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UNITED ARAB EMIRATES ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITES

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Tell Abraq - (38)

This large settlement on the border of Umm al-Qaiwain and Sharjah was excavated by a team of Australian archaeologists between 1989 and 1998. It is dominated by a large fortification tower, 40 m in diameter, that dates to the late Umm al-Nar period. Ten metres to the west of it is a circular tomb, c. 6 m in diameter, in which the remains of nearly 350 individuals have been recovered. Settlement debris shows that occupation of the site was continuous from c. 2200 to 300 BC. Located today several kilometres south of the shoreline, Tell Abraq was almost certainly a coastal site in antiquity, as suggested by the large embayment immediately to the north of the main mound which is today flooded by winter rains. Throughout its occupation Tell Abraq was very much in touch with the outside world, as artifacts originating in the Indus Valley, Mesopotamia, Iran and Afghanistan attest. One of the most striking aspects of metals use at the site is the high incidence of tin-bronze found in all levels of occupation. The large mudbrick platform which capped the site c. 1300 BC is built of bricks which show the same dimensions as those used in brick platforms found at sites such as Nad-i Ali in Afghanistan and Tepe Yahya in southeastern Iran.

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