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  • Sapienza Archaeological Mission in the Arabian Peninsula and the Gulf Area (MASPAG) surveys in the Omani southern Batinah, southwest of Muscat, near the Muslimat oasis, has recently revealed a new hitherto unknown multi-millennial archaeological landscape crossed by the Tropic of Cancer. In this vast area, two enormous cemeteries with hundreds of collective tombs have been identified. The oldest graves typologically and morphologically date from the end of the 4th millennium, but both the cemeteries appear to be associated with long-lasting settlements continuously inhabited up to the Islamic period. The two cemeteries next to a settlement that was fortified in the Iron Age offer the possibility of investigating the social complexity of those mobile groups interposed between south-eastern Arabia and the Persian Gulf on a broad spectrum. Powerful coalitions capable of governing large portions of the piedmont territory interposed between the rocky Hajar mountains and the spectacular western coasts of the Arabian Sea, a nomadic and half-nomadic territorial state in the south-eastern frontier of the ancient Near East which Mesopotamian texts identify as the Land of Magan.

  • During 2022 and 2023, our field activities focused on Wadi al-Maʻawil, a very large wadi close to the Muslimāt village in between Nakhal and Afī oasis, where in 2022 we discovered a completely unexplored and multifaceted ecotope. We selected a 10 x 10 Km squared area encompassing this ecotope after ground truthing because of the high intensity of the archaeological features and because it featured three adaptive conditions: the presence of large widyān with central terraces, the presence of an anthropized oasis and the presence of a possible ancient settlement pattern in which the anthropic features (settlements, graves, pathways) were almost close together and intervisible. This volume studies the landscape of the site and classifies, studies, and describes all the finds during the excavations and survey campaigns of 2022 and 2023.

Last update: 4/28/26, 8:04 AM (UTC)