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As one drives north on the road from Masafi towards Dibba in the northern UAE a road peels off to the west up the Wadi Asimah leading to the modern village of the same name. There, in a roughly 7 km sq valley within the Hajar mountains are some truly extraordinary archaeological remains. First visited in 1972 by the indefatigable Beatrice de Cardi and later investigated in the winter of 1987/1988 by Burkhard Vogt, Asimah consists of a late third millennium BC, Umm al-Nar-type settlement (As 99 and Asimah North), an Iron Age settlement from the early first millennium BC (As 97), an isolated building contemporary with al-Dur and Mileiha (As 98), at least 28 pre-Islamic tombs of various dates (As 1-27, As 100) and so-called 'Alignment A', which dates to the late third millennium as well. This curious structure consists of a parallel set of standing stones, none of which are very high, of alternating black and white colour, with an apsidal formation at one end, and several circular platforms and graves at the other. The graves yielded an impressive array of unusual bronze objects, weapons and a hollow-footed chalice unparalleled elsewhere in the ancient metal inventory of the United Arab Emirates.