Archaeologists said Monday they have found the world’s oldest pearling village. Persian Gulf on an island in front of one of the sheikhs of the north of the United Arab Emirates.
Artifacts found in this city on the island of Siniyah in Umm al-Quwain, which was probably once home to thousands of people and hundreds of homes, are date back to the region’s pre-Islamic history at the end of the 6th century. While the oldest pearl towns have been mentioned in historical texts, this represents the first time archaeologists say they have physically found one from this ancient era in the Persian Gulf nations.
“This is the oldest example of that very specific type of Khaleeji pearl village,” said Timothy Power, an associate professor of archeology at the United Arab Emirates University, using a word that means “Gulf” in Arabic. “It is the spiritual ancestor of cities like Dubai”.
The pearl city is located on the island of Siniyah, which protects the Khor al-Beida swamps in Umm al-Quwain, an emirate about 50 kilometers (30 miles) northeast of Dubai along the Persian Gulf coast. . The island, whose name means “flashing lights” probably due to the effect of the hot sun overhead, has already seen archaeologists discover an ancient Christian monastery dating back 1400 years.
The city lies directly south of that monastery on one of the island’s curling fingers and spreads out over some 12 hectares (143,500 square yards). There, archaeologists found a variety of houses made of beach rock and lime mortar, ranging from narrow rooms to larger houses with courtyards, suggesting social stratification, Power said. The site also shows signs of year-round habitability, unlike other pearling operations that take place in seasonal locations in the region.
“The houses are crowded there, side by side,” he added. “The key there is permanence. People live there year-round.”
In homes, archaeologists have discovered loose pearls and diving weights, which free divers used to quickly drop to the bottom of the sea relying only on their held breath.
The city is before the rise of Islam in the Arabian Peninsulawhich makes its residents likely Christians. The prophet Muhammad of Islam was born around 570 and died in 632 after conquering Mecca in present-day Saudi Arabia.
The Umm al-Quwain Department of Tourism and Archeology, the United Arab Emirates University, the Italian Archaeological Mission in the emirate and New York University’s Institute for the Study of the Ancient World participated in the excavation. Umm al-Quwain, the least populated emirate in the United Arab Emirates, plans to build a visitor center on the site.
Today, the area near the tidal flats is best known for the low-cost liquor store at the emirate’s Barracuda Beach Resort. In recent months, authorities have demolished a massive Soviet-era cargo plane linked to a Russian arms dealer known as the “Merchant of Death” as he built a bridge to the island of Siniyah for a $675 million real estate development. Dollars. The authorities hope that the development, as well as other buildings, will grow the emirate’s economy.
Yet even this ancient site has lessons for the Emirates.
The history of pearling, which quickly collapsed after World War I with the introduction of artificial pearls and the Great Depression, is of particular importance in the history of the United Arab Emirates, especially as it faces an imminent reckoning. with another extractive industry. While crude oil sales built the country after its formation in 1971, the Emirates will have to deal with its fossil fuel legacy and potentially plan for a carbon-neutral future as it hosts the climate talks of the United Nations COP28 later this year.
Those searching the site found a nearby dump site littered with discarded oyster shell detritus. People walking on the island can also feel those wreckage crunching underfoot in some areas.
“You only find one pearl in every 10,000 oyster shells. You have to find and discard thousands and thousands of oyster shells to find one,” Power said. “The waste, the industrial waste from the pearl industry, was colossal. These are millions, millions of discarded oyster shells.”
(with information from AP)
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Source-www.infobae.com