Corinne Castel is archaeologist and Director of research at CNRS (the French National Center for Scientific Research). She is attached to the laboratory “Archéorient. Sociétés et environnements de l’Orient ancien” at the Maison de l’Orient et de la Méditerranée (MOM). She holds a PhD in Near Eastern archaeology from the Sorbonne University and an Habilitation from the University Lyon 2 to supervise PHD and masters students.
Specialist of the Bronze age in Syro-Mesopotamia and of the Protohistory of Eastern Arabia, she is specially involved in arid regions. After 25 years of work in Syria, she is heading the Bat/Al-Arid archaeological mission in the Sultanate of Oman that she created in 2019 in collaboration with the Ministry of Heritage and Tourism of Oman.
This research program, conducted by a multidisciplinary team, aims to reconstruct cultural identities and ways of life at the end of the 4th millennium and in the 3rd millennium BCE. The aim is to understand how communities adapted to arid conditions and how they evolved historically in a context of emerging socio-economic complexity, the birth of local pottery and copper metallurgy, and an increase in exchanges at different scales. She works with the Omani Ministry of Heritage and Tourism and the UNESCO chair on Aflaj and Archaeohydrology (University of Nizwa) on the protection and enhancement of the heritage landscape in the inland region of Oman.
She has directed several research programs, including Oasibat. Naissance et devenir d’un site archéologique classé au Patrimoine mondial de l’Unesco (APPI 2020-2022 Program at University Lyon 2).

Selected publications:
C. CASTEL, J.É. BROCHIER, A. AUTHIER, J.-L. BERTRAND-KRAJEWSKI, N. BLOND, B. CHAMEL, E. CIESIELSKI, , I. KEUTER, T. KURONUMA, G. MOUAMAR, M. MARMARA, A. ROS, S. SANZ, S. SORIN et W. AL-GHAFRI in press, “Al-Arid, an Early Bronze age site in the Southern foothills of the Hajar mountains (Sultanate of Oman). New results after two further seasons of excavation in 2022 and 2023”, Paléorient n° 51.1.
C. CASTEL 2024, « 40 ans de coopération archéologique entre Oman et la France », France-Oman : une relation stratégique, Paris, Publication de l’Ambassade de France au Sultanat d’Oman, Ministère des Affaires Étrangères.
C. CASTEL 2024, « Aux premiers temps de l’irrigation et de la métallurgie du cuivre : Al-Arid, dans les contreforts méridionaux des Monts Hajar », France-Oman : une relation stratégique, Paris, Publication de l’Ambassade de France au Sultanat d’Oman, Ministère des Affaires Étrangères.
C. CASTEL, J. É. BROCHIER, O. BARGE, B. BESNARD, E. CIESIELSKI, L. DARRAS, Y. KANHOUSH, G. MOUAMAR, F. RIVIÈRE, S. SANZ, M. TENGBERG, P. VÉZY 2022, “Al-Arid, an Early Bronze Age settlement site in the interior of the Oman peninsula. Results of the second season’s excavations (2020)”, Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies 53, p. 71-86.
C. CASTEL, O. BARGE, B. BESNARD, T. BEUZEN-WALLER, J. É. BROCHIER, L. DARRAS, E. RÉGAGNON, S. SANZ, 2020 “First discoveries of the Bāt / al-Arid Mission (Sultanate of Oman)”, Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies 53, p. 71-84.
C. CASTEL 2019 : « La nouvelle mission de Bāt/al-Arid (Sultanat d’Oman) : premières découvertes », ArchéOrient – Le Blog, 20 septembre 2019. https://archeorient.hypotheses.org/12447