Sharjah’s Faya palaeolandscape has won Unesco World Heritage Status. The ancient desert in central Sharjah boasts one of the world’s oldest and most uninterrupted records of human presence, dating back more than 210,000 years.
By placing on the prestigious Unesco list, the site has joined global historical landmarks, such as Taj Mahal in India, the Great Wall of China and the pyramids in Egypt. It is only the second in the UAE to win the World Heritage Status.
In July 2011, Unesco inscribed several sites in Al Ain to its esteemed list. The places were added as a single site: the Cultural Sites of Al Ain. They included cultural locations in Hafeet, Hili, Bidaa Bint Saud and Oases areas, featuring tombs from the Bronze Age and complex ancient irrigation systems that supplied the oasis city.
Al Ain has been inhabited since the Neolithic era and has remnants of several prehistoric cultures dating from the Bronze Age and Iron Age. Its strategic location on ancient trade routes between Oman, the Arabian Gulf and Mesopotamia propelled its development. The sites inscribed on the Unesco list provide “testimony to ancient sedentary human occupation in a desert region”, the agency wrote. It also highlights the shift of regional cultures from hunting and gathering traditions to sedentism with agriculture.
Among the places inscribed on the list were the Jebel Hafeet Tombs.
The site was the first to be excavated in Al Ain, after being discovered by a Danish team in 1961. The dome-shaped tombs date back 5,000 years and mark the beginning of the Bronze Age in the UAE. They housed the remains of two to five people, who were buried in crouched positions with artefacts and personal belongings. The tombs were discovered as collapsed stones. Meticulous restorations were conducted to bring the tombs to a form that resembles their original state. Forty of the tombs, which are about three metres tall, have been restored.
Another entry on the Unesco list was the Hili Archaeological Site, which shows the earliest evidence of an agricultural village in the UAE, dating back to 2,500BC. The site features the famous ancient irrigation system, known as al falaj. The channels carry water from underground and provide a constant flow throughout the oasis. The site also has the largest collection of ancient tombs and buildings in the country.
The largest of them is the Grand Tomb, which has a carving of two people and an oryx above the entrance. In its day, it stood four metres tall and was 14 metres in diameter. More than 500 objects, including beads and pottery, were found when the site was excavated by a Danish group in 1965. A team from Iraq led the restoration efforts a decade later.
While the tombs and the archaeological sites in Al Ain provide ample evidence of the city’s ancient life, its oases are also troves in themselves, providing information about how people lived in the area millennia ago. The largest one, Al Ain Oasis, covers 1,200 hectares and has more than 147,000 date palms. While the oasis is famous for its palms, there are also mango, banana, lemon and fig trees.
The oasis is irrigated by al falaj system, which serves hundreds of farms. The farms were passed on from generation to generation and are now run by more than 500 farmers. The farms have now been largely endowed to charity, and are managed by the UAE's General Authority of Islamic Affairs and Endowments.
Even before Unesco added the oases to the heritage list, authorities were careful to keep the historical places intact when they conducted the urban planning for Al Ain. The city was built around the oases in a way that would preserve the ancient sites.
A version of this story was first published on September 22, 2023
Gulf Under 19s final
Dubai College A 50-12 Dubai College B
Crops that could be introduced to the UAE
1: Quinoa
2. Bathua
3. Amaranth
4. Pearl and finger millet
5. Sorghum
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Small Victories: The True Story of Faith No More by Adrian Harte
Jawbone Press
The specs
Engine: 3.0-litre six-cylinder turbo
Power: 398hp from 5,250rpm
Torque: 580Nm at 1,900-4,800rpm
Transmission: Eight-speed auto
Fuel economy, combined: 6.5L/100km
On sale: December
Price: From Dh330,000 (estimate)
The five pillars of Islam
1. Fasting
2. Prayer
3. Hajj
4. Shahada
5. Zakat
Seemar’s top six for the Dubai World Cup Carnival:
1. Reynaldothewizard
2. North America
3. Raven’s Corner
4. Hawkesbury
5. New Maharajah
6. Secret Ambition
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
David Haye record
Total fights: 32
Wins: 28
Wins by KO: 26
Losses: 4
The specs
- Engine: 3.9-litre twin-turbo V8
- Power: 640hp
- Torque: 760nm
- On sale: 2026
- Price: Not announced yet
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Dates for the diary
To mark Bodytree’s 10th anniversary, the coming season will be filled with celebratory activities:
- September 21 Anyone interested in becoming a certified yoga instructor can sign up for a 250-hour course in Yoga Teacher Training with Jacquelene Sadek. It begins on September 21 and will take place over the course of six weekends.
- October 18 to 21 International yoga instructor, Yogi Nora, will be visiting Bodytree and offering classes.
- October 26 to November 4 International pilates instructor Courtney Miller will be on hand at the studio, offering classes.
- November 9 Bodytree is hosting a party to celebrate turning 10, and everyone is invited. Expect a day full of free classes on the grounds of the studio.
- December 11 Yogeswari, an advanced certified Jivamukti teacher, will be visiting the studio.
- February 2, 2018 Bodytree will host its 4th annual yoga market.
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The Settlers
Director: Louis Theroux
Starring: Daniella Weiss, Ari Abramowitz
Rating: 5/5
Defined benefit and defined contribution schemes explained
Defined Benefit Plan (DB)
A defined benefit plan is where the benefit is defined by a formula, typically length of service to and salary at date of leaving.
Defined Contribution Plan (DC)
A defined contribution plan is where the benefit depends on the amount of money put into the plan for an employee, and how much investment return is earned on those contributions.
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
F1 The Movie
Starring: Brad Pitt, Damson Idris, Kerry Condon, Javier Bardem
Director: Joseph Kosinski
Rating: 4/5
Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Honeymoonish
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Farasan Boat: 128km Away from Anchorage
Director: Mowaffaq Alobaid
Stars: Abdulaziz Almadhi, Mohammed Al Akkasi, Ali Al Suhaibani
Rating: 4/5
