Excavation work at an archaeological site in the Wilayat of Al Mudhaibi has led to the discovery of the oldest Bronze Age towers and workshops that produced copper in Oman.

Credit: MHC

The Ministry of Heritage and Culture, in collaboration with a German delegation from Tubingen University, began the survey and excavation work at the Al Khashba site in the wilayat of Al Mudhaibi for the third season.

Credit: MHC

The site dates back to the third millennium BC and is related to the extraction and production of copper. The work at the site started in 2015 and besides clay and stone buildings in the Al Khashba area, many more sites and stone towers were discovered and documented in villages and towns of the North Eastern Province.

Credit: MHC

Carbon dating proved that the site dated back to 3100 BC or the Hafeet period. Excavation in one of the stone towers indicated it was the oldest of the Bronze Age towers in Oman. The mission also found what are believed to be the oldest copper production workshops.

Source: Times of Oman [February 19, 2018]

Beads, arrowheads and vessels with distinctive markings were discovered in the Wilayat of Dhank, the Ministry of Heritage and Culture said. All the finds date back to anywhere from the third to the first millennium BC.

Archaeological finds in the Wilayat of Dhank [Credit: Yaqoub Al-Rahbi, SQU Dept. of Archaeology]

In a statement the Ministry said: “The Ministry of Heritage and Culture recently completed excavation work at the Shakur site in the Wilayat of Dhank, in cooperation with a US mission from the University of Temple headed by Dr. Kimberly William.”

Talking about the discoveries, the Ministry said, “Several archaeological finds were discovered including beads, arrowheads and trade stamps. The most prominent finds this season were vessels made of chloride with distinctive engravings inside. It also has some text that likely belonged to the Andalusian civilisation. Future studies will reveal more information about this text and the importance of this archeological and commercial site.”

Source: Times of Oman [February 05, 2018]

The Ministry of Heritage and Culture recently completed archaeological excavations at three different sites in Qumira, Dhank, in cooperation with the University of Warsaw in Poland.

Credit: Times of Oman

The archaeological digs revealed three settlements in the area of Qumira in Ain Bani Saada: a cemetery dating back to the third millennium BC; a Neolithic settlement; and a settlement dating from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age.

The location of Qumira made it a trade hub for copper trade, in addition to the availability of water. Settlements continued to flourish for a long period of time, dating from the third millennium to the first century BC and the Islamic period.

Credit: Times of Oman

The cemetery that was excavated dates back to the third millennium BC, and contained four burial chambers. Numerous skeletal remains were found with many funerary artefacts, including pottery vessels, stones, beads and arrows.

Archaeological excavations at the second site revealed a settlement of several residential buildings built on stone foundations, including a circular tower. A number of local and imported pottery fragments were found in this settlement.

Credit: Times of Oman

The third site was that of a Bronze Age settlement that survived through the Iron Age and the late Islamic period. These buildings were built on stone foundations with complex divisions.

This settlement was connected to three stone towers. One of those being similar to the Rajum Tower in the archaeological site of Bat, which also features its curved ring wall.

Source: Times of Oman [January 31, 2018]

In the largest haul of historical weapons from a site in Oman, archaeologists have unearthed more than 3,000 arrowheads, apart from bronze snake models and other artefacts from Mudhmar site in Adam.

Credit: Ministry of Heritage and Culture

The current excavation is part of the exploration that began in 2007 by French archaeological mission in coordination with the Ministry of Heritage and Culture (MHC).

The exceptional collection of bronze weapons from Iron Age II (900-600 BC) uncovered from the site provides new information about weaponry during the Iron Age in the eastern Arabian Peninsula and about social practices at the time.

Credit: Ministry of Heritage and Culture

Speaking to Muscat Daily , a senior ministry official said, “This is the largest collection of weapons from any historical site in Oman. The bronze snakes hint at the ritual or social practices at the time.”

The site, known as Mudhmar East, consists of two main buildings and several additional facilities. It is located at the foot of Jebel Mudhmar, near one of the largest valleys in Oman and at a strategic crossing of several trade routes.

Credit: Ministry of Heritage and Culture

With a length of 15m, the larger of the two buildings is located on the slope of Jebel Mudhmar and is made of cut sandstone blocks and earthen bricks. It is in this building, in a small, apparently a religious complex, that the team unearthed the collection of bronze weapons.

“Dating from Iron Age II (900-600 BC), these objects appear to have fallen off furniture or shelves. Alternatively, they may have hung on the walls of the room,” according to the French team.

Credit: Ministry of Heritage and Culture

In the 2016 excavation, the French team had found two remarkable collection of objects. The first one consisted of two small quivers entirely made of bronze, including the six arrows contained in each of them.

“Given their size (35cm), these were small-scale models imitating the original objects made of perishable materials (leather), which are not usually found in archaeological excavations. The fact that they are made of metal implies that they were non-functional. Quivers of these kind have never been found in the Arabian Peninsula, and are extremely rare elsewhere,” the archaeologist mentioned in a paper.

Credit: Ministry of Heritage and Culture

The second group comprised metal weapons, which were mostly non-utilitarian, given their slightly reduced size, material and/or unfinished state.

They consist of five battle axes, five daggers with crescent-shaped pommels (characteristic of Iron Age II), around 50 arrowheads and five complete bows. The bows are made up of a flat, curved bowstave bent at both ends, connected by a string made of bronze.

Credit: Ministry of Heritage and Culture

The size of the bows (70cm on an average) and the material used shows that they were imitations of bows made of perishable materials (wood and tendons).

“Objects of these type have never been found before: Bows made of metal were totally unknown in the Arabian Peninsula and the Middle East until now,” stated the study.

Source: Muscat Daily [January 21, 2018]

Five ancient settlements and cemeteries dating back to the Um Al Nar culture between 2500 to 2000 BC were unearthed in the wilayat of Saham in North Al Batinah.

Credit: Times of Oman

The archaeological survey and exploration works were carried out by the Archaeology Department at the College of Arts and Social Sciences at Sultan Qaboos University (SQU).

The unearthed sites are located at Dahwi, Wadi Al Sukhn and Al Thaqibah, about 26 km to the west of the wilayat of Saham on the northern plains of Al Hajr Al Gharbi mountains. These are the oldest archaeological sites unearthed in the northern part of the Sultanate. The excavation work started in 2010.

Dr. Khalid Daghlas, Head of Archaeology Department at SQU said the survey and exploration works unearthed a number of potteries and stone works which point out that these sites have close connection with Indus, Mesopotamia and Iran.

This is an evidence that the settlers at these sites were working in copper smelting and trading. He added that the archaeological exploration works unearthed a number of cemeteries that date back to Umm Al Nar era.

This means that they used to bury their dead in group cemeteries built of white sandstone. They used also to place some clay and stone utensils with the deceased.

It should be noted that the archaeological survey and exploration team of SQU alongside with post graduate students continue exploration works at the sites to unearth more archaeological and historical sites and carry out cultural studies.

Source: Times of Oman [January 12, 2018]