Archaeologists discovered an Iron Age settlement and burial site with 45 tombs in Oman’s Al Sharqiyah governorate.
Credit: Omani Ministry of Heritage and Culture
Oman’s Ministry of Heritage and Culture, working with Germany’s Heidelberg University on a project to study Iron Age settlements in North Al Sharqiyah found the new site in Al Mudhaibi. The ministry said the tombs are “very well preserved” and cover a 50 to 80-square metre area.
The tombs are 700 metres from a settlement that the team believes dates from the beginning of the Iron Age and may have been home to people who worked in copper mining.
It is believed there was copper mining at the site during the Iron Age and continued until early in the Islamic era.
Credit: Omani Ministry of Heritage and Culture
“It is the most preserved sites of its components, where stone buildings and tombs resembling huts are retained by nature for more than 3,000 years, and reflect the method of burial,” the Ministry of Heritage and Culture said.
“It features the social status of the deceased through the length of the tomb and archaeological artefacts buried with him.”
Al Sharqiyah site is one of many archaeological finds discovered in Oman over the past decade. Many were discovered by a team from the archaeology department at Sultan Qaboos University, which works with the Ministry of Heritage and Culture to find, protect and preserve sites of interest.
Credit: Omani Ministry of Heritage and Culture
Oman’s ancient sites have also been recognised by the UN. In 1988, Bat, Al Khutm and Al Ayn were certified as World Heritage Sites. The three ancient settlements in Al Dhahira Governorate of north-west Oman are the most complete of their kind from the Iron Age.
In January 2018, the largest trove of Iron Age weapons in the region was discovered at Mudhmar East. It contained more than 3,000 arrows, daggers and axes.
15-meter high waves that pushed boulders the weight of a Leopard tank inland: This is more or less how one can imagine the tsunami that hit the coast of today's Sultanate of Oman about 1,000 years ago, as concluded by a recent study by the universities of Bonn, Jena, Freiburg and RWTH Aachen. The findings also show how urgently the region needs a well-functioning early warning system. But even then, coastal residents would have a maximum of 30 minutes to get to safety in a similar catastrophe. The study will be published in the journal Marine Geology, but is already available online.
Klaus Reicherter from the University of Aachen examines a boulder that the tsunami carried onto the cliffs [Credit: Gosta Hoffmann/Uni Bonn]
Oman lies in the east of the Arabian Peninsula. The coasts of the Sultanate are repeatedly struck by tsunamis, most recently in 2013. Even with the most severe of these in recent times, the Makran event in 1945, the damage remained comparatively low. Back then, the tidal wave reached a height of three meters.
The scientists have now discovered evidence of a tsunami which is likely to have been much more powerful, with waves of up to 15 meters. For this purpose, the researchers from Bonn, Jena and Aachen concentrated their terrain investigations on a 200-kilometer coastal strip in northeastern Oman. "There we identified 41 large boulders, which were apparently carried inland by the force of the water," explains Dr. Gösta Hoffmann from the Institute for Geosciences at the University of Bonn.
Quartz clock in the rock
Some of the boulders were probably formed when the tsunami shattered parts of the cliffs; for one of them, the largest weighing around 100 metric tons, scientists were even able to determine the exact point at which it broke off. Others show traces of marine organisms such as mussels or oysters that cannot survive on land. "Certain methods can be used to determine their time of death," says the geologist Gösta Hoffmann. "This allowed us to establish when the boulders were washed ashore."
The quartz crystals in the rock also represent a kind of clock: They provide information about the last time they were exposed to the sun. This allowed the scientists to deduce how long the rocks had been in the place where they were found. The scientists from Freiburg are specialists in this method. "Many of these measurements gave us a value of about 1,000 years," emphasizes Hoffmann. "This corresponds well with the dating results of clay fragments we found in tsunami sediments. They originate from vessels used by coastal dwellers."
During sampling (from the left): Christoph Grutzner (University of Jena); Benjamin Koster, Klaus Reicherter and Sascha Schneiderwind (all University of Aachen) [Credit: Gosta Hoffmann/Uni Bonn]
The Arabian and Eurasian tectonic plates collide in the Arabian Sea. They move towards each other at a speed of about four centimeters per year. During this process, one plate slides beneath the other. Sometimes they get stuck in this subduction zone. This can cause tensions that intensify more and more over years and decades. If they suddenly come loose with a violent jolt, the water column above the plates starts to move. This can lead to the extremely destructive waves that are characteristic of tsunamis.
"So far it has been unclear to what extent the Arabian and Eurasian plates get stuck," says Hoffmann. At the Makran event of 1945, for example, the effects were locally confined. The current findings, however, suggest that the tensions can also build up and unload on a very large scale - there is no other feasible explanation for the enormous forces at work at the time. "It is therefore extremely important that a tsunami early warning system is put in place for this region," stresses the geologist.
Nevertheless, even a smaller tsunami would have devastating consequences today: A large part of the vital infrastructure in the Sultanate of Oman has been built near the coast, such as the oil refineries and seawater desalination plants. A well-functioning warning system can, however, at least give residents some time to get to safety. Not very much though: Tsunamis move at the speed of a passenger aircraft; in the best case, the time between the alarm and the wave's impact would therefore be little more than 30 minutes.
Fossil coral records provide new evidence that frequent winter shamals, or dust storms, and a prolonged cold winter season contributed to the collapse of the ancient Akkadian Empire in Mesopotamia.
King Naram-Sin of Akkad, grandson of Sargon, leading his army to victory [Credit: WikiCommons]
The Akkadian Empire (24th to 22nd century BCE) was the first united empire in Mesopotamia and thrived with the development of irrigation. Yet, settlements appear to have been suddenly abandoned ca. 4,200 years ago, causing its collapse. The area would also not experience resettlement until about 300 years later.
Past studies have shown that the Akkadian Empire likely collapsed due to abrupt drought and civil turmoil. However, the climatic dynamics which caused widespread agricultural failures and the end of an era have yet to be sufficiently explored.
This is a 4,100-year-old Oman coral fossil [Credit: Hokkaido University]
Researchers from Hokkaido University, the KIKAI Institute for Coral Reef Sciences, Kyushu University, and Kiel University made paleoclimatic reconstructions of the temperature and hydrological changes of the areas around the archaeological site of Tell Leilan, the center of the Akkadian Empire.
They sampled six 4,100-year-old fossil Porites corals from the Gulf of Oman, just directly downwind. The samples were aged by radiocarbon dating and geochemically analyzed to confirm they have not been significantly altered from their present state.
Map showing the sample sites (red stars) in respect to Mesopotamia (green dots) and wind direction [Credit: Watanabe T.K. et al, 2019]
The coral data was then compared to modern coral samples and meteorological information. Although it is normal for the survey area to receive a significant amount of rainfall in the winter, the coral data suggests that, during the time of the empire's collapse, the area suffered from significant dry spells. The data before and since the collapse are furthermore comparable to modern coral data, showing the dry spells would have been sudden and intense.
The fossil evidence shows that there was a prolonged winter shamal season accompanied by frequent shamal days. The impact of the dust storms and the lack of rainfall would have caused major agricultural problems possibly leading to social instability and famine, both factors which have been previously associated with the collapse of the empire.
There is a clear correlation between ancient winter climate anomalies (green, blue, and red) and the civilization area of Mesopotamia and the Akkadian Empire (black) via time, with the right-hand side of the graph representing the present day. The anomalies are presented relative to present day values [Credit: Hokkaido University]
"Although the official mark of the collapse of the Akkadian Empire is the invasion of Mesopotamia by other populations, our fossil samples are windows in time showing that variations in climate significantly contributed to the empire's decline," said Tsuyoshi Watanabe of Hokkaido University's Department of Natural History Sciences. "Further interdisciplinary research will help improve our understanding of connections between climate changes and human societies in the past."
Excavation work at Al Mazyoonah archaeological site in southern Oman has led to the discovery of ancient fossils and arrowheads dating back to the Stone Age.
Credit: Times of Oman
The excavation started after several local residents reported finding old stone tools in the Mitan area of Al Mazyoonah.
In an online statement, Ministry of Heritage and Culture said: “A team of geologists and specialists from the ministry carried out surveys and archaeological excavations in the north of Mitan in Al Mazyoonah to study the geological and climatic changes and to know the history of human settlement in the region. This came after several reports from local residents about finding old stone tools in the area.”
It added: “The results of the survey revealed the finding of many stone tools indicating settlement in various periods of the Paleolithic and Neolithic periods. These tools included pickaxes, hitches for animals, arrowheads and stone axes.”
The ministry explained that the items were found alongside animal fossils that humans have hunted in ancient times.
The area is dominated by wide sand dunes that cover the limestone plateau at a height of 280 meters to 300 meters above sea level.
The discovery of this new archaeological area provides new information about the communities that settled in the southern Arabian Peninsula during the Stone Age, according to the statement.
“Comparisons with known sites in the desert of the Empty Quarter along the southern chain through Oman, Yemen and Saudi Arabia show a dense presence of people who lived and moved in this region thousands of years ago in rainy climates, during which the Empty Quarter became attractive for settlement and migration due to the abundance of water,” it pointed out.
Matan is characterised by the presence of high sand dunes, salt marshes that were deposited thousands of years ago in water lakes that seemed to be full of life in a savannah-like environment.
“It seems that this area was previously a very attractive environment for life and civilisation before the entry of drought and high temperature,” the report stated.
Guinness World Records have independently certified an astrolabe excavated from the wreck site of a Portuguese Armada Ship that was part of Vasco da Gama's second voyage to India in 1502-1503 as the oldest in the world, and have separately certified a ship's bell (dated 1498) recovered from the same wreck site also as the oldest in the world.
Guinness World Records have independently certified an astrolabe excavated from the wreck site of a Portuguese Armada Ship that was part of Vasco da Gama's second voyage to India in 1502-1503 as the oldest in the world, and have separately certified a ship's bell (dated 1498) recovered from the same wreck site also as the oldest in the world [Credit: David Mearns]
The scientific process of verifying the disc as an astrolabe by laser imaging is described in a paper published today by Mearns and Jason Warnett and Mark Williams of WMG at the University of Warwick in the International Journal of Nautical Archaeology.
The Sodré astrolabe has made it into the Guinness Book of world records is believed to have been made between 1496 and 1501 and is unique in comparison to all other mariner's astrolabes.
Mariner's Astrolabes were used for navigating at sea by early explorers, most notably the Portuguese and Spanish.
They are considered to be the rarest and most prized of artefacts to be found on ancient shipwrecks and only 104 examples are known to exist in the world.
Guinness World Records have independently certified an astrolabe excavated from the wreck site of a Portuguese
Armada Ship that was part of Vasco da Gama's second voyage to India in 1502-1503 as the oldest in the world,
and have separately certified a ship's bell (dated 1498) recovered from the same wreck site also
as the oldest in the world [Credit: David Mearns]
They were first used at sea on a Portuguese voyage down the west coast of Africa in 1481. Thereafter, astrolabes were relied on for navigation during the most important explorations of the late 15th century, including those led by Bartolomeu Dias, Christopher Columbus and Vasco da Gama.
It is the only solid disk type astrolabe with a verifiable provenance and the only specimen decorated with a national symbol: the royal coat of arms of Portugal.
As the earliest verifiable mariner's astrolabe it fills a chronological gap in the development of these iconic instruments and is believed to be a transitional instrument between the classic planispheric astrolabe and the open-wheel type astrolabe that came into use sometime before 1517.
The thin 175 mm diameter disk weighing 344 grams was analysed by a team from WMG who travelled to Muscat, Oman in November 2016 to collect laser scans of a selection of the most important artefacts recovered from the wreck site.
Guinness World Records have independently certified an astrolabe excavated from the wreck site of a Portuguese
Armada Ship that was part of Vasco da Gama's second voyage to India in 1502-1503 as the oldest in the world,
and have separately certified a ship's bell (dated 1498) recovered from the same wreck site also
as the oldest in the world [Credit: David Mearns]
Using a portable 7-axis Nikon laser scanner, capable of collecting over 50,000 points per second at an accuracy of 60 microns, a 3D virtual model of the artefact was created.
Analysis of the results revealed a series of 18 scale marks spaced at uniform intervals along the limb of the disk.
Further analysis by WMG engineers showed that the spacing of the scale marks was equivalent to 5-degree intervals. This was critical evidence that allowed independent experts at Texas A&M University to include the disk in their global inventory as the earliest known mariner's astrolabe discovered to date.
Prof Mark Williams from WMG, University of Warwick comments: "Using this 3D scanning technology has enabled us to confirm the identity of the earliest known astrolabe, from this historians and scientists can determine more about history and how ships navigated.
The earliest known Marnier's Astroble being discovered by David Mearns
[Credit: David Mearns ]
Technology like this betters our understanding of how the disc would have worked back in the 15th century. Using technology normally applied within engineering projects to help shed insight into such a valuable artefact was a real privilege"
David Mearns of Blue Water Recoveries Ltd comments: "Without the laser scanning work performed by WMG we would never have known that the scale marks, which were invisible to the naked eye, existed. Their analysis proved beyond doubt that the disk was a mariner's astrolabe. This has allowed us to confidently place the Sodré astrolabe in its correct chronological position and propose it to be an important transitional instrument."
Prof. Alessandra Avanzini, Head of the Italian mission of Pisa University in the Sultanate, announced new discoveries at the archaeological park of Salut Fort.
Recent archaeological excavations have indicated that Salut site is a site of a city that is larger than previously thought [Credit: Italian Mission to Oman]
She said in a press conference yesterday that the recent archaeological excavations indicated that Salut site is a site of a city that is larger than previously thought. She added that evidence that were found confirmed originality of Salut as the heart of Majan Civilization in historic Oman.
Prof. Avanzini also emphasised the existence of cultural communication between Salut and the civilizations of the old world in the third millennium BC, where evidence of cultural interaction with ancient civilisations, such as the Indus Valley Civilisation and Mesopotamia Civilisation was found.
Credit: Italian Mission to Oman
She said that after the discovery of the massive rock wall dating back to the Iron Age, which was part of a large settlement - the ancient city of Salut - by the end of the year 2015, and because of the excavation works, the features of the city became more visible.
She added that a number of buildings have been found, including ones with more than two rooms that separated by narrow streets, and rocky terraces were built around the entire plateau. She said that these are the most important discoveries made during the recent excavations.
Credit: Italian Mission to Oman
She highlighted the existence of several elements such as, the extensive planning of the settlement, the regularity of the buildings, the internal network of corridors and streets, the rainwater drainage system, the existence of the fortified areas and the potential existence of specialised buildings. This remarkable system of planning shows hat Salut was a civilised centre.
Waleed bin Sultan Al Muzaini, Director of the Salut Archaeological Park said “Every day we discover new things that tell us about the history of Salut. What was discovered recently was very exciting as it was thought that the Salut city dates back to the Iron Age, but the recent findings and through the radioactive carbon sample (C14) showed evidence of the ancient history of the Salut City. It dates back to the first half of the second millennium BC; the Middle Bronze Age”.
Credit: Italian Mission to Oman
Al Muzaini also pointed out that the new excavations also showed that settlement in Salut did not end in the first century AD, as it was thought, but extended to later eras.
Al Muzaini also explained that the Office of the Advisor to His Majesty the Sultan for Cultural Affairs is currently working on the development of this site to be a fully-fledged archaeological park to turn it into tourist attraction for Omani and foreign visitors.
He added that works have started on planting 300-date palms of different Omani types on a traditional farm and there is a study to showcase the discoveries at the park.
Researchers at the University of California, Riverside, have found the oldest clue yet of animal life, dating back at least 100 million years before the famous Cambrian explosion of animal fossils.
An underwater picture of the modern demosponge species Rhabdastrella globostellata, which make the same 26-mes steroids that the researchers found in ancient rocks [Credit: Paco Cárdenas]
The study, led by Gordon Love, a professor in UCR's Department of Earth Sciences, was published in Nature Ecology & Evolution. The first author is Alex Zumberge, a doctoral student working in Love's research group.
Rather than searching for conventional body fossils, the researchers have been tracking molecular signs of animal life, called biomarkers, as far back as 660-635 million years ago during the Neoproterozoic Era. In ancient rocks and oils from Oman, Siberia, and India, they found a steroid compound produced only by sponges, which are among the earliest forms of animal life.
"Molecular fossils are important for tracking early animals since the first sponges were probably very small, did not contain a skeleton, and did not leave a well-preserved or easily recognizable body fossil record," Zumberge said. "We have been looking for distinctive and stable biomarkers that indicate the existence of sponges and other early animals, rather than single-celled organisms that dominated the earth for billions of years before the dawn of complex, multicellular life."
The biomarker they identified, a steroid compound named 26-methylstigmastane (26-mes), has a unique structure that is currently only known to be synthesized by certain species of modern sponges called demosponges.
UCR's Alex Zumberge (right) collects 750 million-year-old rocks from a lake outcrop in Sweden [Credit: UC Riverside]
"This steroid biomarker is the first evidence that demosponges, and hence multicellular animals, were thriving in ancient seas at least as far back as 635 million years ago," Zumberge said.
The work builds from a 2009 study by Love's team, which reported the first compelling biomarker evidence for Neoproterozoic animals from a different steroid biomarker, called 24-isopropylcholestane (24-ipc), from rocks in South Oman. However, the 24-ipc biomarker evidence proved controversial since 24-ipc steroids are not exclusively made by demosponges and can be found in a few modern algae. The finding of the additional and novel 26-mes ancient biomarker, which is unique to demosponges, adds extra confidence that both compounds are fossil biomolecules produced by demosponges on an ancient seafloor.
The study also provides important new constraints on the groups of modern demosponges capable of producing unique steroid structures, which leave a distinctive biomarker record. The researchers found that within modern demosponges, certain taxonomic groups preferentially produce 26-mes steroids while others produce 24-ipc steroids.
"The combined Neoproterozoic demosponge sterane record, showing 24-ipc and 26-mes steranes co-occurring in ancient rocks, is unlikely attributed to an isolated branch or extinct stem-group of demosponges," Love said. "Rather, the ability to make such unconventional steroids likely arose deep within the demosponge phylogenetic tree but now encompasses a wide coverage of modern demosponge groups."
Fossilised baskets, ropes and nets that date back to the early Bronze Age, between 3,100 BCE and 2,700 BCE, have recently been discovered, the National Museum Oman has announced.
Credit: National Museum Oman/Twitter
The new set of archaeological discoveries were found at a human settlement near Ra’s Al Hadd and are over 5,000 years old. These discoveries have shed light on how people in Oman lived during that age. Back then, Ra's Al Hadd was an important seaside town in the Arabian Gulf and happened to be its easternmost point, jutting into the Sea of Oman.
Originally made from organic materials and fibres, chemical reactions over thousands of years have turned the discoveries into hardened, calcified fossils.
“Inside the houses of an Early Bronze Age settlement at Ra’s al-Hadd, archaeologists have discovered fossilised imprints of baskets, ropes and nets,” said a spokesperson for the museum.
“The perishable organic materials originally used to produce these objects have been slowly replaced by concretions of calcium carbonate over thousands of years. This find has provided a rare glimpse of materials and techniques used in the local manufacture of such everyday crafts objects in prehistoric times,” the spokesperson added.
The remains of these household items can now be found on display at the National Museum of Oman.
The Ministry of Heritage and Culture has completed archaeological excavations carried out at Al Khashba site in the Wilayat of Al Mudhaibi, in cooperation with a German delegation from the University of Tubingen. This is the fourth season of archaeological studies at this site, which began in 2015.
Credit: Ministry of Heritage and Culture
The results of excavations in the previous seasons confirmed that the site contains archaeological evidence of settlements and stone towers dating back to the fourth and third centuries BC.
In this season, excavations were completed in the mud-trench surrounded settlement, which was uncovered in the previous seasons and date back to 2800 BC or the Hafeet period. More remains of the mud-brick foundations were found, as well as a water well located in the middle of the trench.
Credit: Ministry of Heritage and Culture
One of the most important discoveries found in this settlement is workshops for making beads and stone pounders, which were probably used for smelting and copper production.
The expedition continued to excavate a stone tower dating back to the end of the fourth millennium BC, located one kilometer from the mud settlement.
Credit: Ministry of Heritage and Culture
The tower is the oldest circular building of the Majan Civilisation. The excavations showed that the tower was first built with mud bricks and later added a stone wall instead of the mud wall. The tower includes mud rooms.
One of the most important archaeological discoveries in this site is the discovery of the oldest evidence of copper smelting operations in the Sultanate of Oman dating back to the beginning of the third millennium BC.
Credit: Ministry of Heritage and Culture
It is an important archaeological evidence that confirms the production of copper in the Majan Civilisation and its exportation to the civilisations of Mesopotamia.
This is a new material evidence that proves what it is mentioned by the cuneiform texts found in Mesopotamia, which indicated that the export of copper from Majan began at the beginning of the third millennium BC when no mining sites were found in this period and that the oldest excavated mining sites date back to the end of the third millennium.
One of the most important features of this archeological site is the chronology of the settlement of more than 1000 years from the end of the fourth millennium to the end of the third millennium BC.
