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Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology & the Ancient World
Brown University
Box 1837 / 60 George Street
Providence, RI 02912
Telephone: (401) 863-3188
Fax: (401) 863-9423
Joukowsky_Institute@brown.edu
This is the old name for Medina (which acquired the later name after the hijra of the Prophet, I think). Questions to consider mainly revolve around the status of Yathrib as a city. Was it a city? The utum seem to suggest that it was more a collection of tribes, spread apart with no urban center. It represents pre-Islamic Arabia, and the change in nomenclature is a nice fit with the transition to the cities that would come with Islam. (Indeed, Medina is the Arabic word for city.)