Ras al Khaimah: further archaeological discoveries

Abstract

Ras a1 Khaimah is the most northerly of the seven states comprising the United Arab Emirates and its Ruler, H. H. Sheikh Saqr bin Mohammad al-Qasimi, is keenly interested in the history of the state and its people. Survey carried out there jointly with Dr D. B. Doe in 1968 had focused attention on the site of JuIfar which lies just north of the present town of Ras a1 Khaimah (de Cardi, 1971, 230-2). Julfar was in existence in Abbasid times and its importance as an entrep6t during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries-the Portuguese Period-is reflected by the quantity and variety of imported wares to be found among the ruins of the city. Most of the sites discovered during the survey dated from that period but a group of cairns near Ghalilah and some long gabled graves in the Shimal area to the north-east of the date-groves behind Ras a1 Khaimah (map, FIG. I) clearly represented a more distant past.

The origins of agricultural settlement in the al-Ḥajar region

“…55 At other sites which have not been subjected to intensive field-walking and where the direction of settlement is not yet established, the situation is less clear. However, a similar positioning of Hafit tombs, marginal to the Beehive cemetery and close to later Umm an-Nar tombs, can be observed at Tawi Sim -where, at the southern foot of the Beehive-covered Jabal al-Hora, Hafit tombs (see Cairn 4) share a terrace with some Beehive tombs (see Cairn 1) and part of an Umm an-Nar cemetery (see Cairns 2 and 3) 56 -and at al-Khashbah, where Hafit tombs are not found alongside the Beehive tombs to the northeast, but are reported by Weisgerber to occur, together with Umm an-Nar tombs, southwest of the al-Hajar settlement. 57 The rough-and-ready style of the Hafit tombs and their location in isolated places or on the edge of major Beehive cemeteries implies not only that the people who built them were visitors to the al-Hajar region rather than long-term agricultural settlers, but also that these visitors did not belong to an upper class, but were simple folk such as prospectors, itinerant workers and peripatetic traders.…”

Out of anonymity—A central location for ‘peripheral’ places through people: the contributions made by Karen Frifelt and Beatrice de Cardi to an understanding of the archaeology of the United Arab Emirates

“…In 1976 de Cardi returned to Ras al-Khaimah to make further detailed surveys near Ghalilah, which resulted in the discovery of a number of sites dating to the first millennium BC (46). Further sites dating to this period were discovered by de Cardi in her 1982 survey of the Wadi al-Qawr, in southern Ras al-Khaimah (47). As a result of these surveys, de Cardi was able to extend the known distribution of the so-called Shimal graves (48) to as far south as al-Khatt (49).…”