page_title: Archaeology of the United Arab Emirates
section_title: First discovery
hierarchical_section_title: Archaeology of the United Arab Emirates / First discovery
caption_attribution_description: English: Building at centre of burial ground at Jebel Al-Buhais, first discovered in 1973
context_page_description: The area currently known as the United Arab Emirates was formerly populated by inhabitants of a number of coastal and inland settlements, with human remains pointing to a pattern of transmigration and settlement as far back as 125,000 years. Prehistoric settlement in the UAE spanned the Neolithic, with a number of distinctive eras of ancient settlement including the Stone Age Arabian Bifacial and Ubaid cultures from 5,000 to 3,100 BCE; the Hafeet period with its distinctive beehive shaped tombs and Jemdet Nasr pottery, from 3,200 to 2,600 BCE; the Umm Al Nar period from 2,600 to 2,000 BCE; the Wadi Suq Culture from 2,000–1,300 BCE and the three Iron Ages of the UAE.
  The UAE's Iron Age I spanned 1,200–1,000 BCE; Iron Age II, 1,000–600 BCE and Iron Age III from 600–300 BCE. This was followed by the Hellenistic Mleiha era, from 300 BCE onwards through to the Islamic era which commenced with the culmination of the 7th century Ridda Wars.
context_section_description: The first archaeological excavations in the UAE were in 1959, led by Peter Glob and his assistant Geoffrey Bibby. Glob was a professor at Aarhus University and director of its Moesgaard Museum. He had undertaken a series of digs in Bahrain and was contacted by the director of Abu Dhabi Marine Areas Ltd, an oil company, Temple Hillyard, who invited them to visit some graves he had found on the small island of Umm Al Nar (then referred to as Umm an-Nar), having been directed to the site by the then-Ruler of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Shakhbut bin Sultan Al Nahyan. Hillyard had already determined that the tumuli were 'reminiscent of the Bronze Age one in Bahrain'. During excavations at Umm Al Nar, the Ruler's brother, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan visited the dig and told the archaeologists that there were many more such artefacts in Al Ain. He invited them to visit him and led them to a group of some 200 burial cairns – what would later turn out to be Hafit period burials. Zayed later took members of the Danish team to other sites in the area, including a low tell which is now known as Rumailah, a significant Iron Age site.
  Subsequent excavations by teams from Iraq in the 1970s unveiled the Jebel Buhais site, as well as the hugely significant ancient city of Ed-Dur. Since then, digs have taken place around the UAE by teams from universities in France, Spain, Germany, Jordan, Australia and the UK.
caption: The 'Iron Age' building at Jebel Buhais
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