Rhodian amphora stamps found in Mleiha (Sharjah,UAE): old and recent finds

To date Mleiha has yielded eighteen stamps belonging to Rhodian wine amphorae. Eleven of these can be dated to the second half of the third and the first half of the second centuries BC. Rhodian stamps are vital for the chronological framework of the PIR‐A period at Mleiha. Most of them, if not all, belonged to funerary contexts but were unfortunately rarely found in undisturbed contexts. The stamp types of the eponym ?ριστε?? and of the fabricants ?πολλ?νιο? and Φιλοστ?φανο? do not seem to occur very often.     

Glass and glass production in the Oman peninsula in antiquity reconsidered – chemical and mineralogical investigation of sands

A batch of green‐ and amber‐coloured glass chunks and unguentaria dating from the first century CE was found in 2007 at Dibba al Hisn, a site on the Arabian Sea coast of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Its elemental and isotopic composition revealed the glass to be of a previously unknown plant ash glass type, different from known contemporary Roman, Mesopotamian, and Indian glass. The Sr isotopic composition of the glass corresponds to locally available plants, pointing to the possible existence of a first‐century CE local glass production centre. To explore this possibility, sands from around the UAE were analysed to establish their suitability for glass making and correspondence with the Dibba finds. This paper presents the results of the elemental analysis of fourteen sands. The analysis, performed using inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectroscopy (ICP‐OES), revealed all sands to be rich in lime and alumina. X‐ray diffraction revealed the presence of calcite and other carbonate minerals, as well as antigorite and quartz. Comparison of the sand compositions to average first‐century CE non‐Roman glass found at Dibba showed them to be unsuitable as raw material for producing the glass of Dibba. The evidence thus identifies this glass batch as imported, contrary to what was suggested before. This paper also reviews the occurrence of thick‐walled unguentaria in the region.     

Valorising the Samad Late Iron Age

The Late Iron Age (LIA) in Central Oman is known from the eponymous site of Samad al‐Shān as well as al‐Moyassar (formerly al‐Maysar), which teams from Bochum and Heidelberg investigated from 1977 to 1996 in twelve campaigns. The chronology of this little known period has evoked much controversy but although this contribution contains critical comments, these regard mostly smaller issues or details and there is a general unspoken agreement about the basic chronological issues. The present study adds both new and old unpublished documentation to the discussion. What follows includes a re‐examination of the original documentation of M42 and M43 sites which confirms the excavators' chronology. New LIA sites are added. M. Mouton's attempted deconstruction of the existing chronology and his new combined definition of the PIR and Samad LIA assemblages rest on slight inconsistencies in the original al‐Moyassar site report of 1981. Despite the spotty nature of our sources, Oman's latest prehistoric facies shows a distinctive character separate from that known principally in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).     

Late pre‐Islamic burials at Mleiha,Emirate of Sharjah (UAE)

The history of two monumental grave buildings (nos. 4 and 5), excavated in area P of the late pre‐Islamic city of Mleiha, has been studied in detail. Like all other tombs excavated up to the present day in Mleiha, their chambers had been emptied in ancient times. They were found devoid of human remains and grave‐goods. In the upper parts of the grave fills, however, skeletal remains were encountered. One of the skeletons was radiocarbon dated to AD 623–656, the time of the Islamisation of south‐east Arabia. A radiocarbon date of 384–233 BC for a wooden beam from the same tomb showed that it was built during the late pre‐Islamic period (PIR‐A). These dates and stratigraphic observations made clear that the interments were intrusive. The surrounding sediments were deposited by flooding. Directly underneath the skull of the dated skeleton, a layer of sandy loam was encountered, showing mud cracks. To understand the relationship between the burial and these deposits, micromorphological analyses of the surrounding sediments were conducted. The microstructural organisation of the sedimentary components implied that the skull was interred as part of a burial, and not deposited by natural processes.     

A Late Iron Age settlement in Wādī Banī Ḫālid: First season of the joint Omani-Italian archaeological project

This paper introduces the first results of the joint Omani-Italian archaeological project at Wādī Banī Ḫālid (northern Šarqiyyah governorate, eastern al-Ḥaǧar), where a dense Iron Age and ancient Islamic occupation was detected. The aim of the project is the definition of the Iron Age settlement patterns along the eastern al-Ḥaǧar landscape and its relationship with both the coastal areas and the al-Ḥaǧar inner piedmont sites of central Oman. In fact, this project follows previous studies of the coastal environment between Muscat and Raʾs al-Ḥadd, where several seasonal fishermen villages were investigated, and their connections with inner permanent sites, such as Lizq, recognised during the Early Iron Age II (1300–600 BCE). Therefore, Wādī Banī Ḫālid stands as a peculiar case of an Iron Age territorial unit, a natural scenario made of a narrow alluvial valley which provided natural conditions for the development of a complex culture. Moreover, the material culture emerged after a first excavation campaign proved that the main occupational phase of the imposing fortified settlement WBK1 is the Late Iron Age (late first millennium BCE to third–fourth centuries CE), thus hopefully allowing new questions to be posed for the definition of Late Iron Age cultures and the chronology in central Oman, which is mostly known based on the excavation of funerary evidence. For this reason, the first part of the paper focuses on the results of the first season in Wādī Banī Ḫālid, and the second part discusses the links between Wādī Banī Ḫālid and the south-eastern Arabia general framework during the Late Iron Age.