Stephanie Döpper - Böcker

A study of the Early Bronze Age necropolises of the UNESCO world heritage sites Bat and Al-Ayn, and the monumental tower structure Building II at Bat, this volume reports on the architecture and stratigraphy, find assemblages from the excavated buildings (including pottery and small finds), along with anthropological and anthracological studies.

This volume presents the results of a survey conducted in 2015 and beyond in Al-Khashbah, one of the largest Early Bronze Age sites on the Omani Peninsula. Ten monumental buildings, 273 tombs and other structures from the Hafit (3100-2700 BC) and Umm an-Nar periods (2700-2000 BC) were documented here.

People in the past were always confronted with surviving remains from previous periods, and reacted to and engaged with them in varying ways. One activity through which this becomes visible is the reuse of tombs. If this reuse is an intentional reference to the past, it explicitly communicates meaning and thus cultural memory. In Eastern Arabia, however, this phenomenon received little attention in archaeological research, often having been discounted by the excavators as a disturbance to the first use of a tomb.This book will investigate reuse of tombs from the beginning of the Early Bronze Age until the end of the Sasanian period in order to understand the underlying purposes and social context of this practice. In Eastern Arabia, where the adding of new burials to the original content of the tomb is common, such reuse might have functioned to make sense of the present, to give orientation in new situations and to help shape a cultural identity. Reuse occurred more often in the Iron Age and Samad/PIR periods than in all other periods investigated, combined. These are also times of visible social hierarchies. The resulting tensions made counter-measures that both promoted social cohesion and group identity and legitimised the role of the elites necessary. This might have been achieved through creating cultural memory by reusing old tombs.

This book outlines the results of the 2018 archaeological survey at Tawi Said, located on the edge of the Sharqiyah desert in the Sultanate of Oman. The surveyed area of 150 x 125 m yielded close to 8,600 artifacts, with pottery sherds comprising the majority of the finds. Additional discoveries include shells, lithic tools, copper production waste, jewellery and fragments of soft-stone vessels. Of particular interest are two stamp seals, one of which bears a resemblance to the seals of Dilmun style. Two significant phases are attested by the finds from Tawi Said: the Wadi Suq period (2000-1600 BCE) and the Late Islamic period (1650-1970 CE). Together with other discoveries, the Dilmun-inspired stamp seal illustrates the interconnectedness of Tawi Said in interregional exchange during the Wadi Suq period. The connectivity of the Late Islamic period is similarly evidenced by imported pottery, glass bangles and other artefacts. The absence of architectural remains suggests that Tawi Said was a temporary place used by mobile groups throughout its existence.