Al Ain Museum: an ancient landscape beneath the carpark
Keywords:
Al Ain Museum, Iron Age aflāj, PIR tomb, early Islamic falaj, oasis landscapeAbstract
Al Ain (National) Museum was established by Shaykh Zāyid b. Sulṭān Āl Nahayyān in 1969 next to the Sulṭān Fort on the eastern edge of al-ʿAyn Oasis, now one of the seventeen components of the Cultural Sites of Al Ain, inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2011. In 2019, the Abu Dhabi Department of Culture and Tourism (DCT) commenced a long-planned project to restore and extend the museum, retaining the main museum building and supplementing it with new facilities on the site of the former museum offices, stores, and parking. Careful recording and dismantling of the remains of the twentieth-century village of Ḥārat al-Ḥiṣn, demolished in the 1980s, was followed by an archaeological watching brief during the initial 2 m excavation of deep underlying deposits of sand and silt. When excavation reached more compact deposits, the presence of numerous deep cut features was revealed and works were halted while these were investigated. The subsequent archaeological works have provided important new insights into the natural and cultural landscape of the oasis, including evidence for Iron Age aflāj, a late pre-Islamic (PIR) tomb and a number of PIR wells reused as middens, and a substantial early Islamic falaj. Finds from the excavations have thus filled several significant lacunae in the archaeological and ceramic sequences of al-ʿAyn. This paper describes the progress of the works and discusses its significance for our understanding of the development of the oasis landscape of al-ʿAyn.
References
Benoist A., Mouton M. & Schiettecatte J. 2003. The Artefacts from the fort at Mleiha: Distribution, origins, trade and dating. Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies 33: 59–76.
Boucharlat R. & Lombard P. 1985. The Oasis of Al-Ain in the Iron Age: Excavations at Rumeilah 1981–1983 & survey At Hili 14. Archaeology of the UAE 4: 44–73.
De Paepe P., Rutten K., Vrydaghs L. & Haerinck E. 2003. A Petrographic, chemical and phytolith analysis of late pre-Islamic ceramics from ed-Dur (Umm al-Qaiwain, UAE). Pages 208–228 in D.T. Potts, H.M. Al Naboodah & P. Hellyer (eds), Archaeology of the United Arab Emirates. Proceedings of the first international conference on the archaeology of the UAE. London: Trident Press.
Haerinck E. & Overlaet B. 2016. Mleiha (Sharjah, UAE): The 2009 & 2012 Belgian excavations of Mound AI – pottery and chronology. Sharjah Archaeology 15: 40–83.
Haerinck E., Phillips C.S., Potts D.T. & Stevens K.G. 1993. Ed-Dur, Umm al-Qaiwain (UAE). Pages 183–193 in U. Finkbeiner (ed.), Materialen zur Archäologie des Seleukiden- und Partherzeit im südlichen Babylonien und im Golfgebiet. Tübingen: Ernst Wasmuth.
Kennet D. 1998. Evidence for 4th/5th-century Sasanian occupation at Khatt, Ra’s al-Khaimah. Pages 105–116 in C.S. Phillips, D.T. Potts & S. Searight (eds), Arabia and her neighbours. Essays on prehistorical and historical developments presented in honour of Beatrice de Cardi. Turnhout: Brepols.
Kennet D. 2004. Sasanian and Islamic pottery from Ras al-Khaimah: Classification, chronology and analysis of trade in the western Indian Ocean. Oxford: Archaeopress.
Loreto R. 2020. A Late Iron Age settlement in Wādī Banī Ḫālid: First season of the Joint Omani‐Italian Archaeological Project. Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy 31/2: 365–392.
Mouton M. 1992. La Péninsule d’Oman de la fin de l’Âge du fer au début de la période Sassanide (250 av.–350 ap. JC). Thèse de doctorat, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne.
Mouton M., Tenberg M., Bernard V., Le Maguer S., Reddy A., Soulie D. … J. Goy. 2012. Building H at Mleiha: New evidence of the late pre-Islamic Period D Phase (PIR.D) in the Oman peninsula (second to mid-third century AD). Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies 42: 205–221.
Power T.C. 2015. A First ceramic chronology for the Late Islamic Arabian Gulf. Journal of Islamic Archaeology 2/1: 1–33.
Power T.C. & Sheehan P.D. 2012. The origin and development of the oasis landscape of al-‘Ayn (UAE). Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies 42: 291–308.
Power T.C., Benoist A. & Sheehan P.D. 2019. An Iron Age ceramic sequence from the Bayt Bin Ati, al‐Ain, UAE. Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy 30/1: 75–102.
Power T.C., Al Jahwari N.S., Sheehan P.D. & Strutt K.D. 2015. First preliminary report on the Buraimi Oasis Landscape Archaeology Project. Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies 45: 233–252.
Power T.C., Sheehan P.D., Al Mansoori F.N., Al Mansoori M.S., Al Mansoori M.H. & Mohammed M.N. 2017. al-ʿAyn Oases Mapping Project: Jīmī Oasis. Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies 47: 209–214.
Priestman S.M.N. 2005. Settlement & ceramics in southern Iran: An analysis of the Sasanian & Islamic periods in the Williamson Collection. MA thesis, University of Durham. [Unpublished.]
Priestman S.M.N. 2021. Ceramic exchange and the Indian Ocean economy (AD 400–1275). ii. Indian Ocean pottery classification. London: British Museum.
Rougeulle A., Renel H., Simsek G. & Colomban P. 2014. Medieval ceramic production at Qalhāt, Oman: A multidisciplinary approach. Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies 44: 287–316.
Sheehan P.D., Power T.C., Al Kaabi O.S., Khalifa M., al Dhaheri M.M., Al Mansoori B. … al Mansoori R. 2015. Rediscovering a ‘lost’ village of Al-ʿayn: Archaeology and communal memory in the oasis. Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies 45: 337–346.
al-Tikriti W.Y. 2003. An Early Islamic falaj from al-Ain, UAE. Bulletin of the Society for Arabian Studies 8: 11–19.
Tomber R. 2007. Rome and Mesopotamia – importers into India in the first millennium AD. Antiquity 81: 972–988.
Wilkinson J.C. 1977. Water and tribal settlement in south-eastern Arabia: A study of the aflāj of Oman. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Wilkinson T.J. 1987. The Water supply of Early Islamic Sohar. Journal of Oman Studies 9: 43–78.
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Archaeopress Publishing, Oxford, UK
