The Seminar for Arabian Studies is the principal international academic
forum for research on the Arabian Peninsula. First convened in 1968 it
is the only annual academic event for the study of the Arabian Peninsula
that brings together researchers from all over the world to present and
discuss current fieldwork and the latest research. The Seminar covers an
extensive range of subjects that include anthropology, archaeology,
architecture, art, epigraphy, ethnography, history, language,
linguistics, literature, numismatics, theology, and more besides, from
the earliest times to the present day or, in the fields of political and
social history, to around the end of the Ottoman Empire (1922). The 53rd
Seminar for Arabian Studies was hosted by the University of Leiden and
took place in the Lipsius Building from Thursday IASA. In total
sixty-five papers and twenty-three posters were presented at the
three-day event. On Friday 12 July a special session on the stone tools
of prehistoric Arabia was held, the papers from this session are
published in a supplement to the main Seminar Proceedings.