This article presents and discusses a corpus of worked and decorated shell discs from recently excavated archaeological sites in southern Arabia, including Dibba (northern Oman), Saruq al-Hadid (UAE) and Sumhuram/Khor Rori (southern Oman). The artefacts are compared to a wide range of shell discs from controlled excavations in Arabia and the broader Near East in order to better understand their date, manufacture and use. The comparative study highlights the wide distribution of decorated shell discs across the ancient Near East, particularly during the early Iron Age, and the complex economic and cultural connections that underpinned the collection, crafting, exchange and significance of such items.

The choice of the location for the foundation of the city of Sumhuram was suggested to the Hadrami colonisers by numerous factors (presence of drinking water, perfect visibility of the location from a distance, etc.). In order to survive for more than three hundred years the city needed to defend itself and reinforce its defensive system throughout the whole course of its history. In 1999-2000 MID undertook studies of the defensive system of the suburban gate complex of Sumhuram. This study which is based on architectonic and epigraphic data, led not only to a better understanding of the construction phases of the gate, but also to the elaboration of an hypothesis about the beginning of the history of the city. It is our belief that at the end of the first century BC a first settlement was founded with mainly a defensive function. In the first century AD it was transformed into a city

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