Sapienza university of rome archaeological mission in the arabian peninsula and the gulf area (MASPAG): Archaeological explorations in wadi al ma’awel 2022-23

Contenu

Titre

Sapienza university of rome archaeological mission in the arabian peninsula and the gulf area (MASPAG): Archaeological explorations in wadi al ma’awel 2022-23

Créateur

Ramazzotti, Marco

Sujet

Archéologie -- Oman

Résumé

Sapienza Archaeological Mission in the Arabian Peninsula and the Gulf Area (MASPAG) surveys in the Omani southern Batinah, southwest of Muscat, near the Muslimat oasis, has recently revealed a new hitherto unknown multi-millennial archaeological landscape crossed by the Tropic of Cancer. In this vast area, two enormous cemeteries with hundreds of collective tombs have been identified. The oldest graves typologically and morphologically date from the end of the 4th millennium, but both the cemeteries appear to be associated with long-lasting settlements continuously inhabited up to the Islamic period. The two cemeteries next to a settlement that was fortified in the Iron Age offer the possibility of investigating the social complexity of those mobile groups interposed between south-eastern Arabia and the Persian Gulf on a broad spectrum. Powerful coalitions capable of governing large portions of the piedmont territory interposed between the rocky Hajar mountains and the spectacular western coasts of the Arabian Sea, a nomadic and half-nomadic territorial state in the south-eastern frontier of the ancient Near East which Mesopotamian texts identify as the Land of Magan.

Est une partie de

Athar: Bulletin of Archaeological Research in the Sultanate of Oman

numéro

1

pages

188-194

Date

2025

Langue

eng