Jamdat Nasr fund fra Oman

Jamdat Nasr graves in the Oman When P. V. Glob and T. G. Bibby in 1958 paid their first visit to Abu Dhabi, they were following up a message from Tim Hillyard, the representative of the oil company ADMA, who had found »mounds of the Bahrain type« which he suggested might be worth investigating, on the small island of Umm an-Nar off the Abu Dhabi coast. The Danish archaeological Expedition took up the challenge, and after this first short reconnaissance, excavation was started the following year. Since then the expedition has worked in Abu Dhabi most years, and now after the tenth visit in the winter of 1970 it is appropriate to sum up the most important results of these campaigns.The first excavations concentrated on Umm an-Nar. Out of the fifty or so cairns registered on the island, seven were carefully investigated. These varied in size, ranging in diameter from 12 m to just under 1.50 m, and were chosen to represent as fully as possible the whole group of graves. Though the larger ones are built partly of carefully shaped blocks of the local limestone, and the smaller ones of rough quarried stone, the construction and the grave goods are too uniform to leave any doubt that all the graves belong to the same period and civilization. The construction of the mounds and the burials have been described by Knud Thorvildsen (1), and the pottery will be published in detail later. Here will be mentioned only a few points of interest for the dating and the connections, both the more distant overseas ones and those with the Buraimi oasis inland.Thorvildsen has already pointed out the resemblance to the Kulli culture (2) - the humped bull appears on two jars from Umm an-Nar - and since then more material from southeastern Iran has been made available for comparison. At Bampur a sounding was made by Beatrice de Cardi producing quantities of painted pottery. Period IV here shows some relation to the Kulli wares, and it is also clear that there is a general resemblance between Umm an-Nar vessels (fig. 2) and some forms and ornaments from Bampur (3). The same applies to Mundigak as far away as Afghanistan, where especially period IV shows elements known also from Umm an-Nar (4).Closer related, as pointed out by Miss de Cardi (5), is a black-on-grey ware: small carinated jars with geometrical designs or with friezes of gazelles or goats (fig. 2F) in brown or black paint, found sparingly in the Umm an-Nar graves (with only one example of the caprids) while fragments from perhaps half a dozen of them are known from a tomb inland in the Buraimi oasis, or as it is called in Abu Dhabi, the Eastern province.This oasis at the foot of the Oman mountains is about 20 x 30 km - not a big area, but fertile, rightly famous for its abundance of water, brought in underground channels from the mountains. It was not surprising to find a group of graves of the same construction and period as those on Umm an-Nar, except that the one excavated east of the village of Hili proved to be even richer in pottery, and more impressive in architecture, than those on the coast.The stone slabs are here of sandstone. They are bigger than the blocks used on Umm an-Nar, and the relief carvings on the door-stones of people, oryx, a donkey, and lions (6) are more monumental than the camels, the bull (not humped) and the oryx known from Umm an-Nar.The question has been raised whether this building was a temple. It is true that no skeletal remains have been found, unlike Umm an-Nar, where the cairns showed traces of repeated burials, but then the Hili grave had a robber's hole in the middle, and the walls had been destroyed almost to the foundations. Under these conditions and in a sandy soil, bones would hardly be preserved.Left among the ruins of the building were fragments of several hundred clay vessels. This pottery is closely comparable to that from Umm an-Nar. The same shapes, wheel-turned, occur, and the majority are of red ware with black-painted geometrical designs. Besides the painted grey ware already mentioned, there is also a hard-fired grey pottery with incised designs (7). These pots look very much like stone vessels, and they are probably imitations of the steatite vases with characteristic carved decoration which are found over a wide area from the Indus to Mesopotamia and even as far north as Mari (8). Many of them are tall cylindrical vases, and the most common designs on this pottery are hatched triangles, cross-hatching, wavy lines, and the doorway motif. In Mesopotamia they are dated to the end of E.D. II (about 2600 BC) and through E.D. III (about 2600-2370) (9). Only a few fragments were found on Umm an-Nar, and though the Hili tomb can boast the remains of several of these vessels, they form only a very small percentage of the ceramic material. Their origin has not yet been established, but they are known from sites in southeastern Iran and Baluchistan. Bampur has both the steatite and the incised pottery (10), while Tepe Yahya in its period IV has a wealth of carved steatite, but no incised grey ware (11). Hili and Umm an-Nar on the other hand have produced very little steatite, and the few vessels known are either small bowls with the dotted-circle ornament or fragments of compartmented vessels with the same ornament (fig. 3A).Unusual, and very beautiful, is the polished black steatite vessel from Hili (fig. 3B). A similar vase of dark steatite is known from the Royal Cemetery at Ur (12). The same type in different kinds of stone was found in four graves from that cemetery. In three of them it occurred with a type of pottery known from Umm an-Nar (fig. 6) (13).Fig. 3 shows two suspension vessels from Tell Agrab and the Hili tomb respectively. The Agrab vessel is described as » ... a jar of unusual shape. It is reminiscent of certain contemporary grey vessels, but it has a narrower rim and is joined to a tall ring base. Both the base and the plastic ridge below the neck are pierced by four suspension holes. The base and the lower part of the body are decorated with four bands alternatively coal-black and red. Above these is a reserved band crosshatched in black. The surface from inside the rim to the reserved band is solid red of the bright nonfast variety« (14). It is dated E.D.I (about 2900-2700 BC).The Hili specimen is one of nearly two dozen of these distinctive jars. The ware is a pale orange, in most cases grit-tempered, but, when it is not, better fired and more carefully painted. The salty soil has been hard on the paint, but it is possible to state that the black cross-hatching or diamond pattern covers the side from the ridge and most if not all the way to the base. The ridge has vertical black lines, and there are usually black bands between neck and shoulder. Some fragments show traces of a black band under the ridge, while a few have traces of red paint, but it is impossible to tell if these are from bands or from a slip all over the vessel. The base and the ridge both have four suspension holes.The similarity between the vessels from these two sites is too close to be fortuitous. It is debatable which way the pot travelled, though for sheer numbers Buraimi has the ascendancy. Also, the ridge with suspension holes is favoured among the kitchensware there.The suspension jar is not known from the Umm an-Nar cairns, but fragments occur at the settlement excavated nearby, though here of the red, finely worked clay used for most of the Umm an-Nar grave-ware, perhaps another indication that the jar is well at home in the Oman.Two other jars should be mentioned in this connection. One is a spouted jar from an Umm an-Nar grave (fig. 5) of a coarse brownish-drab ware tempered with coarse grit. Unfortunately the base and part of the spout are missing, unless a flat base of the same ware found in the same grave, but rather small, belongs to this jar. The rimless neck, the carinated shoulder, and the spout close to the neck are similar to those in a type found at Khafajah and Tell Agrab (15). This is dated E.D.I, but is a type that continued through E.D. II and III.The second jar has a pear-shaped body with a pointed base, and a long slightly flaring neck with a thickened elongated rim (fig. 6). The ware is reddish-brown and grit-tempered. The type is known from Ur from the Royal Cemetery, where most of the 36 graves in which it was found are dated early (16). This may not be as early as E.D.II, but could well be E.D.IIIa (2600-2500 BC) (17). In Abu Dhabi the type is known so far only from Umm an-Nar, where several pieces were found in one of the cairns, while the distinctive rim is known from the adjoining settlement.For a village, this is a substantial settlement. The low mound covers an area about 100 x 200 m with a 2 m thick occupation level. The two excavated or partly excavated buildings are more than 16 m long with several rooms and stone-built walls. The local limestone, roughly cut, was used (18). Among the thick kitchenware of the houses was scattered enough of the painted grave ware to prove that settlement and tombs were contemporary. Characteristic for many of the large vessels are wavy ridges, often on extremely well finished pots of hard-fired red clay and with the ridges or ribbons ending in »snakes' « heads (fig. 7). The same kind of pottery is known from Tepe Yahya from the middle of the third millennium BC (19).Stone vessels were rare among the houses, but quite a few pins and fish hooks of copper or bronze were found, a number of net sinkers (or loom weights) and quantities of animal bones. The majority of bones so far examined seem to be from the dugong (or sea-cow), while the most interesting are those of camel.Inland, the search is going on for the settlement housing the community that built the stone tombs at Hili. East and north of the area along the Jebel Auha mountains there are a number of low mounds of which some undoubtedly cover collapsed mud­brick buildings. In one of these mounds a fortress has now been exposed, or rather a circular watchtower. This is about 24 m in diameter with a well in the middle, and is surrounded by a 5 m broad and 4 m deep moat. Only the mudbrick foundations of the outer walls and of inner walls symmetrically criss-crossing the tower have survived, and finds, even pottery, were scarce.In the space between the tower proper and the outer wall bordering the moat, some secondary building had occurred in the upper levels, however. Here had been living quarters apparently, and from fireplaces and a burnt level sealing this habitation level four carbon 14 datings have been run. The majority of the pottery found here was a rather coarse kitchenware of buff or reddish grit-tempered clay. The ornamentation, if any, was mostly of black wavy lines on the shoulder of a rounded, sometimes globular, body. Bases were flat, rims often slightly thickened and slightly everted. There is a relation to the coarser ware from the tomb and to the kitchenware from Umm an-Nar, though it may not be from the same period. The fine grave-ware did not appear here, but only in the deeper levels and in connection with the original fortress.The carbon 14 datings from the fireplaces give the dates as 1953 ± 213 and 1990 ± 213, while the burnt level is dated 2165 ± 217 BC (20).If a date about 2200 BC is set as a terminus ante quem for the fortress and the tomb at Hili and so for the settlement and graves on Umm an-Nar, it is still a question how far back this civilization goes in the Oman. That can hardly be answered yet, but about the middle of the third millennium BC seems a cautious guess. I would be inclined to date both Umm an-Nar and Hili as far back as 2700 BC.At that time Bahrain was probably already an important place on the Gulf trade routes, and it is noteworthy that not one sherd of the easily recognisable Barbar pottery from Bahrain has been found in Abu Dhabi. Pottery of the Umm an-Nar and Hili type is, however, now known from Bahrain, where among other places the tell at Barbar has produced a few painted sherds. These were found in connection with the second and third temple, dated not later than the middle of the third millennium and 2200 BC respectively (21).During the first reconnaissance in Buraimi, groups of stone cairns had been located in the southern part of the oasis. Some of them were placed on the slopes of the two mountain ridges running from Al-Ain towards the Jebel Hafit and some in the middle of the valley. During two campaigns, 25 of these stone tumuli were excavated. Recent stone plunderers and more ancient robbers had already done part of the work, but though all the cairns had been disturbed, most of the graves yielded finds.All the mounds are of the same construction: »cairns built up of loosely heaped local stone around a false dome over a round or slightly oval chamber constructed upon the original ground surface and approached by a narrow entrance passage on the southern side« (22). The original diameter is estimated to have been 7-11 m, the height about 3-5 m (fig. 8).Three graves were empty and four contained only fragments of bone. From the remaining cairns pottery, objects of copper or bronze, steatite, beads, and shells were recovered.One of the richest graves, cairn 20, held two bowls of copper or bronze, a steatite bowl, a dagger and a belt buckle of copper or bronze, and a large button of polished shell (fig. 9).The dagger was compared by Bibby to similar weapons from Talish in the Caspian area and from Luristan (23) and dated to the 14th-13th centuries BC. Related rim-flanged daggers (and the Talish weapons) have since then been given a late second millennium date by Dyson on the basis of inscriptions, comparative typology, and the Hasanlu stratigraphy supported by radiocarbon tests (24). The dagger is the only one of its type in Buraimi. Not so the steatite vessel.From a tell between Hili and Qatara investigated in 1968 fragments of several steatite bowls like the one from the Hafit grave were recovered, and the same ornamentation was found on pottery from the tell, while the spouted bronze bowl from Hafit also had its counterpart in clay vessels there, often with red-painted cross­hatching on the rim. The tell also produced a number of tanged arrowheads of copper or bronze, the majority leaf-shaped, some triangular (fig. 10). In several places in Persia these accompany the rim-flanged daggers (25).That steatite, pottery, and arrowheads belong to the same culture has been con­firmed from finds at Dibba on the east coast of the Oman peninsula, where the same assemblage plus two shell buttons similar to the one from the Hafit cairn have been collected (fig. 11). Further proof was forthcoming during the 1970 season in Buraimi.Breaking the monotony of the red sandhills at the northwestern edge of the Buraimi oasis at Quarn Bint Sa'ud stands an outcrop of rock. On its flat top several cairns were located and one of them was opened. The investigation is not finished, but apparently the construction is the same as in the Hafit cairns. So far a wealth of steatite and arrowheads as known from Dibba, the Hili-Qatara tell and the Hafit graves has been recovered besides pottery as known from Dibba and the tell, and once again a shell button.This button is plain like the one from the Hafit grave, but one of the two from Dibba has a dotted-circle ornament (fig. 11 C). Parallels to these are known from Nimrud, where they are dated 9th-8th centuries BC (26). Similar shells are known from Persia (27). They are probably made from Xancus gravis Dillwyn, a shell found in South Indian waters (28) and as far as the Arabian Gulf (29). Some are undecorated, but the dotted-circle ornament is frequently found on them. Most of them seem to have a perforation in the centre, often with a bronze nail through the hole. There are no traces of bronze on those from Buraimi and Dibba, but the Bint Sa'ud piece and the ornamented one from Dibba both have a centre perforation besides broken loop-holes on the back. They are probably ornamental belt buttons. The Bedouins in the Oman still wear elaborate fastenings for their impressive daggers. Silver coins or conical buttons made of silver thread are often used.In 9 of the 25 Hafit cairns small biconical jars were found, flat-based, short­necked and with bevelled rim. Some of them showed faint traces of red paint and in a few instances also black. After careful treatment in the laboratory two of them have regained some of their original splendour (fig. 1, 12A and 17 A).They are both covered with a dark plum-coloured paint, also under the base and inside, down the neck as far as the shoulder. Beside the pronounced carination between the upper and lower parts of the body, there is a second carination just below the neck, and below that the shoulder or upper part of the body is divided up into trapezoidal panels with designs.One jar has apparently had a creamy slip applied all over, after which it has been covered with red paint, leaving every second panel on the shoulder in reserve outlined in black and filled out with cross-hatching in black or a stylized plant motif in red and black. Circling black bands frame this ornamental frieze.On the other jar, the cream-coloured slip is confined to the shoulder, where in two of the panels it is the background for oblique black lines, while two other panels may have had black cross-hatching. The panels are also here bordered by vertical black bands, but there is no horizontal frame.Closely related, almost identical jars, are known from Ur (30), Jamdat Nasr (31), Tell Uqair (32), and Khafajah (33), where they are dated to the end of the Jamdat Nasr period. The Hafit pots are in fact Jamdat Nasr ware.Only the two jars described above had the colours preserved well enough to give an idea of the complete design. One further jar (fig. 18A) shows traces of red paint and black vertical bands, while a fragment from the shoulder of another vessel has a lozenge design (fig. 20A). It is possible to make out the cream and red in the design, and the faded lozenges were almost certainly black. The design is common on Jamdat Nasr ware and the colours are the classical Jamdat Nasr colours (34).Most of the jars have apparently had the distinctive red paint applied all over. Some still have traces left, while on others the surface is too damaged for the colour, if any, to show. This red pigment has been much used on pottery in the Gulf area and was probably obtained from the island of Hormuz, where it is still quarried.Usually the jars are made of a reddish-brown or buff ware tempered with grit, but one is of a fine orange ware with a cream slip that has flaked off except in a few spots, and one is of a cream-coloured fine ware with a smoothly washed surface and no traces of paint left. In place of the first carination on top of the shoulder they have a grooved line, a detail known from Jamdat Nasr ware in Mesopotamia, here often combined with small knobs (35).In most of the Hafit pots the carination is pronounced, but two small squat jars (fig. 15) have a more rounded body, and a slightly bigger jar, the only find from cairn 5, is almost globular (fig. 15). Both forms are known among Jamdat Nasr pottery, the globular type often with a spout (36). The Hafit piece may or may not have had a spout -it is too fragmentary to decide- but it is noteworthy because the form, the reddish-brown grit-tempered ware, and the decoration consisting of wavy hatched black bands on the shoulder are similar to those found in pottery from Umm an-Nar and Hili.An ovoid jar with a pointed base (fig. 13B) is unusual. A similar form, but with a spout, is known from the Jamdat Nasr graves at Ur (37). No spouted pottery has been recovered from the Hafit cairns. It is, however, more remarkable that none of the four-lugged jars otherwise so inseparable from Jamdat Nasr have been found in any of the graves, perhaps owing to the disturbance. It is quite possible that costly substances like incense or perfume were stored in these vessels and were removed by robbers together with valuable metals such as copper.Metal, on the other hand, is not abundant in Jamdat Nasr graves elsewhere, so it is not necessarily because of robbery that few copper things have been found in the Hafit graves (38). The prevailing metal besides copper in the Jamdat Nasr graves at Ur was lead, found as small tumblers and bowls. It seems an odd metal to choose for vessels, unless containers for volatile stuff are required, where fragrance is to be preserved. Not a single one of these was found in the Hafit graves.At that time copper must still have been among the precious commodities, and the copper pins found in a few of the graves can be considered jewellery. They were probably hairpins. Hairpins of bone have been found at Jamdat Nasr (39), and from the slightly younger cemetery at Kish hairpins of copper are known (40).Two fragments of copper or bronze were found in cairn 9. Both had incurving sides as if they were part of a spout.Only cairn 20 (fig. 9) was rich in metal vessels, but this is so clearly an intrusive grave dating, as stated above, probably from the late second millennium BC. Unfortunately not all the intrusions are so obvious. In cairn 22 a leaf-shaped arrowhead of copper or bronze was found not far from two Jamdat Nasr carinated jars. In this case the arrowhead can with reasonable certainty be considered a stray piece and ascribed to a 2nd millennium context, because that type of arrowhead is known there. But from cairn 23 (fig. 22) comes a spectacular piece of copper or bronze to which I have been unable to find parallels. It is too broad and rounded for a dagger, and the midrib is too slender to strengthen it. Likewise the two rivets at the broad, straight end cannot fasten it to withs