Also in Current World Archaeology 127, October 2024 – see https://www.world-archaeology.com … we have an article on the archaeology of SE Arabia – primarily Bronze Age northern Oman and the Arab Emirates. It was known to the Sumerians of southern Iraq as Magan. Further up the Gulf, in Bahrein and the northern Emirates, was ancient Dilmun. The Umm an-Nar people thrived between 2700 and 2000BC, and during that time a uniform culture covered an area of 70,000 km. It produced colourful pottery and an impressive tool kit of bronze implements. It was also a region with copper deposits, prized by other civilisations to the north. However, it is also associated with a common tomb monument, collective burial places built alongside the houses of the living. These were low circular buildings up to 14m in diameter – but less than 2m in height. They contained numerous chambers with straight walls roofed with horizontal stone corbels. Numerous individuals could be interred within. Some of them had outer walls added – using white ashlar. These were skilfully made tombs and are found over a wide areas, suggesting the existince of highly skilled masons that were probably itinerant – moving from one construction to the next, or one community to the next.
The Umm an-Nar era gave way to the Wadi Suq period, 2000-1600BC. This period is normally defined as Middle Bronze in the Levant and Middle East in general. However, it was but a shadow of the Early Bronze Umm an-Nar. There was an abrupt transformation, we are told. The tombs, for example, fell out of use, as if the masons had disappeared – or had been killed. It seems the population were mostly cut off from Sumeria, which had its own troubles – as well as Dilmun and the Indus civilisation. What triggered the collapse it asks. Derek Kennet, archaeologist at the excavations, says the changes occurred at what is known as the 4.2 kiloyear event. This ushered in a period of climate change first identified at Tell Leilan in northern Mesopotamia by Harry Weiss 30 years ago. In fact it was catalogued long before that, by the likes of Marie-Agnes Courty, a French archaeologist. Massive changes could clearly be seen in the stratographic sequences – coinciding with a massive decline in contemporary settlement. It is associated with the collapse of the Old Kingdom in Egypt, and descent into famine and low Nile levels, as well as the final phase of the Akkadian Empire in Assyro-Babylonia. Devastation was huge in the Levant – with the creation of numerous ruin mounds that remained abandoned over a very long period. Strangely, recent research at Tall el-Hammam in the plain to the north of the Dead Sea, shows that the city existed right the way through this period without any abandonment – until its demise late in the Middle Bronze Age. This may be as a result of it being located in the rift valley system – which may have protected it from blast, winds generated by meteor explosions. What the author of the piece doesn’t say is that there were two events – one dated by tree rings at 2350BC and the other around 2000BC. The first brought an end to EBIII [especially strong in the Levant] and the second wiped out the Akkadians [EBIV]. This was followed by a longish transitional period which in the Levant was marked by a more mobile lifestyle as if buildings could not be trusted anymore after what looks like heavy earthquake activity in the region. What sparked the widespread cluster of earthquakes is the big unanswered question. The Umm an-Nar culture survived in one tiny pocket, a fertile plain at Ras el-Khaimah, sitting on the coast overlooking the Hormuz Strait. Here the bedrock is limestone and access to water was available for irrigation – when all about became more arid than normally was the case. This period is later dated 2200 to 1900BC and it therefore overlapped with the Ur III period in Sumeria. Ur III collapsed as a result of drought and famine and the migration of desert tribes into southern Iraq. For the full details see the upcoming book by Kennet, Caine, Hilton, Velde, and Weeks, ‘South East Arabia at the Dawn of the Second Millennium‘ Oxbow Books:2024.