast of Ṣanʿāʾ. Explorations and excavations carried out in 1984 and 1985 in four of the main settlements gave the first complete picture of a culture with clear affinities to the culture that flourished in Palestine in the Early Bronze Age, and that directly preceded the Southern Arabian civilization of the classic period.

In 1985, research on the Sabaean period resulted in the discovery of a large complex of ruins (Wādī Yalā) on the Eastern boundary of the desert, which, after Marib, is considered the most important Sabaean archaeological complex known in Yemen. An excavation conducted in the site of Yalā ad-Durayb/Ḥfry (1987) provided essential data that clarify the much-debated chronology of Southern Arabian civilizations.

In the late 1980s, de Maigret and the Italian Mission investigated a number of sites: the necropolises located in the desert (‘turret tombs’) and the hypogean tombs on the plateau, and the religious architecture of the Islamic period that, during a four-year survey, established the first typological classification of the oldest mosques in Yemen. Lastly, de Maigret initiated large-scale excavations in the extraordinary Minaean city of Barāqish (the ancient city of Yathill), and, during two archaeological campaigns in 1989 and 1992 discovered an important temple dedicated to the tutelary god Nakraḥ (7th –1st century BCE) (Fig. 3).

In 1990, Alessandro de Maigret became Full Professor of Archaeology and Art History of the Ancient Near East at the Istituto Universitario Orientale in Naples. The following year he was elected President of Arabia Antiqua, the International Association for Studies of the Arabian Peninsula, established at the Arabia Antiqua International Congress organized by IsMEO in Rome. This led, in 1992, to his appointment by the Italian Foreign Ministry as Archaeological Counsellor to the Italian Embassy in Riyadh. During his stay in Saudi Arabia (1993–1997), de Maigret was able to establish contacts with the Universities and cultural institutes in the various countries of the Arab Peninsula and gained first-hand experience of the most important archaeological sites in Saudi Arabia and the neighbouring states of Oman, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Qatar.

In 1998, through a programme of collaboration with the French Archaeological Mission directed by Christian Robin, de Maigret headed a series of excavations of the South Arabian temple of Yeha in Ethiopia (Fig. 4). Between 1999 and 2004, he conducted six extensive archaeological campaigns at Tamnaʿ, the ancient capital of the Kingdom of Qatabān, first excavated in the early 1950s by the archaeological mission of the American Foundation for the Study of Man. These excavations brought to light a large temple dedicated to the goddess Athirat, ten houses in the famous Market Place of the city and 8 tombs in Ḥayd Ibn ʿAqīl, the city’s necropolis (Fig. 5).

In 2003, with funding from the Direzione Generale per la Cooperazione allo Sviluppo of the Italian Foreign Ministry, de Maigret completed a lengthy restoration at Barāqish featuring the temple of Nakraḥ (Fig. 6), and, between 2004 and 2006, he completed and safeguarded the excavation of second temple in the ‘Sacred Area’ of the city, dedicated to the god ʿAthtar dhu-Qabḍ (Fig. 7). Two stratigraphic surveys, carried out inside and outside the city walls of Barāqish (2005-2006) established the chronology of the successive phases of the city’s life, from the Sabaean to the Minaean and Islamic periods.

Both the Tamnaʿ and Barāqish excavations were interrupted due to security problems, and therefore the 2007 and 2008 archaeological campaigns were devoted exclusively to the analysis of the archaeological materials acquired in previous excavations.

In April-May 2009, de Maigret, with funds from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Direzione Generale per la Promozione del Sistema Paese), carried out an excavation campaign in Dūmat al-Jandal (the city of Adumatu of the Assyrians (Fig. 8), as part of an Italian-Saudi five-year research project, aimed at highlighting and enhancing the past of an oasis that was the first capital of the Ancient Arabs (7th century BCE) and one of the most important trade centres in Northern Arabia.

In December 2010, de Maigret started the first archaeological survey in Ghaymān (Yemen), without being able to participate actively due to his declining health. The archaeological campaign was funded by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Direzione Generale per la Promozione del Sistema Paese).

At the University of Naples L’Orientale, de Maigret held several academic positions: President of the Program in Archaeology (2002-2003), President of the Interdepartmental Service Centre for Archaeology (2001- 2007), Member of the Board of Directors (1998-2000, 2003-2005), Member of the Academic Senate (2006-2010).

A. de Maigret was a corresponding member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres of the Institut de France; member of the Istituto Italiano per l’Africa e l’Oriente, Rome; the Society for Arabian Studies, London; the Sociètè des Archèologues, Philologues et Historiens de l’Arabie, Paris; the Deutsche Archaeologische Institut, Berlin; and the Société Asiatique, Paris. He was Director of the series Repertorio Iconografico Sudarabico (Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres of the Institut de France, Paris – Istituto Italiano per l’Africa e l’Oriente, Rome), co-director of the journal Arabia (Aix-en-Provence) and member of the Scientific Committee of the journals Arabian Epigraphy and Archaeology (Copenhagen), Annali dell’Istituto Universitario Orientale (Naples), Saba (Paris), Oriens Antiquus (Rome) and Archeologia Viva (Florence).

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