Named after a district of Al Ain in the interior of Abu Dhabi, Rumeilah was the first Iron Age settlement excavated on a large scale in the United Arab Emirates. Work was conducted there between 1981 and 1983 by a French team from the Centre Nationale de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) in Paris. The site consists of a series of mudbrick buildings, some of which are so well preserved that their roofs are still intact. These had been literally buried by sand. They contained large quantities of pottery, grinding stones and metal tools, as well as stamp seals, beads and several pieces of bronze weaponry. Rumeilah was occupied between c. 1000 and 300 BC and is very similar in most respects to the contemporary Iron Age sites of al-Madam, al-Thuqaibah, Qarn Bint Saud and Hili 2.