A chunky ceramic jar found at Sharjah’s Muwaileh archaeological site has gone on display at Sharjah Archaeology Museum after a period of painstaking reconstruction.
The jar provides more evidence for a bustling trade scene in Muwaileh during the first millennium BCE, and archaeologists say it supports the theory that the area was part of an incense route between present-day Yemen and Persia (the camel had just become domesticated at the time).
The jar’s actual function is still a matter of debate, though. It’s certainly sizeable, standing 155cm high with a maximum girth of 141cm and a rim diameter of 94cm.
It was found inside the central part of the largest roofed building on the site. The doorways are smaller than the jar’s width; so the thinking is that the jar might actually have been made inside the hall, or that the hall was actually built around it.
The building sits within the fortified settlement at Muwaileh on the edge of the present-day city of Sharjah. Muwaileh (or Muweilah, or Moweilah) was a substantial Iron Age settlement, at its peak around 1000-600 BCE, which is currently around 15km from the present-day coastline; it’s thought that in antiquity it was sited near a lagoon or creek that reached inland from the coast. There’s evidence of extensive trading links, notably with Persia, Mesopotamia and Yemen, as well as on-site manufacturing of pottery and bronze items. Sometime after 750 BCE the settlement was attacked and destroyed by fire. That provides the archaeologists and conservators with a convenient snapshot for dating.
The hall where the jar was found is part of a substantial building measuring around 10x12m. Its central area has a roof that was supported by 20 date palm columns on stone bases; this was surrounded by a number of annexes or rooms, where excavations have turned up at least 30 smaller vessels, iron weapons, hundreds of pieces of bronze, and numerous items of ceramic – including one piece that speaks of contact with Yemen, since on it are three letters in Sabaean, a South Arabian language that dates to 7th century BCE. This represents the oldest writing in a recognisable language that has ever been discovered in the UAE. (For any Sabaean literary enthusiasts among magpie’s readership, the letters are B, M and L.)
The implication is that this building was some kind of administration centre for a trading post and that the hall might have been a majlis-type reception area – so the large jars (two other sizeable storage jars were also discovered set into the hall’s floor) might be for tradeable goods like frankincense, the smaller jars for samples.
Sharjah Archaeology Museum is well worth a visit, incidentally. It is building up a decent collection of artefacts that provide a record of the area’s connections – the coastline of the UAE was clearly a significant part of the trading relationships that stretched from the Indus valley to the Mediterranean from well beyond 2,000 years ago.
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