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Humans have been making tools for most
of their existence, and the museums of Ras al-Khaimah, Sharjah,
Umm al-Qaiwain and Al-Ain all display finely manufactured flint
and chert arrowheads, knives and scrapers dating back, in the
earliest cases, some 7000 years. In this category we should
also mention implements related to fishing. Fishnet sinkers
and shell fishhooks from early sites on the coast of the Emirates
attest to intensive fishing as long as humans have inhabited
the shores of this region. By about 3000 B.C. we find the first
implements made of copper and by about 2200 B.C. the first tools
made of bronze (an alloy of copper with anywhere from 5-15%
tin). Rich in copper ore, the Hajar mountains of the interior
of the U.A.E. and Oman provided the raw material for an extensive
metallurgical industry which flourished until the late Islamic
era when foreign imports finally made it no longer economically
viable. Early copper and bronze tools included spatulas, awls
and needles.
The Al Ain Museum displays a number of finds from the earliest
excavations at Mleiha, conducted in the early 1970’s, including
a socketed copper or bronze hoe blade (all of the finds from
the later excavations at Mleiha can be seen in the Sharjah Archaeological
Museum). This is one of the earliest agricultural tools from
the Emirates. An iron chisel or adze blade from al-Dur (Umm
al-Qaiwain) was probably a wood-working implement, perhaps used
in boat building. It resembles tools which can be seen in the
ethnographic displays of the museums in Ras al-Khaimah, Fujairah
and Dubai, where a wide range of items used in working in date
gardens, in the pearling industry and in farming and household
life generally can be seen. |
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