Geoffrey Bibby and P. V. Glob didn’t know what to expect when, in 1958, their small plane touched down on the gravel airstrip next to the small town of Abu Dhabi, an isolated town on the coast of Arabia. Abu Dhabi was then only beginning to awaken to the possibility that it and the four other gulf states which comprise the United Arab Emirates, were sitting on one tenth of the world’s oil reserves. Several months earlier, Tom Hillyard, the sole representative of the only petroleum corporation in Abu Dhabi, had invited the archaeologists to this isolated section of the Arabian peninsula in order to investigate a group of burial mounds. The mounds were located on a small island off the coast of Abu Dhabi named Umm an-Nar (Arabic. “Mother of Fire”). Although no great distance from the small town of Abu Dhabi, the road to Umm an-Nar passed through salt flats and sand dunes navigable only by Land Rover. The island itself was not more than 10 or 20 yards off the Trucial Coast—known formerly as “Pirate Coast” until the British fleet imposed a truce on the warring tribes in the area.

The small settlement on Umm an-Nar belongs to a familiar pattern of island settlements in the Persian Gulf. Other examples include Failaka, Tarout, and Bahrain. It seems that, wherever possible, people living along the eastern coast of Arabia preferred to live on islands. The sea was a comfort for a people at home on the sea, and a moat between them and their enemies. A year later, in 1959, Bibby and Glob returned to the island and conducted a survey. They counted fifty burial mounds, most of them relatively small, but several rising six feet or more high. Judging by their outward appearance, they were identical to the mounds excavated on Bahrain. Could the Dilmun culture have occupied the entire coast from Failaka to Oman? The answer was soon forthcoming.

Three Danish archaeologists, Harald Andersen, Mogens Orsnes, and Knud Riisgard, began the hard work of excavating the mounds—a back-breaking task, and often unrewarding. Excavate one and you’ve excavated a hundred, usually with just a few pottery vessels and beads to show for it. At Umm an-Nar the task was made more difficult by the total lack of water, a fact which continues to puzzle archaeologists seeking to understand why a settlement was constructed on this island. The Danish archaeologists had a large hut constructed for them on the beach for sleeping and cooking, their food consisting primarily of fresh eggs brought to them by locals, while water had to be transported from Abu Dhabi in barrels. If living conditions were difficult, the excavations did not prove any easier. The burial mounds were much more complex than anticipated. After a season of digging, they had only managed to excavate one half of one mound. If one thing had been learned from that first season of digging, the mounds of Umm an-Nar were nothing like the ones on Bahrain!

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Grave Buildings

Beneath the rubble covering the mounds, the Danish team uncovered finely cut and polished stones fitted together to form perfectly circular walls that probably rose to a height of six or more feet. The circular chamber was further divided into smaller vaulted chambers by interior walls. Tracing these walls proved to be a time consuming and difficult process. A second season was required to complete the job, conducted this time by two more Danish archaeologists, Arne Thorsteinsson and Knud Thorviltsen. Evidently, these were not simple grave mounds made by heaping gravel over a single burial chamber, but sepulchral buildings that were used repeatedly, like the charnel houses at Bab edh-Dhra, but round and made from finely cut stone. The largest contained the bones of at least 34 individuals and a considerable amount of pottery. It was an astonishing and altogether unexpected discovery since nothing like them had been found before in the region.

During their second visit to Abu Dhabi in 1959, Bibby and Glob were invited by Sheikh Zayid bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the future ruler of Abu Dhabi, to visit him in Buraimi, an oasis south of Abu Dhabi, where Zayid promised the archaeologists they would find “hundreds of mounds” like the ones at Umm an-Nar. The archaeologists immediately accepted Sheikh Zayid’s offer and one month later they were crossing the sand dunes of the Empty Quarter in two Land Rovers, headed towards Buraimi.

The oasis of Buraimi proved to be a garden paradise where every kind of fruit and vegetable could be grown; where the weather is so mild that one may happily sleep outdoors with just a light covering; where the water refreshes by day and warms at night; and where, in the words of George Bibby, the chickens are tenderer and the eggs larger than anywhere else in the world. What more could be desired? Known today as Al-Ain, a sister city of Abu Dhabi, it is famous for its date plantations irrigated by water carried in canals from the Hajjar mountains.

Having arrived in Buraimi during the night, the next morning Sheikh Zayid took the archaeologists to an outlook at the base of Jebel Hafit, about four miles distant from Buraimi, where hundreds of burial mounds could be seen stretching like necklace along the base of the mountain. The tombs were evidently of a different type than the ones they had seen at Umm an-Nar. Known as beehive tombs, they are generally dated to the Jemdet Nasr period, making them a little older than the tombs on Umm an-Nar. (As you may recall, we looked at these beehive tombs in a previous entry.)

Before departing the oasis, the Danish archaeologists were shown one final tomb, located in the village of Hili, on the opposite end of the oasis. This one was unmistakably constructed on the same pattern as the tombs on Umm An-Nar, except it was considerably larger and finer. Its walls were made of large stones, masterfully fitted together, and carved with figures of animals and humans. To my knowledge, this tomb preserves the earliest depiction of a human riding an animal, in this case, a donkey. Two cheetah are also shown flanking a gazelle, and two oryx flanking two humans. Cheetahs and oryx are rarely seen on the Arabian peninsula today. Also depicted are a man and woman embracing. We’ve seen nearly identical representations in Mesopotamia.

Archaeologists debate whether this was actually a tomb since they did not find any bones inside, but an unusual number of fine pottery vessels. We will look at the type of vessels discovered in this tomb in the next entry. Given the lack of evidence for urban architecture, it is remarkable to find stone masonry so fine as that exhibited by these tombs. It speaks to the sophistication of this civilization, of which we know very little.

Camels at Umm an-Nar

As excavations continued on Umm an-Nar it was discovered that the walls of these tombs were also carved with representations of animals, most notably camels. A correspondingly large number of camel bones were found in the adjoining settlement on Umm an-Nar. This was an unexpected discovery since camels are not generally thought to have been domesticated until considerably later. There are a few other scattered reports of camel bones at various sites; a complete camel skeleton was excavated at Mohenjo-daro in levels which should probably be dated to the Early Bronze or perhaps the first part of the Middle Bronze. Sumerian texts make reference to milking camels and drinking camels milk. Presumably they were milking domesticated camels, although to what degree they were utilized for transportation during the Early Bronze Age is unknown. Bibby theorized that the camel was native to this region of Arabia and was probably first domesticated there.

Magan

The royal inscriptions of Akkad paint a picture of Magan, a powerful and worthy opponent, whose territory encompassed portions of southern Iran, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates, therefore controlling land on both sides of the Gulf.¹Potts 1989, 133-136 The name of Iran’s southwestern province, Makran, probably preserves the name of this ancient civilization.

The earliest literary reference to Magan comes from a royal inscription of Sargon of Akkad (c. 2100 BC):

Texts from the Akkadian and Ur III periods likewise suggest that Magan was a maritime power on par with Meluhha and Dilmun.²The name “Magan” was used in Mesopotamian texts to refer to two very different geographical areas. Assyrian cuneiform tablets of the 8th to 7th centuries BC used the name “Magan” to refer to Egypt, as did the Amarna Letters of the Late Bronze Age (14th century BC). However, in Sumerian and Akkadian texts of the 3rd millennium BC “Magan” seems to refer to a civilization that resided in the Persian Gulf. Thus the name “Magan” appears to have shifted from the Persian Gulf to Egypt, probably early to mid 2nd millennium BC. Other scholars, such as Samuel Kramer, rejects this hypothesis, arguing that naming conventions are not easily changed and that there is no justification for such a radical name shift. Kramer writes, “Now methodologically speaking the verification of a hypothesis involving a name shift in the cuneiform documents for countries of such recognized importance as those referred to by the names Magan and Meluhha should be based on evidence that is reasonably assured and decisive. But as of today, there does not seem to me to be that kind of evidence; there is still a strong possibility, as will become evident from what follows, that there was no toponymic shift and that Magan and Meluhha correspond more or less to Egypt and Ethiopia in the third millennium B.C. as well as in the first millennium” (Kramer 1971, 267). As we noted in a previous entry, several Akkadian kings campaigned against Magan. These campaigns were primarily directed towards southwestern Iran. Manishtushu is the only one to boast of having launched an attack “across the sea” where he fought a battle against a coalition of 32 cities. This can only be the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Oman but the identity of the 32 cities which fought against Manishtushu remains a mystery. The archaeology of Arabia knows only of tombs and small settlements during the Early Bronze period. Most of the population must have lived a nomadic or semi-nomadic lifestyle nearly invisible to archaeology. The situation in Arabia might be compared to Sparta, where archaeologists have likewise found very little to justify the praise showered upon it by classical authors. As Thucydides once observed, a history which relies solely on what a civilization left behind, is liable to be badly distorted.

“Mannu the Mighty”

Although the number of literary reports concerning Magan may be counted on one hand, some useful information may nevertheless be gleaned from them. One of these, a late Babylonian chronicle, refers to a king of Magan named “Mannu the Mighty.” Albright notes that this title was always reserved for the kings of Akkad and never applied to a foreign king except for here.³Albright 1920, 89

The name itself may be significant, given the exceptional number of ancient kings named Mani or Manu. In many cases, the name is derived from the same Indo-European root men which gave us the verb “to think.” English words such as amnesia, mnemonic, mania, money, etcetera, are all derived from this root, which also gave us the word “man.” In the Rigveda, the progenitor of the five Aryan tribes was named Manu. And according to Hindu texts of a later period, all of world history is divided into fourteen ages, each beginning with the arrival of a new manu. It may be understood from these texts that Manu was a dynastic name, given to the progenitor of a line of kings. This hypothesis receives confirmation from Herodotus, who notes that the Indo-European peoples of Anatolia are supposed to have descended from a certain Manes, the child of Zeus and Gaia. (Note that the Greek language often adds an “s” to words that end in a vowel. Thus the Hebrew name “Yeshua” becomes “Jesus” in Greek.) The offspring of Manes includes Tyrrhenus (the Tyrrhenians), Lydus (the Lydians), and Atys (the Asians). The Tyrrhenians should probably be identified with the the Etruscans, the early inhabitants of northern Italy. Tacitus confirms that the three branches of the Germanic tribes were descended from a certain Mannu, who was their first king. To these examples others may be added others, such as Minos, the first king of the Cretans, or Menes, the first king of the Egyptians. In each of these instances, the term manu, or some variation of it, refers to the progenitor of a people or the name of their first king. Mannu the Mighty, king of Magan, fits this pattern. Does this mean that there were Indo-Europeans in southern Iran already in the Early Bronze period? It may be so.