The funerary complex of Daba is to date among the richest site of the Late Bronze and Iron Age period in Eastern Arabia. The objects unearthed in the site represent a unique assemblage for wealth and quality: a milestone for the understanding the historical and political connections between Early Arabian, Syro-Mesopotamian and Indus Civilizations that for a decade will engage scholars from all over the world. The incredible wealth of the site is represented by thousands of artifacts so far recovered from LCG-1 and LCG-2 (two collective burials associated with the bone remains of about five hundred individuals of all age and genders): pottery, metal weapons and bowls, silver and gold jewelries, shells and stone inlays, stamp and cylinder seals, ornaments and ritual paraphernalia, and along with five thousands and more beads defining a vast network of exchanges connecting Indian Ocean and Eastern Mediterranean, the Lower Sea and the Upper Sea according to the Babylonian geographers. The burial complex of Daba is a unique laboratory for the analysis of the Late Bronze and Iron Age human mobility and funerary practices in Western Asia and this extraordinary context needs interdisciplinary researches on the peer polity interaction played by Magan (Oman), the so called Land of Copper, Dilmun, Sumer, Ebla and Meluhha (the territorial states crossing Eurasia) since the 4th and 3rd mill. BCE through the Age of International Political Relation (Late Bronze Age) and until the Age of Great Empires Formation (Late Iron Age). The funerary context of Daba in Oman, the sites, the settlements, the desert, marine, riverine and estuarine routes between Arabic Sea and Eastern Mediterranean, routes coasting Eurasia and placed at the crossroad of the ancient world's Great Empires (Assyrian, Babylonian and Persian), formed large, mixed and autonomous cultural identities fixing monumental tributes to the rapid spread of nomadic societies and tribal alliances.
The Magan civilization, often referred to the emergence of the Hafit and Umm an-Nar Cultures, is interpreted as a socio-economic response to the growing export of local copper increasingly used in Mesopotamia during the 3rd mill. BC. Umm an-Nar communities diversified and greatly expanded long-distance trade, interacting also with south-eastern Iran and the Indus Valley. The construction of their massive stone and mud-brick structures and the intensification of copper production must have required a coordinated effort to plan operations and mobilize the necessary workforce. In stark contrast to their neighbors of the Oman Peninsula, who were all organized in urban and proto-urban systems, Magan society apparently continued its organization along kinship lines in some stratified tribal or clan-like system. Qualitative and quantitative variation in the collective Umm an-Nar tombs appears to be the result of social competition that aimed to enforce rank hierarchy among groups equivalent to extended households, in contrast to hierarchies between prominent individuals.
The use of innovative techniques in the archaeological investigation, such as some mentioned in the methodological section, will allow us to advance the state of research of the Arabian Peninsula funerary complexes in the past. The collective tombs identified in the surrounding area were roughly analyzed, focusing mainly on the study of the archaeological material. Our project focuses on the variation of the construction techniques through time, on the variability of the funerary and ritual practices, on the study and analysis of bio-archaeological data and on the epigraphic survey on the third, second and first millennium BC Syrian, Mesopotamian and Arabian textual and visual information. Moreover a detailed analysis will be conducted on the archaeological materials, representing a unique assembly for the Late Bronze and Iron Age and ranges from metals to stone vases, from metal ornaments and weapons to seals.
The advancement of research in this sector is therefore represented by the structural analysis with modern techniques based on three-dimensional modeling, photogrammetry and detailed reliefs that allow us to identify the numerous restoration phases and the modifications made during the use of the tomb. The most innovative part of the present project is the systematic and detailed analysis of the human remains, regarding the taphonomical and depositional aspects, the anthropological analysis of the whole skeletal assemblage and the analyses of DNA and isotopes. To date, such detailed analyses on human remains from collective graves of the area have not been carried out, and this approach will allow us to interpret the burial practices in the light of the social phenomenon of the inter-tribal aggregation the southeast of the Arabian Peninsula. Although not entirely investigated, LCG2 already provided some interesting evidences related to peculiar funerary practices and offering rituals in the Daba sacred area. Several typologies of deposition of skeletal materials have been identified, that differ in reference to their organization, to the quantity of bones, to the number of individuals represented in them and to their association with grave goods and animal bones.
Peculiar typologies of secondary depositions emerged in Daba, like bone assemblages with a clear structured shape that suggests the use of perishable containers to settle the already skeletonized individuals inside or around the large collective grave. To underline the multifaceted habits that took place at Daba, several case have been documented in the secondary depositions that likely could be interpreted as naturally mummified skeletal districts, as well as a single case of an entire bone artificially modified in its shape for ritual purposes. Archaeozoological analysis shows that the majority of faunal remains belongs to goats, but also cattle, sheep, dogs, horses and fish are represented. Rare are camelids and pigs. The preferential choice of specific meat portions, often discovered in close relation with human bones, suggests the funerary ritual involved offerings of entire animals or certain parts of them. All these evidences point out that the Daba sacred area is of fundamental importance for the understanding of the ancient human mobility spread, of the anthropological relationships between nomadic and urban societies and of the tribal alliances in the age of International Relations (Late Bronze) as well in the age of the Great Empires (Assyrian, Babylonian and Persian).