The dispersed monastery on Ṣīr Banī Yās Island, Abu Dhabi, UAE: results of the 2025 excavations at two dispersed monastic cells (SBY0011 and SBY0014)
Keywords:
monasticism, early Islamic archaeology, late antiquity, Christianity in the Gulf, Abu Dhabi archaeologyAbstract
The monastic landscape on Ṣīr Banī Yās Island (Abu Dhabi Emirate, UAE) comprises a church surrounded by a walled compound, with communal monastic quarters adjacent to the north and east. A series of at least seven free-standing houses extend to the north and north-west of the site. The settlement is currently interpreted as a dispersed monastery. In 2025 a new season of excavations began at two free-standing monastic cells (sites SBY0011 and SBY0014), targeting the monastic landscape beyond the immediate vicinity of the church for the first time in thirty years. The excavations are still ongoing, but preliminary results include insights into monastic architecture, chronology, and religious practice. Both the communal and free-standing monastic living quarters followed the same spatial logic and shared many functional elements although always configured with differences, suggesting the adaptation of a shared model of a monastic cell to individual circumstances, means, and preferences. Only limited radiocarbon dating has been carried out so far, but the results suggest the monastic settlement may have begun earlier than previously thought, in the late Sasanian period (late sixth century). Finally, a plaster plaque decorated with a moulded cross provides the first direct evidence of Christianity within the dispersed settlement.
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