>> From the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.. 
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>> Mary Jane Deeb: Your Excellency, Ambassador Hunaina Sultan Al Mughairy. Dr. Said bin Nasser Alsalmi, Ladies and Gentlemen: good morning. And thank you all for coming today despite the gray weather. I'm Mary Jane Deeb, Chief of the African Mid-East Division of the Library of Congress that's co-sponsoring this conference with the Sultan Qaboos Cultural Center. And I will be your host today. Unfortunately, Mark Sweeney, the acting Deputy Librarian, could not be with us. As he had to travel to Egypt to visit our Cairo office. But first, I would like to thank the Executive Director of the Sultan Qaboos Center, Kathleen Ridolfo, whom I have known for more than two decades. And without whom this conference would not have been possible. I also want to recognize Harrison [inaudible], the Senior Program Officer at the Center for coordinating this event and ensuring that the wonderful scholars you will hear from today made it to Washington. I want to recognize the work of my own team, especially Joan Weeks, the head of the [inaudible] who among the many other things she's done. She has organized a wonderful book display in our conference room that you'll be able to see during the break. I want to thank Wanda Cartwright from Special Events who is in charge of logistics. And coordinating the arrangements in the room, the sound system, the webcasting, the videotaping, the catering. An event like this takes a village, as the saying goes, to put together. So a word about why we are holding this conference. First, this is the first major conference on Oman archeology. Ever held at the Library of Congress. So it's a first. We like firsts. Library always likes to be first in doing something. At this point of an annual series that I started many years ago on the ancient civilizations of the Middle East that included the ancient [inaudible] of Persia. The Phoenicians and the ancient city of Tyre. The ancient Assyrians. The [inaudible] and many others. And in June, we'll be holding a conference on the history of the Armenians. The purpose is to give depth and breadth to the region of the Middle East. And to highlight the creativity, richness, and complexity of a part of the world that was for millennia, the cradle of world civilizations. It is also to entice you all to come back to the Library to our division among others to explore our collections and discover on your own more about these great civilizations. The top scholars we invite to share with us the research are the ones who will cast a spell on you. And bring you back to read their books and those of others here at the Library. And now I would like to introduce Her Excellency Hunaina Sultan Al Mughairy. The Ambassador of Oman who has been such a staunch supporter of this project and many others from the get go. And will say a few words and introduce the keynote speaker. Her Excellency was appointed as Ambassador Extraordinary and [inaudible] of the Sultanate of Oman to the United States of America on December the second, 2005. She also serves as chair of the Sultan Qaboos Culture Center's Board of Oversight. Ambassador Mughairy is an economist with an extensive business background. She's a strong advocate for the U.S.-Oman Free Trade Agreement. And has focused much of her energy on improving relations between the US and Oman. Prior to her work in diplomacy, she served many roles in Oman's Ministry of Commerce and Industry. And the Omani Center for Investment, Promotion, and Export Development. Ambassador Mughairy obtained a BA in Business Communications from the High Polytechnic Institute in Cairo. And MMA in Economics from New York University. Please let us welcome Ambassador Mughairy.
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[ Applause ]
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>> Ambassador Hunaina Sultan Al Mughairy: [Foreign language] Dr. Deeb, Dr. Alsalmi, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen. As Chair of the Sultan Qaboos Cultural Center, it gives me great pleasure to welcome you this morning for this very special event on archeological discoveries in the Sultanate of Oman. Today we will travel from the northern [inaudible] to [inaudible] and [inaudible] and examine the ways in which ancient Oman served as a crossroads for culture and exchange. As you listen to our distinguished guests and panelists discuss their research. I hope you'll come to see the Sultanate as we do. A rich and vibrant cultural hub that welcomes exchange and interaction with its neighbors. And indeed the global world. For, as we will see, even in ancient times, Oman was at the forefront of the exchange and innovation. Our last panel of the day will transport us to the present where we will hear about the Sultanate's efforts towards the conscientious preservation of the cultural sites in Oman. Such efforts enable us to maintain these treasures while sharing them with visitors from around the world. The Sultanate is home to four UNESCO World Heritage Sites, including the Land of Frankincense, which includes the ancient ports of Khawr Ruri, Al Baleed and the inland trading post of Shisur. And also Wadi Dukah. Together, these sites and others serve as a statement to Oman's early settlement and exchange with the world. Including the far reaches of Asia. We know, for example that from Bat, Oman was a major exporter of copper to Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley. Artifacts from Al Baleed including pottery from China demonstrates the reach of ancient traders along the Silk Route to the sea. I would like to thank our panelists for traveling from near and far to share their experience with us today. The panelists have spent a large part of their careers in Oman. Their work is at the forefront of the archeological research in the Sultanate. A special thanks go to, goes to Dr. Said Alsalmi who joins us from Muscat as our keynote speaker. I would also like to thank Dr. Mary Jane Deeb, Mary Jane Deeb and her team at the African and Middle Eastern Division for partnering with SQCC to bring this conference to fruition. Dr. Deeb, we are grateful for your friendship and commitment to education. The Sultan Qaboos Cultural Center was established in 2005. Our mission is a simple one. To educate Americans and Omanis on each other's culture. Through programs such as this, we hope to share not only our history, but our future with you. And last but not least, I would like to thank my team at SQCC headed by Kathleen Ridolfo and also my two board members [inaudible] and Dr. [inaudible] who have traveled all this way to be with us here this morning. Thank you very much.
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[ Applause ]
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>> Mary Jane Deeb: Thank you, Ambassador Mughairy. And thanks to the boards. And now for our keynote speaker, Dr. Said bin Nasser Alsalmi. He was appointed as the Director General of the Office of the Advisor to His Majesty the Sultan for [inaudible] Affairs in June 2012. During this time, he has also worked as the Vice Chairman of [inaudible] Oman. From 2007 to 2011, he worked as Director of Administration for Archeological Sites. The World Heritage Sites of the Land of Frankincense. He's an expert, is an expert in archeology. Dr. Alsalmi obtained his PhD in Archeology Management of Archeological Sites from the University of Pisa in Italy. And now I know that you want to hear from him, and he has promised a very exciting presentation. [Laughter]
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>> Dr. Said bin Nasser Alsalmi: Good morning. Madame Ambassador, Madame, thank you very much. Board member of Sultan Qaboos Cultural Center, thank you very much for the invitation. Ladies and gentlemen, colleagues and friends. Some of them who work actually in Oman. My lecture is going to be a little bit different, actually. And I managed to do that because I don't want you to get bored from the keynote speaker immediately. You have a lot of [inaudible] coming. 
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This is a floor map of the ancient Near East civilization. This is from Museum of Fine Art in Boston. What you can see there is the most important civilization in the Middle East. What you can see in the Arabian Peninsula there is only one name exists. Oman always been a focal point in the international trade. You have it from the Frankincense Trail down from Dhofar all the way to the Red Sea to Europe or with [inaudible], with Magan from the third millennium BC. All the way to Mesopotamia or the Indus Valley. And by margin, both of those trades, you have one of the oldest evidence of a human being or human existence in Arabia. This is how Oman today with its boundaries. Oman was in a political it was bigger than that, getting bigger, getting smaller. But this is how is Oman today. It's still a focal point in the trade, in international trade. And it's still a focal point in history. This is our masterpiece. This is an axe dated to two million years ago was found in a [inaudible] in Dhofar. If we go back, I'm sorry. The [inaudible] I don't have a pointer here. [Inaudible] the [inaudible] of Dhofar is between the Mountain of Dhofar, all the way to Al Wusta, so all that desert in the middle of Oman, this is the [inaudible] plateau. Hundreds of archeological sites been discovered there. Goes back from two millions years ago until the first vic--settlement, goes to the tenth millennium BC [inaudible] or in [inaudible]. Between them, you have [inaudible] goes to 450,000 years ago, 120,000 years ago. And it's a long list of archeology. I'm going to give you actually the--we have two sites. Came up with very interesting results. It's not been published yet, so I'm going to focus on those two sites. [inaudible] it's about [inaudible] and Khawr Ruri. Khawr Ruri is World Heritage Site of the Land of Frankincense as Her Ex, Her Excellency the Ambassador mentioned the Land of Frankincense sites. One of them is Khawr Ruri. Two years ago, we did a kind of investigation with an Italian Mission to Oman from Pisa University and the discovery was amazing.
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This is a [inaudible]. You have a fortified site. Give you an evidence from 60,000 BC. This is the first evidence. We have it in [inaudible]  on the coastline that it goes back to the 60,000 years ago. Normally we have much of the site are on the [inaudible].
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Here you can see the differentiate between political site [inaudible]. You have from the 60,000. You have from [inaudible] 6000, and you have Bronze Age. Then you have--we call it [inaudible]. We don't call it Islamic Period, actually. This is the site. This is the main gate. It's 100 meter above sea. So you have to climb up, I think. Some of you [inaudible] she was there already. She knows that area. This is the site of the Bronze Age. This one here is the most [inaudible] Bronze sites. We find it in Dhofar. Little bit different that we find it on the top of [inaudible] because it's above the sea. This is oldest [inaudible] that we have it in Khawr Ruri. From there we believe that they moved down to, and they built somehow around, somehow around the five century BC all the way to the fourth century BC. No, the fourth century AD actually.
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This is the most interesting artifact that for the first time we find them on the coastline of Dhofar, 60,000 years ago. Some of similar object you will find them in the [inaudible] plateau in the desert. But to have it on the coastline, we have one of the earliest evidence of human presence and occupation in Dhofar. 
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And this is from the Neolithic Period, 6000 years ago. [Inaudible] is little bit, we actually I have this in a conversation with Professor Jeffery [inaudible] three weeks, four weeks ago before I came back to Oman. No, before I come, before I came to Washington. For him, he was looking to this site. And the site is in a small valley. It's that, it's that thick.
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He waited for the analysis to come back and he was shocked because he believed this was not more than 12,000 years ago. Analysis give it, this is one of the oldest occupation coming in this area [inaudible] which is 30,000 years ago. Why is [inaudible] important for us? It's connected what we believe in our, in our literature with [inaudible]  people. That [inaudible] people occupied this area and it's been destroyed by a wind, et cetera, et cetera. At the end of this lecture actually, I have eight minutes [inaudible] that will give you the idea how wide this area and how it became as a desert. So this is one of the most interesting. This is only one month ago discovery and analysis. This is the whole plateau. You can see the [inaudible] complicated, but you can see the wadis there. This is the artifact that we find in there. Very small artifacts.
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The [inaudible] plateau is one of the most interesting part of Oman which has a lot of archeological site. Coming from early Neolithic Period. And of course is goes inside [inaudible] which is part of [inaudible] in this, in this area. This is the area what we believe that [inaudible] people used to live in. And this is the site. After the banishment, they just distributed in small groups around 20, 25's. And they start to build, not to build actually. They start to establish their own small settlements around it. And it's continue all the way to Sur. So we have the [inaudible] area from Sur. From [inaudible] in Sur all the way down to [inaudible] in Yemen. 
The most site that I really been working in was Salut in the north. Salut for us is important of two reason. It's connected to the legendary of [inaudible] when he was traveling from [inaudible] he arrived to Salut. And he found a palace and it was uninhabited. [Inaudible] what's happened to the people? And he ask the [inaudible] to construct the palace. So according to the legend, in three days he constructed something like 30,000 [inaudible] in Oman. Of course that's the legend. That's why Salut for us important. We inscribe the word, the [inaudible] World Heritage Site according to our discovery actually in Salut would give us evidence, the earliest irrigation channel system in Oman goes back--or in the area, actually, to the third millennium BC. This is Salut in 2004. And this is Salut 2017.
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This is the--we, we, you, we start to [inaudible] at the village. But later on archeologists told us this is not a [inaudible] this is well-advanced system. Well organized. And it's [inaudible] in Salut. The site is huge. The site is on the tentative list for World Heritage Sites. We started now to establish as an archeological park. We have already done two archeological parks down in [inaudible]. One in [inaudible] and one in Khawr Ruri. Reason last year [inaudible], last year again we added [inaudible] as an archeological park as well. So this is give you an idea of the importance of Salut. In Salut, we have something like more than 3000 tombs on the top of the mountains. It's a long process. We believe it's the heart of Oman. This is lead me to the second point why is Salut important? In the Omani literature as well. It's where [inaudible] defeated [inaudible] around first century AD. And we started with what we call it [inaudible] of Oman and Oman become more part of Arabic identity.
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Two months ago, we had an Italian mission work in Oman and we discovered a large cemetery. And we within a lot of weapons, lot of swords. The, the primary analysis give us this is coming to the first century AD which is close to the battle that took place with the [inaudible]. So we might discover what they call it the, the, the tomb of [inaudible]. Are they soldiers? We don't know. But this is the [inaudible] Salut. Until two, three years ago we didn't thought that there is anything underneath. It just a small wall need to be restored. Need to be conserved. And to be drawing [inaudible]. Later on we discovered that we had a complete close to [inaudible] goes back to the third millennium BC. We, a city has all the elements as an administrative and ruling area for [inaudible]. We believe, I'm not sure about it, but we believe that it might be the capital of [inaudible] but we are not sure. We are still with analysis and we'll see how it goes. This is one of the tombs. Part of our work is actually to make a kind of a presentation to the public. Public awareness is very important for us. It is very important that they, they know and understand what we have been doing. Because we have always the argument what the benefit of archeology? We are spending money, so what the benefit? The example we have it in Khawr Ruri and in Al Baleed with a visitors close to 200,000 visitors a year. I think that justify why we have to concentrate on archeological past. Why we have to set up this example as an archeological park in Oman. And actually recently we manage with US [inaudible] and income to, to pass a recommendation about archeological park. We call it [inaudible] recommendation on archeological park. For the first time with [inaudible] to approve the term and the concepts, the principle of archeological park. This is one of the tomb. This is the third millennium BC tomb. This is actually on the top of the mountains. Restoration process continue. And this is how it look after it has been restored. This is, it would be amazing to see that people they go and climb the mountain just to see it, you know. It's not easy to reach the top of the mountain. But people, they love to see it. Especially the local community. It's been, they've been there for hundred of years. They never give any attention what's going on. As soon we made few examples of restoration excavation in the area. We have a lot of demand of people that are coming and asking, "What does it mean? How old is this site? What kind of discovery you find there?" The area as one hand, what we call them is a third millennium BC towers. This is, you'll find them a lot in the north of Oman what we call it Omani Peninsula which is now Oman and United Arab Emirates. You'll find them in [inaudible], you find them in Bat. We believe they are a kind of protection towers been distributed in certain area of Oman and in certain area of valleys. And most of them, they have a wadi inside so they are more independent and they can collect water. Salut is 150--no, it's 200 kilometer inside Oman. So it's on the close to [inaudible] mountain. However, this is a scene from the Indus Valley to show you the trade  between Oman and the Indus Valley. It's not on the coastline and you are talking about the third millennium city. You are talking about 5000 years ago that there was a trade established between Salut in the heart of Oman and Indus Valley. We know in those days that already Oman maritime history started with the [inaudible] from [inaudible] all the way to, to Indus Valley, all the, all the way to India. But to have those kind of [inaudible] give you that Salut is very important. There was an administrative structure. Because [inaudible] mean it's a stamp. Something is a property. You are trying to prove that this is yours. You're trying to, to establish or to accomplish a deal with someone. So you have a structure of administrative system already exist in Salut. 
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Snakes. We believe that the people of Salut worshipped snakes. And it's a sign of protection. Recently with the Ministry of Culture and Heritage close to [inaudible] which another 100 kilometer from Salut. They discover another site, and they have snakes. You have it in bronze, you have it in pottery. You have it as the, as what they call it, in what you call it, impressed on the pottery itself. According to the legend of Frankincense, the frankincense trees been protected by flying snakes. We are talking about [inaudible] in the south which is something like 1000 kilometer away.
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This is little bit--we had a big argument about it. We discover five, six actually. No, five completed base for, for columns. We reconstructed according to UNESCO standards. We try to, to adapt the Omani traditional architect. Because we have [inaudible]. We have the columns with the, with the base on the top. And we have the roofs. Close by to, to Salut you have Bahla. Bahla it goes--the area's occupation of Bahla of the Bahla fort is going to the [inaudible] which is we are talking about around 100 BC. The same technique until now has been used in Oman with mosques, with forts. And this is the first time that we discovered in Arabian Peninsula. It has a kind of [inaudible] influence. This is again, on the top of Salut. That mean you have to climb for half an hour just to get [inaudible]. I'm, I'm going to close my, my presentation with archeological parks because we work hard, we work very long, very intensive. We started with US archeological park. And they made wonderful study for us in the nineties. This is [inaudible]. It was discovered in 1989 then with Trans Arabia, with Professor--.
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[ Inaudible ]
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Participated in the excavation in those days. And the Lost City of Ubar as some people there like to say, to call it. We call it one of the station for the Land of Frankincense Trade because Land of Frankincense Trade, you have two routes. The sea routes come from Khawr Ruri to [inaudible] and goes to the Red Sea all the way to, to Greece. Or by road, I'm sorry, by land, land routes goes to [inaudible] to Shisur. And from Shisur go to [inaudible] in inside [inaudible] in the [inaudible] quarter and from there to the north. What's the important of this site is water. Because [inaudible] trade with, with the local for water. 
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I will summarize everything I said in this eight film animation. I hope you will like it because this is part of our interpretation in the archeological park. We establish information center, people can go. People can be informative, not educated but informative. They can see what the sites looks like, how it was, and the long history of the site. The long process. We spent something like more than 25 years working in Shisur from during the time period from excavation, analysis, restoration. And sometimes we have to get a very professional company just to--we go back. Just to stabilize the cave. Because the cave was collapsing. The water level went down. There was a--and all this area was collapsed. So we have to stab--to stabilize the cave, otherwise we are going to lose the site. This is the advantage to be a World Heritage Site, that you have to spend a lot of money in size. And then later on you don't know what to do with is. Can I have the light off? Is possible? Is not? Okay. I hope--this is a film summarize how wide the [inaudible] plateau. It's eight minutes. I hope you have patience for that.
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>> Listen. Can't you hear it?
>> What should we hear, Grandpa?
>> I cannot hear anything.
>> Exactly. Great stories are born from silence. The fire makes us tell them, and the stars turn them into legends. I have a story to tell you. The story of how a garden became sand and was split. And how then after many centuries has returned to unite and flourish.
>> Listen. It's [inaudible].
>> A long time ago, Ubar was a garden rich in water, trees and [inaudible]. Travelers that saw it tell of beautiful horses and gazelles. And big palm trees with golden dates, where singing birds chased each other. Water flew in great falls. And vast lakes extended where now there is only an expanse of desert. Our ancestors lived a simple life. Hunting and cultivating animals, working with tools made of stone.
>> And then what happened?
>> Water began to run out. The rivers and the lakes dried up. Our tradition speaks of a reason for such dramatic climate change in all of the Arabian Peninsula. It was the time of the of [inaudible] to build landmarks to indicate the right way to the fresh water springs of their people. They put up three upright stones and a force to cover them. The cover was the sky, and the upright stones, the pillars of the earth, helping it stay up. The people of [inaudible] were rich but refused to listen to the message of the righteous prophet [inaudible]. Instead of protecting the water, the animals and the plants, they became wicked, conceited, tyrannical, and arrogant. The people of [inaudible] became ungrateful and misused the Almighty's blessing. The punishment came. Changing weather stopped the cool rain. The green land became dry. The Almighty sent a wind from the desert, and nature was transformed. For seven nights and eight days, the wind blew hard and relentlessly. Mountains were destroyed, trees uprooted as if they were grains of sand. And the people fell as if they were the hollow trunks of palm trees. Except for those who believed in Prophet Hud. Peace be upon him. His tomb is located in the Dhofar mountains.
>> A sad end for them, and a beginning for the desert.
>> Did everybody die?
>> No, those faithful to Hud's teachings were saved and moved to the west, south, and north. From Oman until [inaudible]. Do you recognize this? We still use it.
>> A line in the sand. A road.
>> This is the road that linked the south and north of Oman. In the north of Oman, there were other cities. Six thousand years ago, people learned to live together, to write, and to build. In Mesopotamia, Syria, and Egypt, great realms and empires were formed. So Oman had a part to play at the beginning of history.
>> And the water?
>> Our ancestors had to face a dramatic situation. And search for water where it was hiding. Underground. They dug wells and built canals.
>> The Aflaj?
>> The Aflaj. One of the most daring engineering feats of the ancient world. The plain of Salut near [inaudible] was irrigated and rich. And then came the time to defend it. The Persians of [inaudible] arrived with a great army accompanied by elephants. They stopped in front of the small group of Arabs at the [inaudible] led by Prince [inaudible]. The prince tried to persuade the Persians to live together, to share water and pastures. He said, "If you are willing to give me a part of Oman, I will settle in one area of the country and be grateful to you. If you're not willing to accept, I will stay against your will and if you attack me, I will attack you. And if I win, I will kill your troops." Al-Marzuban refused [inaudible] proposal.
>> Oh no!
>> And the Battle of Salut was terrible. There was nothing to be heard but arms clashing and swords crossing. [Inaudible] was splendid in his brownish-red tunic and a yellow turban on his head. That day nothing could stop him. He killed Al-Marzuban. And the Persians turned back.
>> Yes! Great [inaudible].
>> Now, in this peaceful evening, we are on the other side of the ridge between Salut and Wubar.
>> Wubar, the door to the desert. The city of scent. The [inaudible] of all delicacies. Wubar, wealthy Wubar. 
>> Why wealthy, Grandpa?
>> Because of the resin of the frankincense tree that was worth its weight in gold. It came from Wadi [inaudible] from the [inaudible]. From Wadi [inaudible] and had to pass through Wubar. Here the caravans stopped in search of rest and water. Wubar's walls were erected above an immense cavern. And among those empty walls resounded the echo of a thousand idioms, music, and stories from the edges of the world. Traders from India and the coast, traders from the desert. Until the desert swallowed the city, making it the lost city of Wubar.
>> And this is the end of the story?
>> Stories admonish and teach, but they never end. They flow like the past towards the future and feed the present. You are too young to remember Oman before the time of Sultan Qaboos bin Said. There were no streets, no schools, no electricity, and no hospitals. Then he came, a young man full of new ideas and hope who had traveled around the world. A man of great credibility, perseverance. A great leader listens and does not just instruct. And this is just what he did. He listened to everyone. To those who believed in tradition, and those who believed in change. In doing so, he led us on a path that both honest tradition and our people's legacy but also forges ahead with Oman's renaissance and progress. Thanks to him, and ordinary Omani men and women, our country is now prosperous and advanced. And our lives became easier. During his reign, many lost cities hidden under the ground, [inaudible], Salut, [inaudible] and others were discovered and excavated. Bringing us full circle with our ancient past.
>> It's the ancient garden.
>> Better.
>> A new garden within the desert.
>> Remember this hand of stories and let them be your strength. Be always united and understanding and you will maintain, with the help of the Almighty, a country safe in your future. 
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[ Music ]
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[ Applause ]
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>> Dr. Said bin Nasser Alsalmi: Actually, I have two option. Either to put this in at the beginning and [inaudible] all of you just to listen to me. Or to leave it at the end. Thank you very much.
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[ Applause ]
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>> Mary Jane Deeb: If there are questions, please ask them and, and if not, we'll take a little break. Just for a few minutes. Refill your cups, take some food. And then we start with the first panel. So thank you, Dr. Said. That was very exciting, thrilling, and thank you so much. 
I will begin now by introducing Dr. Kimberly Williams, an Associate Professor of Anthropology at Temple University. Dr. Williams is a mortuary archeologist, archeologist, bio archaeologist. Whose current research is focused on the mortuary and landscape archeology of Southeastern Arabia. Her work focuses on questions about prehistoric mortuary ritual, funeral landscape information [inaudible], interred material culture, and archeological human skeletal remains. All recovered through survey and excavation. Dr. Kimberly leads ongoing work in [inaudible] Oman. And she collaborates with archeologists from Sultan Qaboos University at the Bronze Age site of Dahwa in northern Oman. Which is located close to the coast and sea ports at Saham and Sohar. North of the [inaudible] Mountains. Dr. Williams holds a PhD in anthropology from the Ohio State University. So Dr. Williams?
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[ Applause ]
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>> Dr. Kimberly D Williams: Good morning. Thank you for the [inaudible]. Closer? So this morning, I'm going to be talking about the site of Dahwa located on the Batinah coast, northern Oman. I first want to thank, of course, my colleagues who are not here but who I rely on very heavily and who I collaborate with on this project. First, Dr. [inaudible] who is the director of this project. And Dr. Khaled Douglas who's the head of archeology at Sultan Qaboos University. So Dahwa is located approximately 24 kilometers from the coast, on the Batinah Coast. It's close to the seaports of Saham and Sohar. You can see here, I think that this is--. [Inaudible] It doesn't do that, okay. So you can see Dahwa here, thank you. You can see Dahwa here in the red box. I want to start by showing you a few slides from a presentation that we gave two weeks ago. We were lucky to present two papers in Munich two weeks ago. My colleagues and I. The first paper was on the settlement itself. And so I can't really speak about the mortuary rituals until I give you a little background on the, on the site. So I borrowed some slides from my colleague's presentation to show you here. So the Dahwa sites are divided for convenience sake into five sites, as you can see here. DH1, DH5, DH6, DH7, and DH8. We've divided it this way out of convenience. There is a modern road that comes through the site. There are farms, and there's a wadi system that runs through. For the purposes of this talk though, the mortuary rituals apply to the entire site. My colleagues two weeks ago focused on the remains at DH1, so you can see that here. This is the first part of the site that we've excavated. Overall there's about 65 [inaudible] buildings at the site. At DH1 there are 17. Importantly at all of the Dahwa sites, there are no towers, and this makes the Dahwa sites very interesting because that's not typical. All of the buildings are made of rough-hewn local stone. So just to give you a quick view of the excavation of one of the buildings. The plan, and the--to give you an idea of what it looks like afterwards, this is the largest building at DH1. This is a building called S-10. We've come up with a preliminary chronology of use of the site. And so today we'll focus on the [inaudible] Period which runs roughly 2700 or 2500 BC. To about 2000 BC. The site is clearly used for copper smelting. And there's an agricultural component as well. We have lots of good evidence. We have these burned palm date stones. This is pretty typical of inland sites. We've used these for C14 dating and also to infer aspects of the agricultural nature of the site. To remind you of how close the site is to the coast, this diagram I think does a nice job to show you how close it is to the, to the sea. So you would imagine that we would have a lot of interaction with other cultures and with the coast itself. We can see this by the many different types of shells from the site. We have large amount of evidence on the surface of slag crushing mortars from copper processing. And fragments of furnace wall lining. Now, we've picked up hundreds of these from the surface. They're--if you visit the site, there's still hundreds more. This is a very intensively used site for copper production. And of course the mortars. Many pieces of copper by-products on the surface. It's essentially carpeted by evidence of copper smelting. And some more here. So many Archeologists argue that copper production in [inaudible] was exported outside the region and not used as much locally. At the site of DH1, and the other sites which we have not published or presented on extensively yet. There's very little copper. Some archeologists also argue that copper objects were precious and so people may have been taking them and melting them down and reusing them. However, you would still expect to see some copper objects at any given site. We see very few. This hook you see is the single bronze object that we've seen in all the Dahwa sites which are quite large. Also in the tombs which I will now talk about, we see very few copper objects. So our big question as a team is where did the top--the copper go? Quickly I want to also show you evidence of inter-regional trade. There's a large amount of Indus ceramics found on the surface and in excavation at Dahwa. In particular, there's an extremely large number of black-slipped jars. We're not sure what was transported in these jars but there's a very large number. And so we can see there was intensive trade. More than 85% of the Indus ceramics at DH1 were black-slipped jars. Here's a photograph of a restorable jar. And this graphic that my colleague Khaled put together showing the building of S.10 and showing all of the jars in the--Indus black-slipped jars that we found inside the building. Of course they're not whole any longer. They're broken, but they're restorable and all of the pieces were there. We're, we're looking at this as potentially some evidence that they were storing items there. So onto the tombs. First I want to give a very brief introduction to the period preceding the Umm an-Nar Period, the Hafit Period. Early Bronze Age. During this time, it is, on the hills all throughout Oman, you see stone cairn tombs, tower tombs. They're on high places. There's hundreds of thousands of them all throughout the Omani landscape. And here you can see evidence in one of the sites where I work of the many, many tombs on the hills. You might find one person inside. You might find a few people inside. But primarily they're small-scale use. Another image of a site I work at, Al-[inaudible] near Dhank. And of course the very famous [inaudible] tombs which are of the same type. My work has primarily focused on trying to find evidence of a transition between Hafit type cairns and Umm an-Nar tombs. The Umm an-Nar Period is known for its beautiful communal, finely-built tombs that are located in settlements or adjacent to settlements rather than on the hills. 
^M00:52:28
So today, I will tell you about one of the tombs at Dahwa. We have two Umm an-Nar tombs at Dahwa. One is small and heavily robbed. And the other is large and completely undisturbed. To give you another view of the site, you can see here this, right here is the tomb that I will be talking about. This is the site of the other tomb. And this is DH1. All of this area also in the wadi was used by the site, by the inhabitants of the site. 
^M00:53:08
^M00:53:11
So this is tomb one at Dahwa seven. This is after the clearance of debris over the tomb and prior to excavation. You can see a large number of wadi cobbles that were on top of the tomb. After one year, we excavated the first chamber that you can see here on the left. I think that's your left. And most of the white ashlar stones that would face these tombs that you would see from a distance were, were robbed. And this is very, very common. But there are some examples of lines of tombs, of stones that are still in C.2 in the sense that they're still in alignment, but they're pushed forward. And this is one of those lines of stones. Another exciting find for this tomb is this carved relief. These are known in other Umm an-Nar tombs, but they're not very common. We don't understand what it means. We don't know if this person is walking from us, walking towards us. We don't understand what it symbolizes. So continuing with the excavation, the end of the first year, we're approximately here. And we know that the tomb has six chambers. It has a central corridor that allows communication between the chambers. And this is extremely important. I will discuss the importance of this in a min, in a moment. I won't bore you with all of these dimensions. Move on. The, the chambers are subterranean as most Umm an-Nar tombs are. There is a good parallel with [inaudible] however the difference is that [inaudible] we have six chambers. And here we, we assume we have eight chambers. This of course is a trench that disturbed part of the tomb. Very preliminary analysis of tomb one because analysis will be ongoing this summer. There are hundreds of skeletal fragments inside just the single chamber that has been excavated fully. Everything is comingled and fragmented. So this means it's mixed up and broken into many pieces. It's in poor condition, and in some cases, in excellent conditions, so a real mix. I can see evidence of burning of the bone and cutting of the bone. And again, this will be important in a, in a few moments. A large number of archeologically complete ceramic and soft stone vessels were recovered. And I want to highlight the material culture here. We found only this much bronze so far in the tomb. So like the settlement, we're finding extremely small amounts. And these are not large objects. These are very small, probably related to clothing or some sort of fastener. 
^M00:56:03
Moving on, I wanted to show you this soft stone vessel that we found which is unique. This type of soft stone vessel itself is not unique. The lines, the circle dot. That's very typical of the an-Nar Period. What is interesting is the carving of this animal right here. I have two views of it. I can't tell you more about it because I don't know what it is, where it's from, why it's here. But I'd like to show that to people in case someone might have an opinion. Might see something I can't see. Moving on, at the end of the first season, clearing the outside of the tomb. I noticed a bone pit that had been ex--dug next to the tomb. These are known throughout the Oman peninsula, but not well understood. Only maybe three or four have been published. So finding this was very exciting. Here's an up-close view of what the bone pit looks like on the surface. Lots of broken, burned fragmented bones, ceramic soft stone, et cetera. A close-up. You can see here. I'm going to stand up again, burned bone here and here and here and here. So we can see evidence of some type of burning event that happened. This is just what we saw when we first uncovered the bone pit. At the end of the season, I was faced with a big problem. In maybe March, April, there was going to be pretty heavy rains. And this tomb is located at a unique position on a hill. It's not the only Umm an-Nar tomb that's known to be on a slope, but it's rare. And I was very concerned that the tomb would slide off. Or the bone pit material would slide off of the hill. So what we decided to do was to dig a drainage ditch around the tomb to protect it. Or to try to protect it. So this is a photograph of that. We also dug a profile of the southernmost part of the trench. You can see here that the bone pit it cut into the bedrock. It's not a stone structure. It was cut into the ground. And here is a picture of the profile, a close-up picture of the profile. And from this, I can tell that there were several periods of use of this bone pit. And this is a unique finding because while many people have supposed this has happened. And there's evidence of much later reuse of bone pits, it's been very challenging to document how many times these pits are used. And why. So I was able to identify five [inaudible]. And so the next year we came back out and laid a grid overtop of the bone pit. And excavated the entire thing with brushes so that we wouldn't break anything. And so we could observe all the potential articulations of human bone. This is the final product. The final product. And what I can tell you from a preliminary reconstruction of the, of the cremation events. This was not a funeral pyre. We know that there were at least two centers of burning. And at least two different depths. So quickly, remember Locus 002 and Locus 004. So at two different depths, we know there were multiple periods of burning. We know there were multiple burning events. And what we can say is the burning events were very hot in the center. But that these were not events that were meant to destroy the bone, to reduce it to ashes. But rather my interpretation is that it was symbolic burning. The flames would reach out and touch the other bones. Smoke, some of the bone, other bone, if you will. But it did not destroy the bone. So this is evidence of small-scale ritual burning at multiple times in, in the bone pit. This is important because many people interpret these bone pits as a, a maintenance of the Umm an-Nar tomb where the Umm an-Nar tomb is used until it is full. A pit is dug, people are emptied out to clean the tomb. And this is just a, a garbage, essentially. But my interpretation of this is that this is actually the final portion of the burial ritual.
^M01:00:39
So a very quick preliminary inventory of the bone pit. Important points are that there's no evidence of primary interments which is different from for example sites at like [inaudible]. There's no evidence or any articulations. So no one was put into this pit until well after the mortuary ritual had been finished. The same type of archeological assemblage with regard to ceramics and soft stone is witnessed as you would see in any other Umm an-Nar site. Very important though. Only six beads were recovered from this bone pit. And by comparison, every other bone pit and Umm an-Nar tomb that is knowns has thousands of beads. So six beads is extremely unusual. We also have only these two pieces of bronze. So again, no bronze or copper fragments at all. We did have one unknown metal ring and three bronze rings. Which is of extremely large--small number as well. These soft stone as evidenced here. The ceramic. These are all typical, locally produced, and some imported materials. So quickly, we know from the settlement that regional international trade relationships between Oman and the Indus were happening at this site. This intense--this exchange intensified and we have dated the peak of this exchange to the first half of the Umm an-Nar Period through radiocarbon dating and the quantity of Indus ceramics on the ground. But is this visible in the mortuary archeology record? Quickly I want to show you some preliminary analyses of the ceramics found. We have evidence of imported or imported-like ceramics from both the bone pit and the tomb. Some scholars suggest that some of these types of ceramics were produced for the ex--for export to the Oman peninsula and maybe elsewhere. These may be examples of that. We have other evidence of imported or imported-like ceramics. Perhaps that are, have a stronger, stronger evidence for imports that are not specifically made for the exporting process. And we're very excited. We have also found this inscribed ceramic sherd from inside the bone pit in a secure context, about 30 centimeters down. So it's not surface debris. And it has an Indus inscription here. 
^M01:03:30
The question is, is this an Indus ceramic? Is this something that came from Indus and was treated? Or is it something that was locally produced by people who were familiar with Indus script and so it wasn't made locally. Here is a comparison with a well-known sherd from [inaudible]. So again, there's a large quantity of copper produced at these sites. But there's one bronze hook found in the entirety of the Dahwa sites. And extremely small amounts found inside of the tomb. So where did it go? We don't have the answer to this question yet. But I want to think about this from the context of mortuary ritual. What I can tell you is that Umm an-Nar mortuary rituals here demonstrate and elsewhere demonstrate that there's a shift in how ancient people viewed the importance of the body in death. No longer are people putting people, their deceased loved ones in tombs on high places on mountains and leaving them there. But instead they are putting them into these large communal tombs that are central to the settlement. It implies a reorganization of the space where the living and the memory of the dead interact. I would argue that this is a culmination of the development of ancestor reverence. Which began in the preceding Hafit Period. There's a repeated perceptual interaction with the dead. Whereby the body is reduced to smaller and smaller fragments, sometimes resulting in the final placement of the dead in what we would consider an invisible bone pit. Which has no standing structure to be seen from the, from the, from anywhere. Which reinforces the importance of a common ancestral identity. Quickly, what, what Umm an-Nar mortuary rituals imply is that you have the construction of a monumental circular tomb. You need to make a decision about stone-crafting. Division of chambers. Will it be a single story or will it be a two-story unit? Will you have a carved relief? Next you're inhuming a body or bodies. Where are you going to place the body? How are you going to place the body? You need to make a decision about the material culture you will inter with that body. Next there's a manipulation of the body in the Umm an-Nar Period. Sometimes bodies are pushed aside. Sometimes skeletons are organized by skeletal element. Sometimes they're moved into a new chamber. And at some point, the bond is cut. Next inside the Umm an-Nar tomb, occasionally or always, perhaps, there's burning of the bone, symbolic burning not meant to cremate the bone into ashes. Next there's transferal of the bones into a bone pit and the deposit, I would argue, of new mortuary goods in that bone pit. And this process is finished with the ritual burning on top. This shows you the sort of place of Dahwa with regard to other known Umm an-Nar tombs and bone pits. Nothing it known about the Batinah, so this is a, a new contribution from that regard. 
^M01:06:53
It, just to remind you of the interaction, the trade interaction between Indus and Oman peninsula. And quickly, I'll summarize by saying the preliminary implications for Dahwa are that despite intensive trade and interaction with foreign goods and culture. There's an, a maintenance of an important processual ritual which perhaps could be interpreted as the most important ritual that a society partakes in. How it's to handle their dead. But possibly, even though this, this, this ritual is maintained despite very heavy interaction with Indus people. The, there's just one modification to it, and that is reduction in the interment of material wealth which is more in keeping with the Indus practice of interment of the dead. But this speaks to the strength of count--or cultural continuity on the Oman peninsula, across the Oman peninsula during the Umm an-Nar Period. I want to thank everybody and, and I apologize for misspelling Mark's name. 
>> Thank you.
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[ Applause ]
^M01:08:14
Thank you. Thank you so much for your presentation. And I feel I'm, I've learned a great deal. Now the second presentation is going to be made by two people. It's Surveying [inaudible]. A re-examination of the Bronze Age that occurred [inaudible]. And--.
^M01:08:45
The two speakers will include Dr. Zenobi Garrett who is currently a visiting scholar in New York University's Department of Anthropology as a landscape archeologist [inaudible] explores how past groups organized themselves and perceived the landscape around them. She has worked in Peru, Ireland, France, Oman, and the US to explore the wide variety of living options available to humans. And the unique social environment and challenges involved in the maintenance of wherever people call home. In addition to her teaching duties, she has participated in both digital and hands-on outreach projects designed to engage the public in a media-friendly manner. Dr. Garrett obtained her PhD in anthropology at New York University. I will also introduce her partner in the presentation. Eli Dollarhide is a PhD candidate in anthropology at New York University. He's doctoral research focuses on mapping socioeconomic landscapes across settlements in Bronze Age Oman by utilizing geospatial techniques and ceramic analysis. Since 2013, he has completed [inaudible] work at the UNESCO World Heritage site of Bat, Oman. And the adjacent archeological remains at [inaudible] including leading the recent mapping [inaudible] survey. His research has been supported by the Digital Globe Foundation, the National Geographic Society, the British Foundation for the Study of Arabia. And the Center for the Study of Human Origin at NYU. Outside of Oman, Mr. Dollarhide has participated in archeological research projects in Iraqi Kurdistan, Azerbaijan, England, and Virginia. Mr. Dollarhide holds a BA from the College of William and Mary and an MA in that field from New York University. So that's welcome both speakers.
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[ Applause ]
^M01:11:19
>> Eli Dollarhide: Well, thank you very much for that kind introduction. And also to the conference organizers and our hosts. And what an inspiring room to be speaking in today. So we prepared some written remarks, and I think we're going to try and stick to them in an effort to keep to time. But we look forward to your comments and questions I think which we'll have time for after the panel's complete. So with that, let's dig in. We often think about globalization as a phenomenon unique to the modern world. Archeological evidence, however, and texts from the third millennium BC Middle East show us that long-distance exchange of goods and ideas has a much deeper history. One of the first archeologists to explore the role of ancient Oman and Southeastern Arabia more broadly in this interconnective world was the British Pre-historian Beatrice De Cardi. Much of her research focused on the interior of Oman and the modern Ad Dhahirah governorate. As part of the larger archeological survey project centered around the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Bat, we revisited one of De Cardi's most prominent archeological sites [inaudible] last year. So in our time today, we'd like to take you all on a quick visit to [inaudible] and reevaluate the site's significance in light of the past 50 years of archeological research in Oman. First however, I think we need a little bit of background information. So the mid [inaudible] BC, also known as the Bronze Age, was a period of intensifying regional interaction across the ancient Near East. This map offers one potential view of how the region might have looked during this time. With territories labeled either by the names given to them in Sumerian cuneiform texts from Mesopotamia. Or the names used by archeologists to refer to particular material cultures. Importantly, this period is when the first cities appear in Mesopotamia. The Indus Valley shown here as Maluhat, and Southwest Iran are Elam. This time period also saw the development of new types of social organization in Oman and the United Arab Emirates. In Bahrain, shown here with its Sumerian name, Dilmun. And its settlements along the [inaudible] River Valley in Iran shown here as Marhashi. These broad-sweeping changes helped foster the movement of materials across an increasingly broad geographic and cultural area. 
^M01:13:41
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So we know about Oman's role in this ancient Middle Eastern world through both cuneiform texts and archeological research. The ancient texts written by scribes in Mesopotamia an example of which you can see here on a tablet from the British Museum, record both trade transactions and military exploits. And referred in Northern Oman and the UAE as the Land of Magan. Two Akkadian emperors, Manishtusu and his son Naram-Sin, also shown here, claimed to have launched campaigns against Southeastern Arabia, defeating the 32 Lords of Magan. Another text references a governor of Magan named [inaudible] which further demonstrates the intense interests of Mesopotamian elites in this area. Though historical bias and a tendency for Mesopotamian rulers to stretch the limits of truth, cautions us against interpreting these records literally. Other texts and artifactual analyses further tell us that copper was exported from Oman to Mesopotamia on a large scale at least as early as 3100 BC. Slightly later the dark stone, diorite, was also an important export from Oman into Mesopotamia. Where it was often shaped into statues of rulers. Likewise, the people of Magan were actively involved in exchanges with other groups across the ancient gulf region. Ceramics, weights, beads, beads and other objects of personal ornamentation along with a host of other goods from the Indus Valley are common artifacts at archeological sites across Oman. And I'm sure we'll hear more about this shortly from Professor Kenoya. Ancient Magan also had a close relationship with southeastern Iran as demonstrated by similarities in ceramic technology between the two regions. And the presence of stone vessels from Iran in many Umm an-Nar Period tombs. So to zoom in a little closer, our area of interest centers around the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Bat and Amlah. So what do we know about ancient life within this region specifically? The chronology of early Bronze Age Oman is defined mostly by ceramic typologies and shifts in mortuary practice. Like we just heard about from Professor Kim Williams. So there are two time periods that are culturally contiguous: the Hafit and Umm an-Nar which run from 3100 to 2800 BC, and 2800 to 2000 BC via the chronology from Bat. The settlements in the interior of Oman were generally based around oasis environments. And evidence from several sites including [inaudible] eight and Bat itself suggests a subsistence toolkit that included the cultivation of dates and perhaps some grains as well. Most settlements are best characterized as small towns and villages, and they're typically anchored by one or more monumental stone or mud brick towers. Bat itself which I know we're looking forward to hearing more about this afternoon, is home to at least seven of these towers. The function of these raised platforms which run up to nearly 40 meters in diameter remain somewhat mysterious. Although analogies have been drawn between them and the medieval forts common across Oman's landscape today. Tombs like those we've just heard about in Dahwa form another major context for the region's Bronze Age. Hundreds of these monuments from the Hafit and the larger structures from the Umm an-Nar Period dot the landscape around Bat and its surrounding settlements. 
^M01:17:10
So one of the first archeologists to explore these tombs and settlements was Beatrice De Cardi. In addition to being a champion of the pre-history of the Lower Gulf, through her work at the British Foundation for the Study of Arabia. De Cardi was also an active field archeologist. Her expeditions to the Middle East were largely self-funded and conducted during her own vacation time. So due to her limited time and resources, De Cadi focused largely on archeological survey. Limiting excavation to small trenches that sought to answer specific questions about ceramic tech, ceramic chronologies. Excuse me. Her thorough surveys and their timely and really fast publication provided a vast array of information on the nature and extent of the Bronze Age record of the Gulf. De Cadi was a highly respected ceramicist and we see her on this slide actually sitting at her ceramics desk. And in the background on survey with Oman with a colleague. And she was particularly interested in what these ceramics could tell us about different connections between the ancient cultures of the  Middle East. She was particularly concerned with the distribution of incised and painted greyware pottery. Which led her to Arabia in 1968. She returned to Oman again in 1974 to explore the Bronze Age of the lesser-known interior of the country, beyond the Hajar Mountains. So the presence of Bronze Age archeology in Oman when De Cardi was there was a relatively new concept. At Amlah, she found a dense cluster of Bronze Age tombs and settlements and their potential led her to conduct small excavations at five of the 16 sites she recorded. In 1976, she published her findings in the newly created Journal of Oman Studies. So like De Cardi, our research is interested in understanding ancient Magan's role within this larger Bronze Age world. And particularly the effects that these global interactions had within Southeastern Arabia. In the winter of 2017, under the auspices of the Bat Archeological Project, we conducted a systematic survey of the region of the Bronze Age region between the settlements of Bat and Amlah in order to better understand the relationship between Bat and its surrounding environments. Shown here in the red box. During the field season, we recorded 475 archeological features dating from the Neolithic, all the way up to the modern period with a majority belonging to the Bronze Age. Around Amlah itself, we found 148 new sites, most of them tombs which yielded chronologically diverse pottery. And in one instance, a [inaudible]. We also documented over 80 petroglyphs like those shown here. Yes. In the immediate vicinity of De Cardi's survey zone that likely date from the Iron Age or late pre-Islamic Period. As part of our survey around Amlah, we revisited De Cardi's original sites that her map is shown here on the left. And collected additional ceramics from the areas she identified. Almost 50 years have passed since De Cardi first set foot in Amlah. And modern development has impacted both the recent and ancient landscapes of the villages. Of the village. To reconstruct De Cardi's survey, we combined high-resolution satellite imagery on the ground fieldwork and her published notes. Using geological features such as those circled here in purple, red, and green. As well as the coordinates of known-De Cardi sites including 3A shown here in yellow. We were able to overlay her map on top of modern satellite pictures. We then extracted the coordinates of her remaining sites and conducted field visits to document their exact location and level of preservation. Our goal was to document De Cardi's sites with modern GPS coordinates. Re-examine her interpretations in light of new research, and assess the preservation level of these sites. The next several slides offer four case studies labeled here on De Cardi's map as sites one, three, four, and five. On how De Cardi's interpretations can be changed by recent research in the region. 
^M01:21:17 
So starting then at site one, De Cardi and her team identified a low mound with three cairns surrounding a central tomb. Though compared, through comparison, with the excavated tombs at Umm an-Nar Island off the coast of Abu Dhabi today and at [inaudible], De Cardi dated these remains to the early Bronze Age. A small trench she excavated inside the larger tomb revealed inner and outer wall facings. Constructed with fine white limestone ashlars typical of the Umm an-Nar Period. During our visit to the site, we were able to identify the mound and the location of De Cardi's excavations. An analysis of the sherd she recovered from the initial excavation show the tombs likely were first used during the early Umm an-Nar Period which runs from 2800 to 2500 BC. And the surrounding cairns belong to the early Iron Age, around 1300 BC. Several Iron Age ceramics eroding from the Umm an-Nar tombs suggest it was also reused for burials in the first millennium BC. De Cardi's initial excavations also recovered several incised greyware ceramics. A type now well-known from Bronze Age tombs across the Omani peninsula. And from southeastern Iran. It seems likely these pots shown here as the middle ceramic picture were produced in the Indo-Iranian borderlands, in the area now known as Baluchistan. And the reed hut architecture depicted in their incised designs hints at the deep integration of foreign objects and idea across the Gulf. The third site identified by De Cardi and excavated by her as well is considerably more enigmatic. The publication of her survey lists five small mounds with many pottery sherds eroding out of them. And a circular structure with a six and a half meter diameter and cobbled floor. She suggested each of the mounds might represent a small homestead and interprets the circular feature as the foundation for a palm frond or brushwood superstructure that's long since decayed. A reanalysis of the ceramics collected by De Cardi at this site confirms the domestic nature of the area. Though now the mounds have been replaced by several modern homes and a nearby school. On our visit to the site, we collected many sherds of black-slipped jars a [inaudible] style ceramic vessel commonly found in Umm an-Nar domestic contexts. Using the ceramic chronology developed from excavations at Bat, it's now possible to further narrow this site's occupation to the Middle Umm an-Nat period from 2500 to 2200 BC. The function of this round cobbled structure is still more difficult to discern. Bronze Age mesic architecture is almost exclusively rectilinear. Though it's often anchored by a round tower. Though the Amlah structure's at least 10 meters smaller in diameter than any known Bronze Age tower, it's tempting to suggest that this feature was a compact version of this well-known Bronze Age type. 
^M01:24:12
^M01:24:15
The force of archeological features identified in De Cardi's survey consists of a series of rectangular structures in a large stone circle called initially by her a wall of enclosure. In 2017, it's easy to draw parallels between this associated set of features and Bronze Age domestic areas across Oman. We can now reclassify De Cardi's wall of enclosure as a characteristic tower and the abutting rectilinear features bear obvious similarity to domestic structures at the bat settlement slope and from architecture known from the nearby settlement at Ziba. Dating these structures, however, remains somewhat contentious. As De Cardi recovered only four sherds from the entire area. Most of which were collected on the surface. Rather than coming from more secure excavated contexts. And they all appear to date to the last pre-Islamic Period onwards. A lack of sherds though is actually a common feature of early Bronze Age towers across Oman. So this absence of evidence might actually support a Bronze Age date for its creation. Across the wadi from site four and its tower, De Cardi recorded a cluster of tombs and structures. She labeled the site five. De Cardi excavated an Umm an-Nar tomb shown here as site 5A where she recovered material including a carnelian bead and a chlorite box. She also noted the presence of rectilinear feature called site 5B. And the stone robbers had heavily damaged nearby tombs and cairns. In 2017, we were only able to definitively locate De Cardi structure 5B based on her notes and the preserved distinctive outline of this feature. The remaining tombs and cairns recorded in the 1974 survey have been completely destroyed, including site 5A. We were only able to find this site thanks to a large pile of white limestone chippings and a scatter of Umm an-Nar Period pottery. In addition to its spatial relationship to 5B and other topographic features across the landscape. Unfortunately, site five was not the only example of the challenges to preservation we encountered in the area. A rapid increase in the population of Amlah over the past 50 years has witnessed a boom in housing and commercial development. Which has at times encroached up the villages' archeological heritage. New plots shown here as concrete blocks highlighted in yellow have been cleared for modern houses which in turn have erased some archeological remains. In other cases, long-term stone-robbing has led to the destruction of not only the monuments themselves, but also their value as archeological places. 
^M01:26:47
So although we've stressed here the tension between modern growth in Amlah and the preservation of the archeological record, this isn't to say that on a hold on development is necessarily the answer. The goal of archeological preservation when done well is not to stop modern progress or deny local groups access to new and better commodities. Often archeologically destructive forces such as agricultural techniques and civil infrastructure have a massive improvement and have a positive impact on the local quality of life. In cases where modern expansion and historic sites overlap. The key is collaboration and continued dialogue between the Heritage officers, researchers, developers, and of course most importantly local residents. During the field season, we were able to share several of our new finds with the Ministry of Heritage and Culture Office at Bat. This has ensured their future protection by including them in National Heritage zones. In this slide, oops. This slide shows several of the signs now marking these areas. So taken together, this research offers a new view of prehistoric Amlah. The increase of efficiency of satellites and GPS technology and our systematic methods allowed us to identify nearly 150 archeological sites in and around Amlah, a significant increase from De Cardi's 15. The location of these sites, most of which are Hafit Period tombs, reveal a pattern increasingly familiar across Al-Dahwa with Hafit tombs occupying spaces on high ridgelines overlooking early Bronze Age settlements and areas of agricultural potential. This corroborates earlier work in the Bat area done by Dr. Charlotte [inaudible] that suggests these high-elevation tombs in effect set guard over areas of potentially valuable territory. Our analysis of De Cardi's excavated sherds and visits to the sites she recorded suggests that Bronze Age Amlah was home to at least two distinct settlement areas. The structures surrounding the tower at site four and the low mounds at site three. Rather than the pioneer homesteads that De Cardi initially suggested, Amlah now registers as a full-on early Bronze Age settlement complete with several Umm an-Nar Period tombs. 
^M01:28:59
^M01:29:02
Perhaps of equal importance, however, is our ability now to refine the chronological sequence of Amlah's occupation. Fifty years of archeology in Oman and the UAE since De Cardi's initial visit have made massive changes in our understanding of the region's prehistoric timeline. Amlah emerges from these decades of research as a chronologically dynamic area. Occupied from at least the beginning of the third millennium BC or the Hafit Period. Our ceramics work confirms that the site was occupied through the early, middle, and late Umm an-Nar Periods. And through comparisons with sherds from excavated contexts at Bat. Beyond the Bronze Age, Amlah appears to have also been an important area of settlement and burial during the Arabian Iron Age. A time period totally unknown during De Cardi's years of research in the area. Zooming out, it's possible to form a clearer picture of the relationship between the large conglomeration of settlement areas and tombs at bronze Age Bat and surrounding settlements and cemeteries in the area. Amlah's situated at the meeting of two wadis and doubtlessly served as an important junction of movement between Bat and places to the south and east. Our survey work in the rest of the region are recorded site search shown here with yellow dots. Shows a distinct break in the Bronze Age features between Bat and Amlah. Suggesting separate areas of territory where at least influence with hopefully this break visible on this slide by an absence of yellow dots in this area. Amlah's [inaudible] connections, however, extends far beyond this area. The presence of pottery from Southeastern Iran and carnelian beads sourced from the Indus Valley both found in tombs at Amlah. Demonstrates the integration of even Oman's smallest ancient settlements into the interconnected Middle Eastern world. Though very much a part of this global ancient Near East, Magan looks remarkably different from the cities and kings that characterized the archeology of many of its ancient neighbors. Instead, smaller settlements and towns like Amlah that are surrounded and grounded by monumental architecture such as the tombs and towers are the norm. Across ancient Southeastern Arabia, there's little evidence for hierarchy or social inequality. Continued research and preservation of the region's archeological heritage can further our understanding of Oman's unique role in the history of the Middle East.
^M01:31:22
And so with that, we'd like to say thank you very much to all the people listed here and of course the funders of our project. And perhaps most especially the Ministry of Heritage and Culture. And to the people of both Bat and Amlah who were very welcoming. And tolerant of us often walking through their backyards to record archeological sites. So thank you very much.
^M01:31:46
[ Applause ]
^M01:31:53
^M01:32:05
>> Dr. Zenobi Garrett? Since I introduced you both, I thought you were doing it together. Are you making presentation? 
>> No, that was, we, were presenting that together.
>> Oh, you were doing it together. I am sorry. 
>> We'll take turns taking questions if they arise.
>> He has the better speaking voice so.
>> I thought you were both presenting. Okay, that's fine. Okay, so Dr. Mark, Dr. Mark Kenoyer is the last speaker on this panel. And Jonathan Mark Kenoyer is a Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Wisconsin. He has been teaching archeology and ancient technology since 1985. He has served as Field Director and Co-Director of the Harappa Archeological research Project since 1986. Dr. Kenoyer has worked on excavations in ethnoarchaeological studies in both Pakistan and India. And more recently in Oman. He has a special interest in ancient technologies and crafts socioeconomic and political organization as well as religion. He is the recipient of the 2013 Sultan Qaboos Cultural Research Center Fellowship. He's the author of numerous books and edited volumes on the archeology of South Asia. And the Indus Civilization. Dr. Kenoyer obtained his PhD in anthropology at the University of California-Berkeley. Dr. Kenoyer?
>> Dr. J Mark Kenoyer: Thank you very much for the invitation to this, present at this conference and also for your introduction. It's really an honor to be here at the Library of Congress. It's a really phenomenal location and I think that this is the perfect place for the first conference on Oman to be held. So thank you for making this possible. I would like to thank the Embassy of Oman for their support, and Her Excellency, the Ambassador, for taking the time to come for this important event. Also the Office to the Advisor to His Majesty the Sultan of Cultural Affairs, as well as Sultan Qaboos Cultural Center. So all of these organizations have been very supportive of my work in Oman. 
^M01:34:22
^M01:34:26
And I--before I want to being, I also want to especially thank Dr. Said bin Nasser Alsalmi, because of his support when I was in Oman working on collections in the Ministry and also in the office of His Majesty's, the Sultan Cultural Center. The material that he presented already on Salut I will be talking about a bit more. And I was very fortunate because the Italian Mission to Oman allowed me to study his materials and work with them and collaborate with them. I have also working with the Ministry of Heritage and Culture, Hassan al Lawati and Sultan al [inaudible]  were the very important colleagues who have been helping me work in Oman. There are many other organizations I want to thank. Government of Pakistan, Department of Archeology and the Archeological Survey of India because what I am presenting today is actually a connection of many different regions and by working in all of these regions. I have been able to amass some information that I think is unique. And I hope that it will stimulate more collaboration across these borders. Sorry. I also want to thank all of the different projects. I'm not going to go through them in great detail. Many of you are here, so thank you for your collaboration and help. And many more are not here, but they're working in many parts of the world. And I think that we really need to do more collaborative work in order to be able to understand the complexities of the third millennium interactions. You've already had a little bit of introduction to Oman and the history of the Middle East. But the Indus Valley has been somewhat left out of this. So I'm going to kind of reenter everything. And Oman is actually in the center of the map. So the center of the map is not Egypt or Indus Valley, it's right in the middle here where you see Oman is the center point of interactions between three of the major civilizations. And, and some of my early maps you'll see in my presentation, I refer to this area as Muscat and Oman. It dates when I started studying, so back in 1970, that's what this place used to be called. It wasn't called the Sultanate of Oman. It was called Muscat and Oman. So my maps show the periods of time in which I've been working on this area. This area known as Magan was, was critical for interactions with the Indus civilization. And we've known this actually since the '80s. But I'm going to present that this is actually goes back much earlier. And Dr. Alsalmi mentioned that there's two million year old stone tools in Oman. I'm not going to include the plus two million year old stone tools in northern Pakistan. But the question is how do you have more than two million year old stone tools in [inaudible] near Islamabad and in [inaudible] and Kashmir, and in Oman, and then also in Africa? And is it always out of Africa or is it could be other kinds of interactions? And I like to always have arrows going both directions. So my presentation is going to focus on bidirectionality and not just one direction. The chronologies have already been presented, but I just want to focus on the time that I will be talking about is the period of time when we have urban developments in the Indus Valley and very large urban societies in Mesopotamia. The Umm an-Nar Period in Oman. But I'm also going to start very much earlier to the period of time that was just briefly talked about by Dr. Alsalmi about the lithic periods of the Neolithic. Because that time period is when the first interactions are going back and forth. 
^M01:38:03
And I didn't realize it as much when I did my dissertation back in 1970s and '80s. But I did study the shells from a site called [inaudible] which were excavated by the French Archeological Mission in Pakistan. And [inaudible] the late scholar who studied this. And his wife Catrine allowed me to study their beads and the shell beads that I was studying from [inaudible]. I noted that there were certain types of beads here that were not found on the Makran Coast in Pakistan. And I argued that they might have come from across the Gulf in Oman. And I've spent the last 30 years trying to find evidence for these shell beads in the Makran area. They're not present. They're only found in Oman. So it's very possible that at 7000 BC, people going back and forth across the coast from the Makran Coast to Muscat area or the [inaudible] were taking shell beads back across the Gulf to what is now Baluchistan and then trading them all the way inland. And this type of interaction suggests that people on both sides of the gulf were interacting very regularly. So when we talk about origins of pottery, and Dr. Sofie [inaudible] has studied the pottery in [inaudible] and the Arabian Peninsula. She talks about traditions, ceramic traditions coming from Baluchistan to Oman. I would argue that these are developing at the same time on both sides. And in archeology, we always try to be the place where everything starts and everything spreads. And I'm going to be the arguing that we need to look at both directions and people are working in both sides of the gulf at the same time. We also have recent evidence from excavations in Salut as well as studies of the ceramics. That we have pottery from the period of time that is at during the Hafit Period that is coming possibly from the Indus Valley all the way into interior Oman. Most of the focus has been on Harappan. This is the time of the Umm an-Nar. But now there's a, there's a one pot sherd from Salut that we're beginning to, that we're studying. It has the style of pottery which we call [inaudible] which indicates that it's possibly a much earlier phase of interaction began when people were coming to this region. Now the question is why did they come? And everyone focuses on copper but there's one thing that people forget about. The Indus Valley is the place where cotton originated. At [inaudible] at 7000 BC we have cotton. If you want to make fishing nets, if you want to make fishing lines. Making them from date palm fiber is not very good, okay? [Laughter] But if you want to have nice strong fishing lines, cotton is very good. So it's possible that textiles and fibers were being brought from the Indus Valley to this region very early. And we're hoping to look at that now from excavations at [inaudible]. The period of time during the Hafit Period, we still see the continuation of this type of shell. So this shell which is called [inaudible] is very common in Oman. It continues to be used in Baluchistan in the Indus Valley. And then the Indus people develop the technique for making black and white stones that look like this. So they develop a technique for replicating the shell. And making certain types of beads that are similar to the shell, but they're made out of an artificial material. During the period of urban development of the Indus civilization, we see the establishment of major cities. Harakah where I work, Mohenjodaro, [inaudible] these are huge cities and settlements in the Indus plain. 
^M01:41:51
The Indus Valley is surrounded by raw materials. They have more copper in the Indus Mountains than you, you can shake a stick at. You don't need to go to Oman for, for copper. But if you cut all the trees in your own area, and you have no charcoal to smelt the copper, then you do have to go somewhere else. So we know that there was intensive copper smelting in Baluchistan, [inaudible] means the Desert of Death, and this was the desert of death because they cut all the trees down, and there's nothing there anymore. But it was a major copper smelting area. So my feeling is that the reason we see during the Harappan Period movement of people from this area to Oman is because there were lots of trees in Oman. There were lots of acacia, there were lots of forests. And the people of Baluchistan said, "We can go over there and we can get lots of copper very easily because they haven't used it." And this may have been one of the major instigators for people coming to this area and developing copper smelting during the Harappan Period. And stimulating copper trade. So if you go to Oman to get copper, and you bring it back to the Indus Valley. And everybody else has copper from Baluchistan and [inaudible] and other places, how are you going to sell it? Is it going to be cheaper? And the fact is it is cheaper. Because if you go by boat to Baluchistan from what is now Delta to Oman. You're going to sell cotton and rice. Not--wheat, and barley and everything else that you bring from the Indus Valley. You're going to make a huge profit, and your boat is empty. And you have to come back with heavy material. So you're going to bring a heavy boat filled with shell and copper back to the Indus Valley. And you can undercut the market of the people who came by oxcart from Baluchistan. Or boat, by, by carrying it from [inaudible]. So you'll be able to use maritime trade as a way to totally change the economy. And I think that this is one of the most important discoveries of our interactions between the Indus civilization and Oman is the development of maritime trade. And global economies of, of, of production and exchange. So this is what I feel is happening during the Indus Period. And then the question is who was stimulating this? Were the people, were the people in Oman stimulating this because they needed things from the Indus Valley? Or were there middlemen who would be Omani or, or, or Arab and Indus traders moving back and forth? And I was, would call them Magan traders because we don't know where exactly they came from. In the Indus civilization we have cities made with fired brick. And mud brick. We have organized transport with oxcarts. We have beautiful beads made of carnelian, seals, weights, and one of the features that we see in the Indus cities is that people were wearing bangles, ornaments. And every women in the Indus Valley was wearing bangles and many of the men were wearing bangles. And we have lots of beads. And so these types of ornaments and things were being used and worn by the Indus people. But the Indus people were also making a wide range of ceramics. And they made these ceramics for special reasons. So these large vessels have been the main focus for the trade to Oman. Which are the black-slipped jars. We've heard about them again and again and again. The question is what was put in a large jar? And based on my ethnographic studies and historical studies of trade between South Asia and China, I argue that everything is put in here. It can be foodstuffs. It can be textiles, it can be anything that you do not want to get wet with saltwater. So if you're taking stuff from the Indus Valley to Oman, you don't want the saltwater on it. And you don't want the rats eating it. So there could be textiles and fiber inside these pots. There could be dried goods. There could be wet goods. And we need to analyze these. So right now I'm working with the Ministry of Heritage and Culture. We're taking some sherds from recent excavations in [inaudible] with the Italian team [inaudible] Catani of from Ravenna. And we are working on the residue analysis of these vessels to find out what's, what's in them.
^M01:46:09
We also have beautiful painted vessels which are highly decorated. Now in an Indus site, you'll find one or two of these vess--. Oh, sorry. One thing more. So black-slipped jars in the Indus Valley, they're found in every settlement. And you can ask me why don't we do residue analysis of black-slipped jars in the Indus Valley? Well, in the Indus Valley, after they had a black-slipped jar and they traded it to Harappa, they took everything out of it. And then it's like an empty bottle. And in Indus Valley, they took these vessels, and they used them as latrines. So they buried them in the ground, and then they used them as a latrine. So I don't want to study the latrine content of every house in [inaudible]. We rarely find a black-slipped jar that has been used for trade because every time they used them, then they put them in the ground and used them as a latrine. So I know what's in a latrine. But I want to know now what's shipped out of the Indus Valley in these vessels. And they didn't use them as latrines in Oman. They used them. They accidentally broke. You say them in Dahwa. I went to the site and I saw all of the sherds. It's phenomenal. So Oman is the only place we can actually study the contents of black-slipped jars properly. Then we have vessels which are the beautiful painted vessels. And these things, only one or two are found in each Indus house. They're not made in very many copies. So these I think were used for rituals. And ceremonies and marriage ceremonies. So then when we find them in Oman, the questions is why are they in Oman? We also find what we call handi. Handi is a cooking pot, specifically made for cooking piles of Indus Valley food. Now we don't know what the food was. Probably barley or wheat, a gruel, and curry. We know they used turmeric and spices in the Indus Valley so these would have been made for making biryani and curry. And then we find lots of these in Oman. We also find [inaudible] stands which are presentation vessels. So this is a style of cooking where you make certain foods, and then you present it in a certain way on a very high stand which is a part of an Indus food ritual. And then finally we find vessels which we call perforated jars. And in the Indus Valley, when we found them is Situ, they're always found inside a very large jar. And this, I argue is called a reverse strainer. It's used for making types of beer or barley drink which is a special type of beverage used in the Indus Valley. So Indus people developed a wide range of food traditions. And ceramic traditions which we're going to look at. And how they come to Oman. And the Indus people used lots of bronze. They're probably the most bronze-using civilization in antiquity. Everybody had bronze. Because they have copper from all sides and now from Oman. And everybody was using bronze to make pottery or to make vessels. Weapons, tools, ornaments, seals, necklaces, plates, everything. So bronze is very useful. Because if you put water in a bronze vessel, it will kill the bacteria within four hours. So people who had wealth could have bronze vessels and these would help to keep them healthy when they were, when they're drinking liquids. So here we come now to Oman. So early scholars working in Oman found evidence of Indus interactions at the tip of Oman. The first discoveries were at [inaudible] by [inaudible] and then some were found in [inaudible] during the early excavations. And then later on, people realized that there were lots of inland sites. And now  we have sites on the [inaudible] coast. So basically all over this peninsula is evidence for Indus interaction. But they did not have oxcarts, and they did not have camels. And so how do you get a big black-slipped jar all the way into Salut? Or into Bat? You had to carry it. Because we don't have any evidence that they were using donkey transport or carrying these things on donkeys. And one of these vessels can hold 84 liters of liquid. That's a lot of weight. So it would have been very difficult to move these things inland. But they were doing it, and we have evidence of those materials all through the inland areas. So you've already had an introduction about the Umm an-Nar period. One of the things that is important about Umm an-Nar burials is that within the burials, they have very elaborate ornaments. Some of these ornaments are from clearly the Indus civilization but I want to point out that some of them are actually Anatolia or from Mesopotamia and indirectly possibly even from Egypt. So Oman was a nexus. It was a place where people were coming from many different regions. And the elites were using these symbols as a symbol of their power and connection. My recent work in Oman's funded by the Sultan Qaboos Foundation helped me study materials from [inaudible] from Bat, from a lot of different sites that I'm in the process of publishing. Which shows that some of these beads were coming from the Indus Valley directly to Oman. Some of them may have been made in Mesopotamia. And then come to Oman from Mesopotamia. And recently, this year we found my first bead that I can say of carnelian or hard stone that was actually probably made in Oman. So the question is when did the different technologies develop? And how were these communities interacting? We also, I was able to study the seals. Some of these seals from [inaudible] and also from [inaudible]. Omani craftsmen were using their own techniques to make their own style of seals which is distinctive. They were not copying Indus Valley seals. They were maybe some shared motifs, but they had their own way of doing things. And then we have the important seal from Salut. Which it's an Indus style seal, but it's not made in the Indus Valley. And my analysis of this argues that it was made by an Indus-trained craftsman, somebody who has the skill of an Indus seal carver. But they were making it on chlorite. The chlorite, we don't know. Maybe [inaudible] will tell us about chlorite. It could have been from somewhere in Oman, or it could have come from Iran. Or it could have come from Yemen. But it wasn't an Indus stone. But they were using this stone to carve an Indus seal so it has some slight imperfections because of the tools. But clearly made by somebody who was highly skilled. So this means that I'm a, I'm a trader, I'm an Oman, I don't have a seal. I call somebody to make my seal using a local material. Which indicates a very unique interaction system. And this is one of the earliest sites where we have the evidence for Mesopotamian and Indus interaction discovered by [inaudible]. 
^M01:52:58
And then the recent, the work by Sophie Marie and Clouseau. And then most recently, Sophie Marie and I have been collaborating to look at pottery from Salut and also from  Ras al Hadd. And she's arguing that some of this pottery is actually made in Oman used of Indus style. Now I've worked with potters in Pakistan for 30 years. And trying to get a modern potter to make an Indus-style pot is very difficult. Because they're Punjabi or their Sindi, or they're Balochi, and they're used to making those types of pottery. It took me 15 years to train a Harappan potter who makes modern Harappan pottery, Punjabi pottery, to make a black-slipped jar. So to get a potter in Oman who's used to making certain types of pottery to make a black-slipped jar would have taken many, many years of experimentation with the clay, with the technique before they could finally make this vessel. Another solution would just bring a potter from the Indus Valley. And bring them to Oman, and then say, "Here's some clay." And then they can make it. Or they're going back and forth, yes. So this is the interesting patterns that we're trying to understand. So this is where working with Christ Thornton and Charlotte Gable, we were--Cable, we were able to look at the materials from Bat. We were also able to look at the materials from Salut. We were analyzing this pottery using neutron activation. And now we're finding some interesting patterns that some of this pottery looks very similar to the clay from [inaudible]. So [inaudible] is an important area of trade between the Indus Valley. And I'm not presenting the results here. Because we're still in the process of analysis. A recent excavations from Ras al Hadd which is a small little seaport settlement. I mean, it's not even a settlement. It's less than a hectare in area. It's where they got the stuff off the boats, and they sat by the beach and barbequed some fish and then sent stuff inland. And we found a perforated jar fragment here. So they were making beer or barley [inaudible] we call it in Urdu. A special barley drink using this reverse strainer at the beach near where these ships were coming. And we also found a goblet fragment. This type of goblet of the Indus Valley was only used in the big cities. It was never used in a small settlements because it's a disposable vessel. You go to the shop, you buy some [inaudible] or you buy some beer. You drink it, you throw it away. Why would somebody carry a disposable cup from Mohenjodaro all the way to Ras al Hadd? And the only suggestion that I have is that they wanted to keep a memento. They had been to the big city. They brought this back to show their family back in [inaudible] and they brought it there, and it broke. [Laughter] So they get all the way back to Oman, and then it broke. So we found a sherd of this in Ras al Hadd. So the question then is, pottery like this? Why would somebody bring elaborate wedding ceremony vessels to Oman? Probably because they want to get married or they're bringing somebody who they want to give this to as a gift. We also have evidence of toys. So Salut is so important because we have Indus-style toys. This is a pottery disc made from Indus pottery only found in the Indus Valley. And you stack them up, and you throw a, a ball at it, and you play a game. We find Indus whistles. This is a bird whistle from Salut. So these are children's toys. So this means that people who are living in Salut are acculturating their own children into traditions that are relating to the Indus Valley. So then why are they coming? I mentioned this a bit earlier. They're getting copper. They're getting shell. And probably many other things which we still need to study. And they're bringing these things to the Indus Valley to show exotic materials from this other region. In return, materials are coming from the Indus here. The question is who are the people coming? Are they Magan traders going to the Indus and coming back? Are they Indus traders coming to Magan? And if they're form the Indus Valley to Maga, we don't find any shell bangles here. So either the women are coming and they're taking all their bangles off. Or the women are not coming. Because in the Indus Valley, every settlement has filled with bangles. And there are not, there's not a single bangle in any archeological site in all of Oman except for Ras al [inaudible]. At 3700 BC. So no bangles are being used. So this is the next mystery is what is happening to the bangles in Oman? And who are coming there, and what are they doing? In Mesopotamia we have bangles from the Indus Valley. In Susa we have bangles. In [inaudible] we have bangles. We have bangles in everywhere else but not in Oman. So in summary, we have evidence for really important domestic ritual Indus-style pottery at both coastal and inland sites. Maybe made by Indus or Indus-trained potters. Used by Magan or Indus traders. Who preferred to eat food that was cooked in Indus-style pottery. They didn't want to eat it roasted, they didn't want to eat it raw. They wanted to eat it cooked in a handi and prepared and served in a certain way. They wanted to drink beer or [inaudible] or [inaudible] prepared in Indus-style pottery. We also have evidence of carnelian beads some of them possibly made locally. And then Indus seals carved with local techniques. So I'm going to leave you with this question. We have a lot more work to do, but I think we have some very interesting exchanges now between Oman and the Indus Valley. And I'm hoping that the video can be remade with Indus Valley, with some component because it's not just Mesopotamia and Egypt that are linking with Oman. But the Indus Valley is a very important place. Thank you very much.
^M01:58:56
[ Applause ]
^M01:59:04
>> Thank you very much, Professor Kenoyer. And now the floor is open for questions. We have about 30 minutes for questions. So what is happening? [Inaudible]
>> My thanks-- hello, is it? Okay, my, my sincere thanks. Ms. Williams. I'm curious about the degradation of your, your sites. If you come back every year, how do you, how do you find your sites that you have worked on? And how much work do you have to get to get them to the, how you left them. If that is a valid question. I don't know. 
>> Dr. Kimberly Williams: We backfill all of our tombs and buildings. And so when we come back, we have to remove the backfill. In some cases, there is no backfill. And in only in cases where the structure is secure. 
^M02:00:05
^M02:00:11
>> So questions?
>> There's one over here.
>> Yeah, hi. The question's for Dr. Mark Kenoyer. Can you tell us something more about the political administration in these two different regions in specifically what kind of taxes and tariffs, if any, were they imposing on each other? Did they try to regulate the trade?
>> Dr. J Mark Kenoyer: Between Indus and Oman?
>> Correct.
>> Dr. J Mark Kenoyer: So the Indus cities were ruled by a corporate rule where we don't have a single ruler. And the cities had walls around them. Anybody coming into and out of the city was probably taxed. We have a very standardized system of weights in all of the cities in the Indus Valley. Some of those weights have been found in Oman. And in prelim--primarily the sites in the UAE. So we know that some traders were coming with weights into this area and were using that same weight system. We also have Mesopotamian weights that may have been used in some kind of exchange. But as far as we know, we don't have very much details about how the settlements in Oman were ruled. We have towers. We're still trying to figure out what those towers were function--how they were functioning. Whether it was with a clan or a clan leader. So the question is, that, this is a very good question. We don't know for the Oman side, we do know for the Indus side. We know that Mesopotamians were coming here to get materials. And, and they talk about themselves, they're trying to conquer the regions. So I imagine that it was a bunch of separate little polities spread into these different areas with a big stone tower as one of the main centers. And then you know alliances were made between them. But we don't have any evidence of rulers, rulers' names or very large population centers. They're relatively small. So one of these stone towers can fit into the corner of one neighborhood of Harappa. So they're not very big. So Harappa's over 150 hectares in area. Multiple mounds. Mohenjodaro is 250 hectares or 300 hectares. So they're huge cities. And then these settlements are relatively small compared to that. 
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>> For Dr. Williams. Can you hear me? First of all, thank you very much for a wonderful panel. Dr. Williams for you, I had a small question. You showed one little engraving of a human figurine. I was curious what the hollowed-out heart would mean. I was quite curious. It was very beautiful. That's one question for you. And then for Dr. [inaudible] is that how you say your name? Question regarding the connection potentially with [inaudible] three Persian sites in what is now Baluchistan.  What kind of connection do you think there is with both India as well as with Oman? Also Makan and Makran. Makran is the historic name for Baluchistan. And I'm curious if Makan and Makran have any connection linguistically. Thank you. 
>> Dr. Kimberly Williams: Shall I [inaudible]? The carved relief of the small circular depression on the chest of the individual. We're not actually sure. That's part of the carved relief. If may be. We've had a lot of conversation about this. It is real. There is a depression there. It is circular. There are shell pendants, if you will. And other pendants made of different material that are found from around that period. It is possible that it's meant to symbolize something like that. It's also possible that it's a luck of erosion. 
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>> Okay, the, the connections Magan and Makran, Majan, okay? So these are terms which are, you know, we, we can hear them in modern, modern languages. I'm sure that most people know that [inaudible] used to be part of the Sultanate of Oman. Until 1962 or something like that, right? So this was controlled by Oman. The Sultanate had control of that coast. And our evidence that we have, people going back and forth from 7000 and I worked in the site called Ba la [inaudible] which is just 55 kilometers from Karachi. And I, my student worked in Balaji which is near Karachi. And the smugglers are going back and forth every day by boat. If you need something, you can get it from Dubai in one day. Or two days, you know? Because these areas are not that far apart. So I, I don't think we can really differentiate Magan and Makran. They're, I, I kind of group them together. And I think they're important to think about as both sides of the same sea body. People interacting. Many of my friends in Baluchistan have family in Muscat. And people vice versa. Have family in Baluchistan. So it's it's something that has been going on for 7000 years.
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>> I have, I have a question for the whole panel. In, when one looks at civilizations, ancient civilizations. There are certain characteristic features that determine, define a civilization at any point in time. As you were looking at your excavations. Are you able to at this stage--I know it's an early stage and you're all digging there. Are you able to illicit certain characteristic about the, the, well the civilization? The culture? Something that defines it in terms of the region that you could say aha! This is this type of civilization? And any of you can answer.
>> Yeah, sure. I mean so I think yeah. That's a difficult question because there's also lots of issues as always in archeology with preservation. But I think one of the key differences between ancient Magan or ancient Oman and its surrounding areas. And i, I think it's also important to remember that Magan is the name given to the region. By Mesopotamian people, by the cuneiform texts. So we don't actually know the people living within Magan referred to themselves as the people of Magan. But one of the big differences is there's so little evidence for social hierarchy. So especially when you compare it to Mesopotamia and what's happening in Elam and Iran. Where there's you know massive cemeteries where people were actually sacrificed to be interred with their rulers. We have nothing like that in, in ancient Oman. And instead, it seems like there's a real emphasis on, on kind of community togetherness. And we see that in the tombs because while there are these kind of elite objects like you know objects or personal ornamentation from, from Harappa and also really nice stone vessels that are coming from Iran as well. They're not specifically interred with any single individual. Instead, they're just placed in the tomb [inaudible]. So I think that's an important feature of, of the differentiates Magan from its neighbors. Yeah.
>> Would any of you like to add something?
>> I have nothing. I agree with him.
>> Go ahead.
>> I'll follow up. But, but we do see, as time goes on that that changes a bit. So as we move from the Hafit Period, we start to see people interred with specific objects just for them. And then we move into this time where individual identity is entirely removed by the breaking of the bodies. What's interesting is that if you go down to [inaudible] or if you go all the way into the furthest parts of the Emirates. Go to Umanar Island, you see the same exact mortuary ritual. So that's something that there's a cultural continuity on that, on the northern part of Oman that despite the onslaught of people coming from many different civilizations, it's, they maintain that. 
>> I would just add that the presence of seals with what could be some form of possible writing is a very important indicator of individual ownership and power that links certain individuals in Oman in the sites that have been found in Misar and Salut and other places in [inaudible] that show that they are, they are appropriating a form of identity that is used in Mesopotamia, in Iran, in Indus Valley. But using it from a stylistic and a cultural perspective that's their [inaudible]. So they're not copying Indus Valley seals. They're not copying Mesopotamian seals. But they are using certain, chlorite which some of it is actually reused vessels traded from Iran that have been broken. And it's so nice and beautiful to carve, that it's easy to carve. And you use one of those to make a seal. But they're doing it with an indigenous style. So that's the stuff that I was able to study which really showed a local style of carving which is totally distinct. And indicative of local elites. But some, you don't make a seal to stamp something if you don't have something to control. So there are some people there who are appropriating that. 
>> Okay. Questions?
>> Two quick questions, if I, if I may. The first to Dr. Williams. You, you hinted at a more significant meaning for corridor in an umm an-Nar tomb beyond perhaps a practical passage. So I was wondering if you could say something about that. And then the second question is for Mr. Dollarhide. You had made reference to the approximate dating of the petroglyphs that you found to--I can't remember. Early or mid-Iron Age. And so I was wondering if you could just say something about how you determine that date. Thank you.
>> Dr. Kimberly Williams: So with regard to the corridor, there's evidence in Umm an-Nar tombs that the body was interred and then taken apart. And pieces were organized by skeletal element in different chambers. Potentially moving through the different rooms of the tomb. Some of them, some of the tombs do not have multiple chambers. Some of them have multiple chambers, but they can't communicate. So there's no way to get into the other chamber without going up and over the wall. This tomb has a corridor. And this is something I'm working on now so I'll be brief. But if you think of Neolithic [inaudible]  and long mounds in, in Western Europe. And think of the theory behind the development of chambered tombs and very similar actions of moving bodies between these chambers over time related to mortuary ritual that we can't put our finger on. I think that this is a similar situation because of the evidence of movement through the chambers. And so since [inaudible] tomb has this central corridor that allows communication to all of the chambers, I think we may  be able. And because it's a closed context. I think we may  be able to consider that a little more deeply.
>> Mr. Eli Dollarhide: Yeah, and then about the dating for the petroglyphs. So that is of course a very difficult thing to do because there's no artifacts that we can directly associate with those petroglyphs. However, right next to those. So those all those petroglyphs were spread over five wadi boulders. And then immediately adjacent to that was a large Iron Age cemetery area. And so and also on the petroglyphs themselves, there's lots of weaponry. That looks similar to objects found from the late Iron Age or early pre-Islamic Period. So we're, we're not, we're not certain about that dating. But it seems that that's likely and also if you look [inaudible] of petroglyphs with that same motif. Which does show up all across Southeastern Arabia. They're often very, very close to late Iron Age or early pre-Islamic features. So, so that is somewhat contentious, definitely. 
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And I will just say and there are camels, domesticated camels in the petroglyphs as well. So we definitely know that it's no earlier than the Iron Age.
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