Umm an-Nar pottery assemblages from Bāt and al-Zībā and their functional contexts
Keywords:
Bāt, al-Zībā (Zebah), Umm an-Nar period, grave and non-grave pottery, homogeneous material cultureAbstract
The sites of Bāt and al-Zībā (Zebah) in the Sultanate of Oman offer a range of different archaeological features dating to the Umm an-Nar period. In this paper we present the pottery assemblages from two burial pits detected just outside a group of Umm an-Nar tombs in the necropolis of Bāt, from the monumental Building II in Area at Bāt, and from two house complexes in al-Zībā, which were all excavated by the University of Tūbingen between 2010 and 2015. By comparing the assemblages with each other, it will be demonstrated that there is a clear distinction in shapes, wares, and decorations between the burial pits, on the one hand, and Building II and al-Zībā, on the other. We argue, therefore, for a functional difference between grave and non-grave pottery in the Umm anNar period. Furthermore, we show that the Umm an-Nar pottery is astonishingly homogeneous in the whole of the northern Oman peninsula and discuss its implications for the understanding of the social structure at that time.
References
.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Archaeopress Publishing, Oxford, UK