Ricerc@Sapienza

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.