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Turtles, ibexes, ships, inscriptions ... Thousands of engraved and painted figures intrigue visitors in the wadis of Al-Hajar Mountains. Who created these enigmatic figures and when were they made? What are their hidden meanings? For the first time, this volume tries to answer these questions. It is the result of the archaeological surveys and investigations undertaken by the author over the last ten years under the patronage of the Ministry of Heritage and Culture. In this book, the author takes the reader on an in-depth journey into the various themes present in the rock art of Oman. He offers theories on the chronology and interpretation, while exploring the landscape setting of the decorated panels and how best to research these. Several beautiful photographs and scientific tracings of the rock art accompany the text. The volume closes offering to enthusiasts and tourists a series of guided visits with GPS maps to the most interesting and visible rock art sites protected by Royal Decrees of the Sultanate

In Dhofar, the southern Governorate of the Sultanate of Oman, the deep canyons cutting the Nejd plateau once flowed with perennial rivers, feeding wetland environments, forests, and grasslands across the now desiccated interior. The first peoples of Oman flourished along these waterways, drawn to the freshwater springs and abundant game, as well as the myriad chert outcrops with which to fashion their hunting implements and other tools. The landscapes of the Nejd Plateau are a natural museum of human prehistory, covered in carpets of chipped stone debris. The archaeological evidence presented in this work encompasses the cultural remains of over a million years of successive human occupations, from the Lower Palaeolithic to the Late Palaeolithic. Once considered an evolutionary backwater or merely a migratory way station, the archaeology of Dhofar requires a fundamental reconsideration of the role of Southern Arabia in the origin and dispersal of our species

Prehistoric Fisherfolk of Oman' reports on excavations at the prehistoric site Ras Al-Hamra RH-5, located on a large promontory in the Qurum area of Muscat, conducted by the Italian Archaeological Mission in Oman with support from the Ministry of Heritage and Tourism. The site dates from the late fifth to the end of the fourth millennia BC and comprises an accumulation of superimposed food discards deriving from continuous and repeated subsistence activities such as fishing, collecting shells, hunting and herding. Dwellings and household installations, including objects of daily use and ornaments, have also been found throughout the occupation sequence. Excavations at RH-5 yielded unprecedented data on the economic and social dynamics of Neolithic societies in eastern Arabia. The exploitation of different ecological niches supplied all the necessary requirements for year-round sedentary human occupation. The lifestyle of fisher-gatherer communities during the Middle Holocene represents a fundamental step of the neolithisation process in Oman

Numerous metallic artefacts, which anciently were deposited in a hoard, came to light per chance on the campus of the Sultan Qaboos University in Al Khawd, Sultanate of Oman. Mostly fashioned from copper, these arrowheads, axes/adzes, bangles, daggers, knives, socketed lance/ spearheads, metal vessels, razors, rings, swords, and tweezers compare well with numerous documented artefact classes from south-eastern Arabia assigned to the Early Iron Age (1200-300 BCE). Discussion of the international trade between ancient Makan, Dilmun, and Mesopotamia during the 3rd millennium BCE dominates the archaeological literature about Arabia archaeology. The Al Khawd hoard and its contemporaries lend weight to the suggestion that 1st millennium BCE Qadē (the name of south-eastern Arabia at that time) was even more important than Bronze Age Makan in terms of the copper trade volume. A reassessment shows the Early Iron Age by no means to be a dark age, but rather an innovative, successful adaptive period characterised by evident population growth

<p>Although it is one of the main archaeological sites in Oman, the medieval port of Qalhat, near Sur in Ash-Sharqiyah Governorate, has long remained poorly documented. The extensive research initiated in 2008 by the Ministry of Heritage and Tourism (at the time, Heritage and Culture) shed striking light on the history of this famous harbour city, which was the twin capital of the Kingdom of Hormuz from the 13th to the 16th century. Surface surveys and excavations have revealed the plan and chronology of the city and its different districts. Mosques (including the Great Mosque built by Bibi Maryam around 1300) and other religious buildings, fortifications, and water supply systems have been identified and studied. The craft and economic activities of the city and the regional and international commercial links of the port have been reconstructed, as well as the daily life of its inhabitants, revealing the wealth and cosmopolitan character of this ancient Omani metropolis. All these results highlighted the Outstanding Universal Value of the site and eventually led to the inscription of Qalhat on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2018.</p>

<p>Five thousand years ago, in the Early Bronze Age, monumental stone and mud-brick structures known as towers appeared on the landscape of the Oman Peninsula. Since then, they have served as distinctive landmarks of identity for the people of the region. Despite many years of archaeological research and intensive excavations of some of them, much remains unknown about these impressive structures. This book aims to update the long-standing discussions on these towers and to assess their chronological depth of more than a millennium, with the first of them constructed as early as the end of the 4th millennium BCE and the last substantial building activities at the beginning of the 2nd millennium BCE. The book also reassesses their possible functions, such as defence, refuge, demarcation of property, residence of elites, involvement in complex irrigation systems, arenas for cultic practices, in the light of recent archaeological research. The book will also provide a richly illustrated catalogue with extensive bibliography, research history and coordinates of all the nearly hundred towers known to date in the Sultanate of Oman and the United Arab Emirates, creating a record for researchers and visitors alike.</p>

<p>This book provides a comprehensive and detailed review of the evidence for Early Bronze Age mortuary rituals on the Oman Peninsula, describing the research conducted, synthesizing the resulting data, and presenting a complete view of the state of knowledge on the topic. The author demonstrates that the construction, use, and location of mortuary cairns in the ancient landscape is no simple question in the Early Bronze Age archaeology of the region. This book explores the characteristics of ancient funerary monuments and rituals, demonstrating variations in these practices, as well as evidence for continued cairn use during this period and how some communities elaborated mortuary rituals. This book will serve as an invaluable reference volume for scholars working in the region, as an introduction for students to mortuary archaeology and to models that can be used to explore this aspect of prehistoric life on the Oman Peninsula, and as a valuable repository of currently available data. The book features extensive demonstrative illustrations and appendices summarizing the architecture, interments, and material culture found in all published Early Bronze Age mortuary monuments in the region.</p>

<p>This book presents the first dedicated study of the enigmatic 2000-year-old trilith monuments in Southeastern Arabia, revealing their geographical extent, chronological range, and cultural significance. Based on an analysis of 921 trilith sites comprising almost four thousand clusters. the book identifies four distribution hotspots across Yemen and Oman, extending the known chronology of triliths back to 410 BCE. Statistical analyses suggest that triliths played a role in mobility and rituals for safe passage, pre-Islamic water rites, and rituals associated with ancestor cults. A spatio-temporal analysis has traced the migration patterns of populations linked to trilith monuments, revealing their spread from southern Oman in the 5th century BCE to eastern Oman by the 1st century BCE, before retreating southwards in possible connection with the semi-historical migration of the Azd tribes. The book concludes that triliths were multifunctional spaces rather than structures built for a single purpose. Two topical chapters describe the relocation of a trilith to the National Museum in Muscat and the challenges involved in identifying trilith monuments using remote sensing. This book will serve as an invaluable reference volume for scholars working on the stone monuments of Arabia. It contains a repository of extensive data that is essential for understanding ancient nomadic societies in southern Arabia.</p>

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.

Taped at the University of Kansas

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This study aims to highlight the importance of the Mozabite heritage in southern Algeria, in terms of its characteristics and features. This includes tangible heritage such as fortified cities (ksour) and towns with their Islamic architectural style, as well as manifestations of intangible heritage found in the customs and traditions that distinguish the Mozabite community and which it has preserved since ancient times. The study concludes that the Mozabite society has remained cohesive through the customs and traditions of their forefathers, passed down through generations. The community has continued to uphold its spiritual and social values to this day. Additionally, some of the ksour in the M‟zab Valley have maintained their architectural style. However, natural and human factors have begun to threaten the integrity of this tangible heritage, making it necessary for the state to intervene in order to restore and protect these ksour from disappearing, as they represent a shared human heritage.