Grave‐goods from the long chamber tomb “Dibba 76/1” (Fujairah, UAE): a first inventory

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to present the rich set of finds collected inside the grave Dibba 76/1, in the Emirate of Fujairah, during a season of rescue excavation conducted under the direction of S. Ali Hassan in 1994. The recovered grave‐goods include pottery, soft‐stone vessels, metal finds, personal ornaments, coins, and other items. Although comparable with other corpuses of material excavated in south‐eastern Arabia, the material of Dibba 76/1 stands out for the inner variety of the different artefacts’ classes and their remarkable chronological heterogeneity. The study of the grave‐goods suggests that Dibba 76/1 was reused over several centuries, showing a strong continuity in the funerary destination of this specific place from the end of the Wadi Suq period (2000–1600 BC) to the first phases of the late pre‐Islamic period (250 BC–AD 400), and the full integration of the area of Dibba in the succession of the various cultural facies known during this long time span.

About two seal‐impressed jars from Tell Abraq (Emirate of Umm al‐Quwain). New evidence for intercultural networks in the lower Arabian Gulf in the late 2nd – beginning of the 1st millennium BC

“…This network somehow shrinks down during the 2nd millennium BC, to revive towards the end of the same millennium (Potts, 1990b, pp. 258–260), consistent with the presence of these jars at Tell Abraq and other items at various sites in south‐eastern Arabia, including burials (e.g., Frenez et al, 2020; Pellegrino et al, 2019).…”

The Early Iron Age collective tomb LCG-1 at Dibbā al-Bayah, Oman: long-distance exchange and cross-cultural interaction

“…Fourteen niches containing clusters of disarticulated human bones (in secondary deposition) were created along the inner walls of the structure using large slabs supported by smaller stones. Long-chamber tombs-either semisubterranean or wholly above ground-and comparable ritual practices are known from other broadly contemporaneous funerary sites across the region (for summary and recent developments, see Genchi et al 2018;Pellegrino et al 2019).…”

The softstone vessels assemblage from the Long Collective Grave 1 (LCG‐1) at Dibbā al‐Bayah (Sultanate of Oman): A preliminary assessment

“…43/4, 5, 7, 10), tomb 102 in Shimal (Vogt & Franke‐Vogt, 1987: fig. 14/3, 4), tomb 1 in Dibbā 76 (Pellegrino et al, 2019: fig. 23: 1, 2) and among the assemblages from Sharm (Ziolkowsky, 2001: figs.…”

“…307/4, 5; 261/3). Additionally, those with a biconical handle with a flat top and deep incisions are also very common, particularly in the classical Iron Age phase, as in tomb 1 at Dibbā 76 (Pellegrino et al, 2019: fig. 24/6), tomb 1 at Sharm (Ziolkowsky, 2001: figs.…”

“…Close comparisons based on these designs are not present among contemporary sites in the region, although many specimens containing phytomorphic features were found in other tombs, such as Fashgha (Phillips, 1987: fig. 27), Dibbā 76/1 (Pellegrino et al, 2019: fig. 20/4), Jabal al‐Buhais (Jasim, 2012: fig.…”