Fascinating new evidence about life on the Arabian peninsula four millennia ago suggests that people may have undertaken lengthy journeys across the desert even without camels.
Archaeologists believe that donkeys may have supported the crossing of the Empty Quarter between the Dilmun civilisation on the Arabian Gulf coast and Wadi Al Faw, 1,000km to the south-west.
If members of the Dilmun civilisation did undertake these arduous trips during the Bronze Age, it may have been to trade incense with inland communities.
Dr Steffen Laursen, of Moesgaard Museum at Aarhus University in Denmark, the first author of a new study on the period, said it was not certain how the people travelled without camels, but they were likely to have used donkeys.
Doing the donkey work
“In the paper we argued that they must have had trains of donkey caravans in the cold season, but it would still be very challenging,” he said.
“You would have to be able to rely on getting water and grass at much narrower intervals. They must have had a very particular route you could take in the cold season, in the wet season.”
Dr Laursen and Dr Faleh Al Otaibi, a Saudi researcher from King Saud University, have outlined their findings in the journal Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy.
The identification in Wadi Al Faw of seals and other Dilmun objects, including a fragile and special type of “burial jar” used exclusively by the ancient Dilmunites, suggests that Dilmun traders travelled far inland about 1,000 years before the camel was domesticated.
“In one of the tombs Dr Al Otaibi discovered a distinctive Dilmun burial jar, which is a type only used for a very short period of time in Bahrain and Kuwait and it’s only produced in Dilmun,” Dr Laursen said.
“It’s extremely brittle, so bringing it to Al Faw would have been something people would have done because it was very important. It wouldn’t have been a random container you would stuff trade goods in because it would break very, very easily — it’s eggshell thin.”
Typically, trading activities from this period leave “very few traces”, Dr Laursen said, and the arid and windswept landscape tends to erase what little remains. Also, in this area trade was never as intense as in more populated regions, which is another reason why evidence is sparse.
The Dilmun civilisation existed during the Bronze Age, which lasted from around 3300BC to 1200BC, and was focused on Bahrain and the Arabian Gulf coast of what is now Saudi Arabia, stretching up towards present-day Kuwait.
What motivated epic journeys?
“What we don’t know still and what this study can’t answer is what was the nature of the articles of trade that motivated people to go all the way overland to Wadi Al Faw,” said Dr Laursen.
“It could have been that it was incense, but the evidence points against that … It could also have been precious metals from the mountains of western Saudi Arabia or Yemen.
“Travelling through the extremely inhospitable terrain of inland Arabia was dangerous and probably not something one would venture to do unless the stakes were very high.”
In Wadi Al Faw, society was probably less developed than it was in the state-like Dilmun civilisation, but the area had good water supplies.
“It was probably a green island in an otherwise very, very dry environment,” Dr Laursen said.
“This would have drawn pastoral and nomadic groups in from a lot of places, but there would probably have been someone who tried to claim this area because of its resources, but we’re only just beginning to understand what was going on here in the Bronze Age.”
Dr Laursen has completed two doctorates on the Bronze Age in Dilmun (Bahrain) where, around 2000BC, society underwent many changes, with a single dynastic ruling elite taking control and developing a fortified capital in the north of the island.
Society became much wealthier, building stone-built temples, palaces, a city wall and royal tombs, along with many burial mounds, around 76,000 of which were created over a 500-year period, mostly for the middle and upper classes.
As well as farming, including date plantations, fishing went on and cereals were imported from Mesopotamia in modern-day Iraq. There was also a lucrative trade in other goods from around 2000BC.
The value of trade
The Dilmuns traded extensively with ancient Mesopotamia, and with another of the world’s great early civilisations in the Indus Valley in today’s Pakistan and India.
Other trading partners included the Magan civilisation, which covered coastal and inland areas of the UAE and Oman.
“The wealth of the [Dilmun] economy relied entirely on being a middle market for trading goods from the Oman peninsula, copper ingots coming from the beaches of Abu Dhabi and other goods, such as ivory … coming from the Indus region or Gujarat in western India. Other goods we don’t know that well came into this market from Iran,” Dr Laursen said.
A French-Saudi team under the auspices of the Saudi Heritage Commission is carrying out extensive mapping of the archaeological sites around Wadi Al Faw, and Dr Laursen is confident that more will be unearthed about Bronze Age life there.
Other civilisations, such as the Nabataeans, who existed from the third century BC to 106AD, have left more physical traces in Saudi Arabia and tend to be the primary focus of much archaeological work.
However, Dr Laursen said research on these other periods often also uncovered important material about the Bronze Age.
There are around 4,000 burial tombs around Wadi Al Faw, most unexcavated, and these could, Dr Laursen said, reveal details of the exchange of pottery, metal, beads and minerals over time. They could also, he said, be important for analysing human bones and looking for evidence of where they came from.
“Saudi Arabia is in this very, very intense phase of archaeological exploration with many, many field projects ongoing and I think we can expect a lot of news and our picture of Arabian archaeology will change profoundly because of this,” he said.
“In many cases the Bronze Age archaeology will be a by-catch to bigger projects focusing on more tangible heritage.”
Archaeological finds in the UAE — in pictures
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How being social media savvy can improve your well being
Next time when procastinating online remember that you can save thousands on paying for a personal trainer and a gym membership simply by watching YouTube videos and keeping up with the latest health tips and trends.
As social media apps are becoming more and more consumed by health experts and nutritionists who are using it to awareness and encourage patients to engage in physical activity.
Elizabeth Watson, a personal trainer from Stay Fit gym in Abu Dhabi suggests that “individuals can use social media as a means of keeping fit, there are a lot of great exercises you can do and train from experts at home just by watching videos on YouTube”.
Norlyn Torrena, a clinical nutritionist from Burjeel Hospital advises her clients to be more technologically active “most of my clients are so engaged with their phones that I advise them to download applications that offer health related services”.
Torrena said that “most people believe that dieting and keeping fit is boring”.
However, by using social media apps keeping fit means that people are “modern and are kept up to date with the latest heath tips and trends”.
“It can be a guide to a healthy lifestyle and exercise if used in the correct way, so I really encourage my clients to download health applications” said Mrs Torrena.
People can also connect with each other and exchange “tips and notes, it’s extremely healthy and fun”.
Citadel: Honey Bunny first episode
Directors: Raj & DK
Stars: Varun Dhawan, Samantha Ruth Prabhu, Kashvi Majmundar, Kay Kay Menon
Rating: 4/5
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The biog
Name: Younis Al Balooshi
Nationality: Emirati
Education: Doctorate degree in forensic medicine at the University of Bonn
Hobbies: Drawing and reading books about graphic design
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WHAT IS A BLACK HOLE?
1. Black holes are objects whose gravity is so strong not even light can escape their pull
2. They can be created when massive stars collapse under their own weight
3. Large black holes can also be formed when smaller ones collide and merge
4. The biggest black holes lurk at the centre of many galaxies, including our own
5. Astronomers believe that when the universe was very young, black holes affected how galaxies formed
MATCH INFO
Barcelona 4 (Suarez 27', Vidal 32', Dembele 35', Messi 78')
Sevilla 0
Red cards: Ronald Araujo, Ousmane Dembele (Barcelona)
Like a Fading Shadow
Antonio Muñoz Molina
Translated from the Spanish by Camilo A. Ramirez
Tuskar Rock Press (pp. 310)
Dark Souls: Remastered
Developer: From Software (remaster by QLOC)
Publisher: Namco Bandai
Price: Dh199
Libya's Gold
UN Panel of Experts found regime secretly sold a fifth of the country's gold reserves.
The panel’s 2017 report followed a trail to West Africa where large sums of cash and gold were hidden by Abdullah Al Senussi, Qaddafi’s former intelligence chief, in 2011.
Cases filled with cash that was said to amount to $560m in 100 dollar notes, that was kept by a group of Libyans in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.
A second stash was said to have been held in Accra, Ghana, inside boxes at the local offices of an international human rights organisation based in France.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
What to watch out for:
Algae, waste coffee grounds and orange peels will be used in the pavilion's walls and gangways
The hulls of three ships will be used for the roof
The hulls will painted to make the largest Italian tricolour in the country’s history
Several pillars more than 20 metres high will support the structure
Roughly 15 tonnes of steel will be used
One in nine do not have enough to eat
Created in 1961, the World Food Programme is pledged to fight hunger worldwide as well as providing emergency food assistance in a crisis.
One of the organisation’s goals is the Zero Hunger Pledge, adopted by the international community in 2015 as one of the 17 Sustainable Goals for Sustainable Development, to end world hunger by 2030.
The WFP, a branch of the United Nations, is funded by voluntary donations from governments, businesses and private donations.
Almost two thirds of its operations currently take place in conflict zones, where it is calculated that people are more than three times likely to suffer from malnutrition than in peaceful countries.
It is currently estimated that one in nine people globally do not have enough to eat.
On any one day, the WFP estimates that it has 5,000 lorries, 20 ships and 70 aircraft on the move.
Outside emergencies, the WFP provides school meals to up to 25 million children in 63 countries, while working with communities to improve nutrition. Where possible, it buys supplies from developing countries to cut down transport cost and boost local economies.
The five types of long-term residential visas
Obed Suhail of ServiceMarket, an online home services marketplace, outlines the five types of long-term residential visas:
Investors:
A 10-year residency visa can be obtained by investors who invest Dh10 million, out of which 60 per cent should not be in real estate. It can be a public investment through a deposit or in a business. Those who invest Dh5 million or more in property are eligible for a five-year residency visa. The invested amount should be completely owned by the investors, not loaned, and retained for at least three years.
Entrepreneurs:
A five-year multiple entry visa is available to entrepreneurs with a previous project worth Dh0.5m or those with the approval of an accredited business incubator in the UAE.
Specialists
Expats with specialised talents, including doctors, specialists, scientists, inventors, and creative individuals working in the field of culture and art are eligible for a 10-year visa, given that they have a valid employment contract in one of these fields in the country.
Outstanding students:
A five-year visa will be granted to outstanding students who have a grade of 95 per cent or higher in a secondary school, or those who graduate with a GPA of 3.75 from a university.
Retirees:
Expats who are at least 55 years old can obtain a five-year retirement visa if they invest Dh2m in property, have savings of Dh1m or more, or have a monthly income of at least Dh20,000.
Groom and Two Brides
Director: Elie Semaan
Starring: Abdullah Boushehri, Laila Abdallah, Lulwa Almulla
Rating: 3/5
The specs
- Engine: 3.9-litre twin-turbo V8
- Power: 640hp
- Torque: 760nm
- On sale: 2026
- Price: Not announced yet
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