Copper-base artefacts from Bronze Age Luristan have been analysed for their chemical composition and the isotopic composition of their lead. We find no significant systematic differences between a group of objects recovered in the Pushti Kuh region in the course of controlled excavations during the Belgian Archaeological Mission in Iran (BAMI) and a second group of artefacts from the Louvre Museum which were acquired on the art market. According to these material features the objects from the art market are made of genuine "Luristan" metal which does not exclude the possibility that the artefacts are recent forgeries made of "old" metal. The data suggest a large fraction of the artefacts, copper and bronze, to derive from copper ores as they are available in the eastern part of the central Zagros Mountains from where also tin ores have been reported. Bronzes with high -"^Pbnonnalized abundance ratios, conspicuous in contemporary Mesopotamia, are missing in Luristan. We have no satisfactory explanation to offer why the manifold cultural and material connections between Mesopotamia and Luristan should have excluded the trade in bronzes with such exceptional lead isotopy.

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The results of seven weeks’research in 1989 by a Belgian team from Gent University at ed‐Dur, in the Emirate of Umm al‐Qaiwain, are presented. Excavations were continued in the southern part of the site. A fourth altar was found near the temple (area M); graves were excavated in other areas (areas N and AT). A large, undisturbed, semi‐subterranean tomb with a barrel‐vault and enclosure (area AV) was also discovered.

This brief note reports on the discovery of a prehistoric site near the coast of Ajman (United Arab Emirates), with lithics and ceramics which should probably be dated to the fifth millennium BC. Although small, the site nonetheless takes its place alongside a growing number of prehistoric points of habitation on the southern Gulf coast which attest to contact with‘Ubaid Mesopotamia.

Excavation of two of the monumental grave-buildings at Mleiha yielded human skeletal remains in the upper parts of the respective grave-fills. The fill mainly consisted of flood-sediments washed into the grave-shafts. As determined for grave 5 this happened after construction of the grave during PIR-A (14C-age = 384-233 BC) and before deposition of an intrusive burial (14C-age = 623-656 AD) of an adult, probably female individual. Micromorphological analysis of sediments around the skull in grave 5 provides evidence that the human remains were not washed into the grave-building together with the flood-sediments but buried there afterwards. Like all excavated grave-buildings at Mleiha the original grave-chambers did not contain human remains. The preservation of human bone in the upper grave-fill indicates that the absence of skeletal remains from the primary grave-context cannot be explained by natural processes

The results of the 1993 and 1994 seasons by a Belgian team from Gent University at ed‐Dur in the Emirate of Umm al‐Qaiwain are presented. The excavations concentrated on area BS, where a total of 2650 m2 were excavated. This large exposure provided a vast amount of material of the late 1st century BC and the 1st century AD. Only some rare objects (from different areas) are presented.

To date Mleiha has yielded eighteen stamps belonging to Rhodian wine amphorae. Eleven of these can be dated to the second half of the third and the first half of the second centuries BC. Rhodian stamps are vital for the chronological framework of the PIR-A period at Mleiha. Most of them, if not all, belonged to funerary contexts but were unfortunately rarely found in undisturbed contexts. The stamp types of the eponym ?sigma epsilon sigma and of the fabricants ?sigma and phi sigma phi sigma do not seem to occur very often