bactrian find in southeastern arabia (potts, dt, 1993)

7/27/2019 Bactrian Find in southeastern Arabia (Potts, DT, 1993)

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NOTES 591

A new Bactrian find from southeastern Arabia

D.T. POTTS"

A ne w and handsom e f ind , a decora ted bone combfrom Tell Abra q in the United ArabEmirates dated about 2100-2000 BC, provides anotherlink between eastern Arabia and

the distan t Bactrian lan ds.

The site and contextThe purpose of this short note is to reportthe d iscovery, on 11 February 199 3 , of adecorated bone comb (TA 1649) in a contextdatable to c. 2100-2000 BC at the si te of TellAbraq, emira te of Umm al-Q aiwa in, Unite d

Arab Emirates. Tell Abraq (FIGURE ) , thelargest prehistoric sit e on the south ern coastof the Arabian Gulf, is the only multi-periods i t e i n s o u t h e a s t e r n A r ab i a w i t h acon t inuous s equence of occupat ion

extending from the middle of the 3rd to themiddle of the 1 s t m i l l e n n i u m B C (Potts1990; 1991; 1993). The early settlement atthe s i te was dominated by a fort ificationtower made of stone and mudbrick, 40 m indiameter and 8 m high. Fortifications of this

sor t, of whic h the Tell Abraq exemplar isthe largest found to date, are well-knownfea tu re s a t s i t e s in the Oman pen insu ladating to the so-called Umm an-Nar period( C . 2500-2000 BC).

nLAM

-IJPANENTRES III

FIGURE 1. Tell Abraq.

* Schoo l of Archaeology, Classics& Anc ient H istory, Universityof Sydney,NSW 2006, Australia.

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59 2 NOTES

Ten metres west of the fortress is acontemporary tomb. Like the fortresses of th isperiod, the tombs were circular. The TellAbraq tomb, diameter c. 6 m, is divided intotwo chambers by an internal crosswall . A

passage at the southern end of the wall linksthe eastern and western chambers. This year,under the supervision of J .N. Benton(University of Sydney), an d wit h theassistance of Prof. A. Goodman (HampshireCollege, USA), Prof. D. Martin (HampshireCollege, USA), and Prof. and Mr s R.V.S.Wright (University of S ydn ey) , the w este rnchamber was excavated completely. Theinternal deposit, which was preserved to aheight of c. 1.30 m, contai ned a m inim um

number of 155 indi vidua ls representing allage groups [adult MNI 121). Here, in addit ionto a variety of ceramic and stone vessels,copperlbronze rings a nd spea rhead s, ostrich-egg shel l fragments (presumably from oncecomplete vessels), beads and feeding shells

(Ficus subintermedia dOrbiny 1852, so-calledbecause of the ethnographic evidence for theiruse by the local population for feeding liquidsto infants), a decorated bone comb wasdiscovered.

The comb and its dateThe comb (FIGURE 2a & b) is 11 cm long, 8.2cm wide (max.), and 0.4 cm thick. Roughlyone third of it s teeth were missing or so fragilethat they broke upon first contact wit h a smallbrush during cleaning. Otherwise, i t iscompletely intact. The upper part of the combis crescentic. The body extends down eachside in the form of a 1-cm wide strip flankingthe teeth. Both sides of the body of the comb

are decorated identically with a set of threedouble-dotted circles arranged in a triangle.O n either side of the dotted circles is astylized flower with two upward-curving,dentate or crenate leaves, a long stem andthree lotus- or tulip-like petals.

FIGURE 2 a & b. Th e TellAbraq comb.( T A 1649; 1 1 x 8.2 x 0.4 c m . )


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NOTES 59 3

While we hope soon to acquire 14C datesfrom burn t bone discovered i n the tomb,several indications already narrow do wn itsdate to the very end of the Umm an-Narperiod. A burnt deposit excavated in 1989and 1993, which ran just under the surfacelinking the base of the tomb with the base ofthe fortress, yielded two dates of 2130 BC (K -5574) and 2190 BC (K-5575) (calibrated afterPearson & Stuiver 1986), th us providing asecure t e r m i n u s p o s t q u e m for the tomb. Adate be tween c. 2100 and 2000 BC i ssuggested by the pottery, w ith treatment (e.g.string-cut bases) and temper characteristic ofthe following Wadi Suq period ( c . 2000-1300BC), whereas the shapes appear to be in theUmm an-Nar t radi t ion . The pa inteddecoration is clearly transit ional, for i trepresents a stylized, simplified version ofclassical Umm an-Nar decoration. Thus, Iwould refer the tomb to the t e r m i n a l U m ma n - N ar p e r i o d , at the end of the knownsequence of excavated Umm an-Nar tombs,beginning with the tombs on Umm an-Narisland itself (c . 2500-2300 BC), followed byTomb A at Hili North and Mowaihat inAjman (2300-2100 B C ) , and finally by theAbraq tomb (c . 2100-2000 JX).

DiscussionEven a cursory examination of the literatureon combs in Western Asia (e.g. Spycket1976-1980) shows that a comb is hard ly a neveryday discovery in a late-3rd-millenniumcontext. The interest of the Tell Abraq find isamplified by the decoration i t hears.

On first reflection one looks to the IndusValley for c o m p a r a n d a where, in MatureHarappan contexts , bone an d ivory combswith dotted-circle decoration have been foundat Mohenjo-Daro (Marshall 1931: 532; Mackay1937: plate XCI.26 = plate CXXV.24), Harappa(Vats 1940: plate CxIX.6), Chanhu-Daro(Mackay 1943: plate CXXXII.13 & 2 1 , plateCXXXIV.4), an d Ka libangan (Thap ar 1979:plate XXVII). In 1985/6 an ivory comb withdotted-circle decoration, thought to be a nHarappan import, was discovered at Ras al-Junayz on the eastern tip of Oman in a context

(period 11) now dated by the excavators toc. 2400-2200 BC (Cleuziou 1992: 97). In 1932a wooden (? ) comb with dotted-circle decor-ation was found at the 3rd-m illennium BC site

of Bampur in southeastern Iran by Sir AurelStein (Stein 1937: plate IX, Bam.A.33).

None of those combs bears the distinctivefloral motif of the Abraq exemplar. We find astrikingly s imilar pair of long-stemmed

flowers on a series of soft-stone flasks (FIGURE3) found during illicit excavations in southernBactria (northern Afghanistan) in the 1970sand published in 1984 by M.-H. Pott ier(Pottier 1984: figures 19.143-144, 20.145, 150;cf. plate XX). The tripartite flower, crenate ordentate leaves and long, curved stem areclosely replicated, and in two cases theflowers are shown in pairs symmetricallyflanking a central object (Pottier 1984: figure20.145 (on either side of a p lant ), 150 (either

side of a winged female deit y)).Although scientific excavations at other

sites in northern Bactria (southern

FIGURE 3. A soft-stoneflask from Bactria (northernAfgha nistan) showinga winged fem ale de i ty(?If lanked b y two f lowers s imilarto those shown ont h e c o m bfrom Tell Abraq. (Afte r Pottier1984: plate20.150.) I t i s ust over6 cm tall.


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59 4 NOTES

Uzbekistan) have yet to yield combs with thisdecoration, they have produced bone combs(Sarianidi 1977: figure 24, lower left); and thedotted-circle is well-represented on soft-stonevessels i n Bactria (e.g. Pottier 1984: figure

20.147, 151-153) as well as on bone an d ivorysticks and so-called gaming pieces fromTurkmenistan (c f . Masson & Sarianidi 1972:figure 29a: Masson 1981: figure 6). Given theabsolute rarity of combs, it comes as nosurprise to find that no precise parallel on anextant comb can be adduced. As the veryparticular representation of the flower on theAbraq comb finds a perfect parallel in Bactria,it may be suggested that the Tell Abraq combis an import from that area.

Identification of the flowering plant depictedon the comb is a difficult if not impossibletask. After examining a drawing, Mr James P.Mandaville, Jr (Dhahran, Saudi Arabia), authorof the recently published Flora of eas te rnSaudi Arabia (London, 1992), observed t hatnone of the wild flowers of Arabia resembledit. He writes (letter of 1 7 March 1993):

My impression is that this plant may be largelyattributable to genetic engineering by its artist. Thisis mainly because of the discordance between theflower and leaf form. The best possibility thatcomes to mind in terms of petal shape is an iris(although some petals should be more deflexed). Atulip or a poppy might be other possibilities,assuming some artistic license. In the case of th eiris or a tulip, however, the leaves should be entireand sublinear (straight margined wi thout lobing). Inthe case of a poppy and its relatives, th e leavesshould be much more sharply and deeply lobedand dissected. I would note, however, that someirises have undulate leaves (wavy in the verticalplane), and this might lead some artist to showthem somewhat as appear ing here (crenate ordentate). In Arabia we have tulips only in the farnorthwest Hijaz mountains. We do have an iris ortwo (but probably not in the far east, or UAE area).Poppies are found as weeds sometimes in wheatcultivation, or perhaps wild over i n the Hijaz.

Mandaville also remarked that a species oftulip with undulate leaves does exist whichthus might appear crenate if viewed from acertain angle. The leaves are narrower and

more acute than the ones in your drawing,however (letter of 18 March 1993). The lowertwo leaves of Tulipa boeotica, which is nativeto Asia, indeed have undulate margins (see

e.g. the photograph i n Polunin 1980: plate58.1627d) which could have led an artist todepict them in this manner. Indeed themounta in tu l ip (TuIipa montana Lindl.) ,which ocurs in Asia Minor and Afghanistan,

bears a remarkable likeness to the flower onthe Tell Abraq comb. It is long-stemmed; haslanceolate-l inear leaves with undulatemargins which are mainly centred at the baseof the stem; and has six petals which appearas three in profile. Furthermore, it is native toAfghanistan (Zohary 1982: 180; my thanks toDr L. Rodriguez for bringing this reference tomy attention). The possibility that the floweris a species of Tulipa, a Eurasian-wide genus(Good 1961: 89), is particularly interesting in

view of M.-H. Pottiers discussion of theflowers on the Bactrian flasks. Suggestingthese are tulips, she notes that, nowadays,spring on the steppes of Central Asia ismarked by the appearance of thousands oftulips, for which reason the tulip has becomethe symbol of Turkmenistan. In antiquity, shesuggests, the widespread blossoming of thetulip may have made the flower a symbol offertility (Pottier 1984: 76 a nd n . 60). Yet inlater Zoroastrian tradition, the tulip, although

mentioned in the Pahlavi Book of Creation,B undah i shn , is not named as one of the 30flowers identified with a specific archangel orangel whose names were associated with thedays of the month (Laufer 1919: 192-3): thetuli p was not always significant in the ancientIranian-Central Asian tradition.

The rarity of bone and ivory combs in thearchaeological record results not only fromthe soil conditions of Western Asia. Theyseem to have been very rare and costly items

in antiquity whic h were never numerous. TwoOld Babylonian texts from Ur l is t i temsbrought back from a trading expedition toDilmun (Bahrain) and then dedicated to theNanna-Ningal temple complex (Oppenheim1954: 7; cf. Leemans 1960: 26, 2 9 ) , whichincl ude single combs, UET V 678 (undated;S.V. 1. 1 2 , ga-rig zii-am-si, 1 comb of ivory)and UET V 2 9 2 (dated to the 8th year of thereign of S umu el, i.e. 1886 B C acc. MiddleChronology: S.V. 1 19, gi5ga-rig(for the reading

ga-r ig vs. ga-zum cf. Edzard 1976-80), 1comb) (cf. also the attestation of ivory combsin an Old Babylonian text from Susa,Oppenheim 1954: 11, n. 0 ) .


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NOTES 595

The owner of the Tell Abraq comb wasclearly an Blite individual in possession of avery rare and exotic piece of personalequipment.

This Bactrian comb in southeastern Arabia

shoul d be seen i n the context of thesouthward spread of the Bac t r i an -MurghabArchaeo log ica l Comp lex(Sarianidi 1987: 44;cf. Hiebert & Lamberg-Karlovsky 1992: 1 ) .Materials of Bactrian affinity have now beenidentified at a number of sites in the Indo-Iranian borderlands, including Shahdad,Khinaman, Tepe Yahya and Khurab in Iran;and Mehi, Quetta , Mehrgarh and Sibri inPakistan (the relevant literature convenientlyreferenced in Hiebert & Lamberg-Karlovsky

1 9 9 2 ) . Whether interpreted as the manifest-ation of an Aryan invasion (cf. Sarianidi 1987;Parpola 1988) or not (e.g. Shaffer 1986: 93),there seems little doubt that a major phen-omenon of contact extending from the steppesof Central Asia to the shores of the ArabianSea took place around 2000 BC. Pedestalled

ReferencesCLEUZIOU, . 1 9 92 . T h e O m a n p e n i n s u l a a n d t h e

I n d u s c i v i l i z a t i o n : a r e a s s e s s m e n t ,M a n a n d

Environment1712: 93-103.DlJRING CASPERS, E.C.L. 1992. Intercultural/mercan t i l e con tac t s be tween th e Arab ian Gulfa n d S o u t h A s ia a t t h e c l o s e of t h e 3 r dmillennium BC,Proceedings of t he Semina r fo rArabian Studies22: 3-28.

EDZARD, D.O. 1976-1980. Kamm A. Phi lo log isch,Reallexikon der Assyriologie5: 332.

GOOD, R. 1961. T h e g e o g r a p h y o f t h e f l o we r i n gp lan t s . London: Longman.

HIEBERT, F.T. & C.C. LAMBERG-KARLOVSKY.9 9 2 .Centra l As ia and the Indo-Iranian borderlands ,

Iran 30: 1-15.KOHL, P.L. (ed .). 1981. Th e Bronze Age civilizationo f C e n t r a l As i a : r e c e n t So v i e t d i s c o v e r i e s .Ar mo nk (NY): M.E. Sharpe.

LAUFER, B. 1 9 1 9 . Sino- I ran ica : Chinese con t r ib -u t ions to the history of civi l izat ionin ancientI ran , wi th spec ia l r e fe rence to t h e h i s t o r y ojcu l t iva t ed p l an t s and p roduc t s .Chicago (IL):Fie ld Mus eum . Publ ica tion 201.

L E E M A N S ,W.F. 1 9 6 0 . Fore ign t rade in t h e O ldBabylonian period.Leiden: Brill.

MACKAY, E.J.H. 1937. Fu r t h e r e x c a v a t i o n s a tMohenjo-Daro11. Delhi: Governmentof Ind ia .

1943 . Chanhu-Daro excavat ions 1935-36. N e wHaven (CT): Am erican Oriental Series 20.

M A R S H A L L ,. 1931 . Mohenjo-Daro and the Induscivilization11. London: Arth ur Probs tha in .

ceramic and bronze vessels from Bahrain andAsimah (Ras al-Khaimah) have recently beendiscussed in the context of contact betweenth e Gulf and Central Asia (During Caspers1 9 9 2 ) , and the close parallel between a

square-based, soft-stone flask with dotted-circle decoration from Tomb A at Hili North(Cleuziou & Vogt 1985: 255-7 and figure 4.5)and similar soft-stone vessels from Bactria haslong been recognized.

We know from the ceramics, seals and stonevessels recovered during the first four seasonsat Tell Abraq that the site was in contact withBabylonia, Elam, Dilmun, southern Iran andthe Indus Valley during the late 3rd and early2nd millennium BC (Potts 1990; 1991; 1993).

The unexpected discovery of the Tell Abraqcomb now shows us that Bactria must beadded to tha t list. There is little doubt that th ecomb represents a noteworthy addition to thegrowing corpus of Bactrian material fromeastern Arabia and the Indo-Iranianborderlands.

MASSON,V.M. 1981. Urban cen te r s of ea r ly c l a s ssocieties , i n Kohl (ed.): 135-48.

MASSON, V.M. & V.I. SAR IANIDI. 972. Central Asia:

Turkmenia before the Achaem enids.New York(NY): Praeger.OPPENHEIM,A.L. 1954. The seafaring merchants of

Ur, Jo u r n a l of t he Ame r ican Or ien ta l Soc ie ty

PARPOLA, A. 1 988 . Th e c om ing of th e Ar yan s toI r a n a n d I n d i a a n d t h e c u l t ur a l a n d e t h n i ci d e n t i t y of t h e D a s a s ,St u d i a Or i e n t a l i a 6 4 :

PEARSON, G.W. & M.V. STUIVER. 1986. High-p rec i s ion ca l ib ra t ion o f the rad ioca rbon t imesca le, 500-2500 BC, Ra dio ca rbo n 28: 838-52.

P O L U N I N ,0 .

1 9 8 0 . Flowers of Greece and theB a l k a n s : a f i e l d g u i d e . O x f o r d : O x f o r dUniversity Press .

POSSEHL, .L . ( ed . ) . 197 9 . An c i e n t c i t i e s o f t h eIndus . Ne w Delhi: Vikas Publishing H ouse.

POTTIER, M.-H. 1984. M a t h i e l fu n e r a ir e d e l aB a c t r i a n e m e r i d i o n a l e d e I Ag e d u B r o n z e .Paris : Editions Recherch esu r les Civil isations.

P O T T S , D.T. 1990. A p r e h i s t o r i c m o u n d in t h eE m i r a te of U m m a l- Qa i wa in : e x c a v a t i o n s a tTell Ahraq in 1989. Copenhagen: Munksgaard .

1991. Further excavations at Tell Abraq: the1990season. Copenhagen: Munksgaard .

1 9 9 3 . R e t h i n k i n g s o m e a s p e c t s of t r a d e i n t h eArabian Gulf, World Archaeo logy24: 423-40.

SARIANIDI, . 197 7. Bactrian c ent reof anc ien t a r t ,Mesopotamia 12: 97-110.

74 : 6-17.

195-302.


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1987. South-west Asia: migrat ions, the Aryansand Zoroas t r ians , I n f o r m a t i o n B u l l e t i n 1 3:

SHAFFER, .G . 1986. The archaeology of Baluch-istan: a review, Ne ws l e t t e r of B a l u c h i s t a nStudies 3: 63-111.

SPYCKET, A. 1976-1980. Kamm B. Archa olog isch ,Reallexikon der Assyriologie5: 332-5.

STEIN, M.A. 1937. Archaeologicnl reconnaissances

44-56.

in north-western India and south-eastern Iran.London: Macmillan.

THAPAR, B.K. 197 9. Kaliban gan: a Hara ppanmetropolis beyond th e Indus Valley, in Possehl(ed.) : 196-202.

VATS, M.S. 1940 . E x c a v a t i o n s a t Ha r a p p a 11 .Calcutta: Government of India.

ZOHARY, M . 1982 . Pl a n t s of t h e B i b le . London:Cambridge University Press .

Making stone vessels in ancient Mesopotamia andEgypt

DENYSA. STOCKS*

How were th e fin e sto ne jars and vesselsof anc ient Egypt and Mesopotamia ma de ?Anexperimental testof materials and techn iques explores the meth od sof ea rly drilling.

Similari t ies between the Uruk and JemdetNasr periods of Mesopotaniia (c . 3600-2900B C ) and the Gerzean and early dynasticperiods of Egypt ( c . 3500-2900 BC) includecylinder seals, the recessed pa nelled facade

design in architecture, the use of pictographs,decorative art and t he shapes of stone vessels.And craftsmen from Mesopotamia and Egyptnecessarily developed similar tools andtechniques for manufacturing stone vessels. Inorder to explore these similarities, I invest-igated the use of a specialized Egyptian tool inmaking a limestone vase.

It is generally thought that the cold beating,or forging, of truly smelted and cast copperinto tools and other artefacts first occurred in

Egypt around 3500 B C (Hoffman 1980: 207),castings being made in rudimentary openmoulds at this period (Petrie 1917: 6). Cold-forged, cast copper tools were also manu-factured in Mesopotamia (Moorey 1985:40-46). The technique of beating copper intosheets must have existed in both Egypt andMesopotamia, where vessels of this meta lwere found at U r by Sir Leonard Woolley(Woolley 1955: 30-31). Shee t copp er isessential to the making of copper tubes,indispensable tools for drilling out stonevessels. It is likely that rolling copper sheetinto tubes imitated natures own architecture

- that of hollow reeds. The direct casting ofcopper into open, tubular-shaped moulds mayalso have been adopted by both civilizations.

Stone vessel manufacturing technology

In Mesopotamia, and Egypt, copper tubulardrills were used for the initial hollowing ofthe interiors of vases and jars made from hardand soft stone (Woolley 1934: 380; Moorey1985: 51; Reisner 1931: 180; Lucas 1962: 74).Striations are clearly visible on the insidewalls of vessels, caused by the abrasivematerial employed with the drills. Althoughthe stone-cutting, copper tubular drill hasnever been located, i t would have beendirectly driven by a shaft of wood driven

firmly into the top en d (FIGURE a ) androtated by a bow-string (wi th the top of theshaft in a stone bearing-cap], or twistedclockwise, and anti-clockwise by wrist action.It is unlikely that shafts were rolled betweenthe palms.

Subsequently, Mesopotamian and Egyptianbulbous vessels - those considerably widerinside than at the mouth - were furtherhollowed by grinding with another tool, astone borer of elongated form. The mid-point

of its long axis w a s made to narrow equallyfrom both sides. Seen from above, the borerassumes the shape of a figure-of-eight,

* Department of Archaeology, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester M 1 3 SPL, England.

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bactrian find in southeastern arabia (potts, dt, 1993)

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