Oman Wires It's all about Oman
The current excavation is element of the exploration that started in 2007 by French archaeological mission in coordination with the Ministry of Heritage and Culture (MHC).
The exceptional collection of bronze weapons from Iron Age II (900-600 BC) uncovered from the web site offers new info about weaponry throughout the Iron Age in the eastern Arabian Peninsula and about social practices at the time.
Speaking to Muscat Daily
, a senior ministry official stated, “This is the largest collection of weapons from any historical site in Oman. The bronze snakes hint at the ritual or social practices at the time.”
The web site, recognized as Mudhmar East, consists of two primary buildings and a number of extra facilities. It is situated at the foot of Jebel Mudhmar, close to 1 of the biggest valleys in Oman and at a strategic crossing of a number of trade routes.
With a length of 15m, the bigger of the two buildings is situated on the slope of Jebel Mudhmar and is created of reduce sandstone blocks and earthen bricks. It is in this creating, in a tiny, apparently a religious complicated, that the team unearthed the collection of bronze weapons.
“Dating from Iron Age II (900-600 BC), these objects appear to have fallen off furniture or shelves. Alternatively, they may have hung on the walls of the room,” according to the French team.
In the 2016 excavation, the French team had identified two exceptional collection of objects. The initial 1 consisted of two tiny quivers completely created of bronze, such as the six arrows contained in every of them. “Given their size (35cm), these were small-scale models imitating the original objects made of perishable materials (leather), which are not usually found in archaeological excavations. The fact that they are made of metal implies that they were non-functional. Quivers of these kind have never been found in the Arabian Peninsula, and are extremely rare elsewhere,” the archaeologist pointed out in a paper.
The second group comprised metal weapons, which had been largely non-utilitarian, provided their slightly lowered size, material and/or unfinished state. They consist of 5 battle axes, 5 daggers with crescent-shaped pommels (characteristic of Iron Age II), about 50 arrowheads and 5 total bows. The bows are created up of a flat, curved bowstave bent at each ends, connected by a string created of bronze.
The size of the bows (70cm on an typical) and the material utilized shows that they had been imitations of bows created of perishable supplies (wood and tendons).
“Objects of these type have never been found before: Bows made of metal were totally unknown in the Arabian Peninsula and the Middle East until now,” stated the study.
Information Source: Muscat Daily
