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One of the largest concentrations of ancient tombs discovered in KSA from space

@Ottoman123 Turks (genuine ones not fake ones like you) and Mongols teaching Arabs (the inheritors and heirs of the oldest civilizations on the planet) "a lot". A great joke. I have news for you. All the genuine Turks became Arabized and very quickly. Ask any historian. Anyway I have wasted enough of time on you.

Thank Turks and Mongols for your "Arab Culture" without them, you'd all be dead. There'd be no Islam today. Yes? Oh, except maybe Spain and Portugal and Sicily lol

Empty Mongols and Turks help spread Islam. This was a HUGE Mistake by our leaders at the time. Like I said, we see those mistakes now. :)
A lot of Turks are leaving Islam faster. thanks to Erdogan and his Arab wife. Oh and Arabs like you. :)
 
You should take your medicine, my friend. Other than that I do not care about your nonsense blabbering and inferiority complexes. Have a nice day and thanks for helping giving this excellent and incredible thread publicity and views.
It's funny when you think about. Turks spread Islam and Arab culture. And the Arabs helped the Brits bring it down to a joke that it is today.
Amazing lol
Bye now
 
It's funny when you think about. Turks spread Islam and Arab culture. And the Arabs helped the Brits bring it down to a joke that it is today.
Amazing lol
Bye now

If you consider spreading Islam and Arab culture to tiny Kosovo, tiny Albania and tiny Bosnia (only Kosovo is clearly majority Muslim) as a huge accomplishment, in particular when speaking to an Arab (whose ancestors spread Islam to all corners of the world, including to your country and people), then I don't know what to say. Anyway the discussion is extremely off-topic.

Back to topic and a moderator should remove all the off-topic posts and posts of no value to this thread.


Large Flake Acheulean in the Nefud Desert of Northern Arabia


CERI SHIPTON

School of Social Science, University of Queensland, Brisbane, AUSTRALIA; c.shipton@uq.edu.au

ASH PARTON

School of Archaeology, Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, University of Oxford, UNITED KINGDOM;

ash.parton@rlaha.ox.ac.uk

PAUL BREEZE

Department of Geography, Kings College London. London, UNITED KINGDOM; paul.breeze@kcl.ac.uk

RICHARD JENNINGS

School of Archaeology, Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, University of Oxford, UNITED KINGDOM; richard.jen- nings@rlaha.ox.ac.uk

HUW S. GROUCUTT

School of Archaeology, Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, University of Oxford, UNITED KINGDOM;

huw.groucu @rlaha.ox.ac.uk

TOM S. WHITE

School of Archaeology, Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, University of Oxford, UNITED KINGDOM;

tom.white@rlaha.ox.ac.uk

NICHOLAS DRAKE

Department of Geography, Kings College London. London, UNITED KINGDOM; nick.drake@kcl.ac.uk REMY CRASSARD

CNRS, Maison de l’Orient et de la Mediterranee, Lyon, FRANCE; remy.crassard@mom.fr ABDULLAH ALSHAREKH

College of Tourism and Archaeology, King Saud University, Riyadh, SAUDI ARABIA; asharekh@hotmail.com

MICHAEL D. PETRAGLIA

School of Archaeology, Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, University of Oxford, UNITED KINGDOM;

michael.petraglia@rlaha.ox.ac.uk

http://www.paleoanthro.org/media/journal/content/PA20140446.pdf


The Neolithic site of Jebel Oraf 2, northern Saudi Arabia: First report of a directly dated site with faunal remains


http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352226716301027





Ahmad Al-Jallad

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University Lecturer

Name
Dr. A.M. Al-Jallad
Telephone
+31 71 527 2223
E-mail
a.m.al-jallad@hum.leidenuniv.nl
  • Profile
  • Contact
  • Publications
  • Ancillary activities
Fields of interest
Ahmad Al-Jallad specializes in the early history of Arabic and North Arabian. He has done research on Arabic from the pre-Islamic period based on documentary sources, the Graeco-Arabica (Arabic in Greek transcription from the pre-Islamic period), language classification, North Arabian epigraphy, and historical Semitic linguistics. He has written the first grammar of Safaitic, a corpus of Ancient North Arabian inscriptions from northern Jordan and southern Syria; its second edition, with a dictionary of more than 1400 entries, will appear in 2018.

His current book project ‘The Word, the Blade, and the Pen: Three thousand years of Arabic’ (Princeton University Press) tells the story of the Arabic language, from its first attestations in the Iron Age until the age of the internet.

He is Co-PI of the Landscapes of Survival Archaeological Project in the Jebel Qurma region of Jordan, of the Thaj Archaeological Project in Saudi Arabia, and co-leads epigraphic expeditions to the basalt desert of Northern Jordan yearly.

Al-Jallad has taught courses on North Arabian epigraphy, the historical grammar of Arabic, Arabic linguistic diversity, and the linguistic history of the Middle East.

Education
Ph.D. in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University (2012) with distinction

External Website
leidenuniv.academia.edu/AhmadAlJallad

Key publications
  • An Outline of the Grammar of the Safaitic Inscriptions. Leiden: Brill (2015)
  • “An ancient Arabian zodiac: the constellations in the Safaitic inscriptions, Part I”. AAE25: 214–230 (2014), Part II AAE27: 84–106.
  • “Graeco-Arabica I: The Southern Levant”. In: Arabic in Context: Celebrating 400 years of Arabic at Leiden University, A. Al-Jallad (ed.), 99–186. Leiden: Brill.
  • “Pre-Islamic " Ḥamāsah " Verses from Northeastern Jordan: A New Safaitic Poetic Text from Marabb al-Shurafāʾ, with further remarks on the ʿĒn ʿAvdat Inscription and KRS 2453”. PSAS47 (2017): 117–128.
  • “Echoes of the Baal Cycle in a Safaito-Hismaic Inscription”. JANER15 (2015). 5–19.


Teaching
  • Linguistic History of the Middle East (BA)
  • Historical and Linguistic context of the Qur’an (MA)
  • Historical Grammar of Arabic (MA Seminar)
  • Introduction to Ancient North Arabian (MA tutorial)
  • Arabic Dialectology (Arabic linguistic diversity) (BA)
  • Arabic Texts (BA)
  • The sociolinguistics of the Middle East
https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/staffmembers/ahmad-al-jallad#tab-1

In Saudi Arabia, the remains of giant prehistoric elephants
BY SPACE · SEPTEMBER 1, 2017


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Half a million years ago, the Arabian Peninsula was not a lifeless desert. This region was an area with lush vegetation, and the climate was humid.

A new discovery, made by paleontologists from the city of Jeddah, indicates that in this area once lived giant elephants, which were 1.5 times larger than the elephants currently living the largest. The remains of giant elephants were discovered not far from the ancient lake that existed many years ago.

Bones belong to Elephas recki elephants. They lived in the period 3.5 million – 300 thousand years ago. The area of their habitat stretched from Africa to the Middle East.



For the first time on the remains of scientists came across in the wilderness of Nefud in 2014. This year the researchers extracted the remaining bones of the found individual. In total, specialists managed to find about 60% of the remains of the elephant. This is the best-preserved representative of this species. Previously, scientists have found the bones of other elephants Elephas recki, including a specimen that lived 1.8 million years ago in the area of Lake Turkana in northern Kenya.

Elephas recki reached a height of more than 4.5 meters. They were no less than twice as heavy as modern elephants. Analysis of the bones found in the Saudi Arabia elephant indicates that this elephant was a male. It was an adult.

https://earth-chronicles.com/histori/in-saudi-arabia-the-remains-of-giant-prehistoric-elephants.html

Archaeological Sites Found Near Saudi Arabia’s Ancient Lakes


Tuesday, August 01, 2017

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(© Palaeodeserts Project, Max Planck Institute)

LONDON, ENGLAND—According to a report in Live Science, a team led by landscape archaeologist Paul Breeze of King’s College London used high-resolution satellite imagery, aerial imagery, and geological maps to identify 46 archaeological sites beside ancient lakes in Saudi Arabia’s western Nefud Desert. Their research suggests that hominins migrating out of Africa may have traveled further into Arabia than had been previously thought. Breeze and his team traveled to some of the sites, where they took sediment samples of the lake beds, many of which are thought to have been situated in basins between sand dunes. They also found tools dating to the Lower Paleolithic period, between 1.8 million and 250,000 years ago. At that time, the region experienced repeated phases of wetter climate, and therefore supported more vegetation and wildlife than it does today. “Based on the geological record, we would expect some level of greening of Arabia to happen once more in the future,” said Breeze, “although likely not in the near future, and it is unclear how human influence on the climate might affect this.” For more, go to “Fact-Checking Lawrence of Arabia.”

https://www.archaeology.org/news/5778-170801-saudi-arabia-desert

Truly fascinating stuff.
 
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Fresh finds in Saudi Arabia may alter horses domestication history

Horses may first have been tamed as long ago as 7000 BC, new ground-breaking findings in a recently unearthed archaeological site in Saudi Arabia suggest.

“The procured evidence may potentially debunk a previously established theory that the domestication of horses originated 5500 years ago in the Central Asian country of Kazakhstan,” the Vice-President of the Kingdoms Commission for Tourism and Antiquities announced in a press conference in Jeddah.

This site shows us clearly, the roots of the domestication of horses 9,000 years ago,” said Ali Al Ghabban, citing human DNA evidence that allowed researchers to date the prehistoric civilization to the New Stone Age.

A number of other artifacts, including handicrafts such as arrowheads, scrapers, grain grinders, tools for spinning and weaving were also unearthed and suggest that the ancient Neolithic society may have had skills that were more diversified than just horse-taming.

“The Al-Maqar civilization is a very advanced civilization of the Neolithic period, Al-Ghabban noted.

Although humans have been herding horses ever since they came into contact with the animal 50,000 years ago to use their meat, skins and milk, the domestication of horses didn’t come about until much later, becoming widespread in Europe, Asia and North Africa by 1000 B.C.

“This discovery will change our knowledge concerning the domestication of horses and the evolution of culture in the late Neolithic period,” the Saudi archaeologist added.

ARCHAEOLOGICAL WEALTH

This latest archaeological discovery in Saudi Arabia comes as the world’s largest oil exporter aims to step up its tourism industry and diversify its largely oil-dependent economy.

However, the Kingdom may just started to scratch the surface of what is speculated to be an uncovered treasure trove of archaeological remains.


An armchair archaeologist made headlines in February this year for having allegedly discovered nearly 2000 potential archaeological sites in Saudi Arabia without ever having visited the country.

Dr. David Kennedy, a professor of classics and ancient history at the University of Western Australia, claimed to have spotted 1977 tombs from the comforts of his office in Perth, Australia, using the high-resolution Satellite-imaging capability of Google Maps.

Kennedy, who led the research project at his university, professed that the aerial viewing service offered by Google could penetrate a ban by the Saudi government that forbids aerial photography of the country due to cultural and religious sensitivities, which has left much of Saudi’s archeology in the dark.

The archaeologist confirmed his findings based on ground view photographs he obtained of a few of the sites that matched structures he has seen in Jordan.

Kennedy further speculated that there may be up to a million such sites lying unexplored in the depths of the Arabian Peninsula.


http://earthmysterynews.com/2016/12...rabia-may-alter-horses-domestication-history/
 
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Al-Magar site, amid the remote low hills and sandy valleys of southwestern Saudi Arabia and located near the town of Al-Gayirah, is one of the most significant archaeological discoveries in the Middle East. Carried out by the Antiquities Sector of the Saudi Commission for Antiquities and Museums, Al-Magar represents the first Neolithic settlement site in the Arabian Peninsula. According to Dr. Ali, the SCTA vice President, the horse stone sculpture located at al-Magar clearly shows that it was most likely a domesticated animal, and present in the Peninsula for over 10,000 years.

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Al-Magar Site

One of the most excting components of Al-Magar was the discovery of a large stone carving of an 'equid' - an animal belonging to the horse family. According to Ali bin Ibrahim Al Ghabban, vice-president of the Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities, 'It could possibly be the birthplace of an advanced prehistoric civilisation that witnessed the domestication of animals, particularly the horse, for the first time during the Neolithic period.'

The piece itself, measuring 86 cms long by 18 cms thick and weighing more than 135kg., is a large sculptural fragment that appears to show the head, muzzle, shoulder and withers of a horse. The fact that other smaller, horse-like sculptures were found at Al-Magar, with similar bands over the shoulders, supports the idea that this culture may have been using 'tack' to domesticate horses.

On the ground surface at Al-Magar, there is large scattering of stone objects over a wide area. The typical Neolithic objects consist of arrow heads, precisely made stone scrapers, knives, grinding stones and pots, similar to those located at the Neolithic sites of Thimamh, Rub al-Khali, Tatleeth, Yabrin, Tabuk and Jawf, Sakkaka.



Several stone statues and carvings of conceivably domesticated animals were found on the site, possibly part of the daily life of the inhabitants. The statues of animals located at al-Magar are also represented in the rock art of various Neolithic sites at Hima, Najran, Jubbah and Shuwaymis. The statues of most common animals found at Al-Magar are sheep, goat, dogs, ostriches, falcons, fish and horses.

Al-Magar is the most elaborate and ancient settlement site in the Arabian Peninsula. It represents an advanced pre-pottery Neolithic period. The people lived in stone houses built with dry masonary.

The archaeological survey at al-Magar has revealed traces of stone structures, connected with settlement and with signs of agricultural activity. The sculptures themselves were found buried in one of the stone structures, formerly a building of some sort. The archaeology evidence of al-Magar is slowly revealing clues about the social aspects and the culture of the people who lived here; about domestication, trade and migration. What is more, there are clear signs of even earlier occupation; adjacent to the Neolithic finds, flaked stone tools, such as scrapers, estimated to be 50,000 years in age. Al-Magar was an attractive environment for human activity over multiple periods.


The Arabian Horse - Origin & Development

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The Arabian Horse

It is generally believed that the horse was introduced into the Arabian Peninsula, but that it was domesticated in Arabia between 3,000 and 4,000 BC, although this remains controversial. Clearly, the horse has always been a part of Arabian culture.

The recent discovery of horse figures in the Neolithic rock art at Shuwaymis has changed the story of the presence and domestication of the horse in Arabia. Now we can say with authenticity that the horse was already present in Arabia as early as the Neolithic period c. 10,000-9,000 years before present.

The Arabian Horse in Saudi Arabia Rock Art

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The Arabian Horse in Saudi Arabia Rock Art

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Horse depictions in Saudi Arabia Rock Artt


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Horse depictions in Saudi Arabia Rock Art


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The Arabian Horse in Saudi Arabia Rock Art

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The Arabian Horse in Saudi Arabia Rock Art

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New Archaeological Discoveries in Eastern Province
September 2016


Recent efforts to excavate archaeological sites in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia have unearthed a record of the Kingdom’s rich cultural past and ancient heritage. Under the patronage of the Saudi Commission for Tourism and National Heritage (SCTNH), teams of international and national experts have revealed the region’s status as a hub of social and commercial life over 7,000 years ago.

Spread out over a number of sites in Saudi Arabia, the discoveries contain valuable artifacts that have given researchers a glimpse into the traditions of those living during the earliest days of the spread of Islam. In Dammam, experts are using pieces of pottery and houses to develop an understanding of traditional craftwork and architecture in the civilizations that once thrived in the Arabian Peninsula.

In the ancient city of Thaj, a key discovery of gold and jewelry provided researchers with new information on the skillful metalwork of the area’s residents. In Tarout, the unearthing of weaponry, pottery, and metal tools demonstrated similar levels of technical expertise that is slated to be exhibited in the National Museum of Riyadh.

As a center of human interaction and engagement between civilizations, the Arabian Peninsula was home to peoples who benefited from coastal trade and commerce along the routes of the Mesopotamia. It is for this reason, SCTNH President Prince Sultan bin Salman stated, that such archaeological history points to the role that Saudi Arabia played in the religious, political, and cultural flourishing of ancient life.

Vision 2030 Protects Proud Islamic Heritage, Attracts Tourists
In recognition of the nation’s proud heritage and ancient cultural vibrancy, Saudi officials have devoted resources under the Vision 2030 plan to protect the Kingdom’s proud Arab and Islamic heritage. According to the plan, the diversity that distinguishes Saudi Arabia will continue to offer future generations a foundation for social development and serve as a tool to attract visitors from other countries as witnesses to the country’s place in history.

Through the creation of the world’s largest Islamic heritage museum and intention to double the number of sites registered by UNESCO, the Kingdom aims to fortify its place among leading nations in cultural preservation and education.

http://www.arabianow.org/archaeolog...al&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

TRAVEL TOP FIVE

In Saudi Arabia, Jewish sites with ancient resonance beckon

For now, Israelis are not allowed into the kingdom, and Jews are at best grudgingly admitted. But with ties just possibly warming, a Jewish history dating back millennia might soon be more accessible

BY JESSICA STEINBERG August 4, 2016, 12:53 am


Saudi Arabia is not high on the list of Jewish travel destinations.

There has been no organized Jewish activity in the country for 70 years. Even though a Saudi delegation visited Israel last month, anyone with an Israeli passport is banned from entering the country, as the two countries don’t have diplomatic relations. As of 2014, Jews are now apparently, unofficially, allowed to work there, though not to hold prayer services.

Yet 3,000 years ago, around the time of the First Temple, there was a strong, vibrant Jewish community in the area of what is today Saudi Arabia.

And in the sixth and seventh centuries, there was a considerable Jewish population in Hejaz, mostly around Medina, Khaybar and Tayma. Hejaz makes up most of the western part of modern-day Saudi Arabia and is centered on the two holiest Muslim cities, Mecca and Medina.

The medieval Jewish traveler, Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela in Spain, during an 1165-1173 trek to the Holy Land, made his way to the far-flung Jewish communities that are now in the geographic area of Saudi Arabia.

He cataloged his trip, describing the places he visited and the people he met and providing a demographic rundown of Jews in every town and country. Tayma and Khaybar, where he visited, are two oases that became populated communities because they were along a key land route between the Red Sea coast of the Arabian Peninsula and the Nile Valley.


Former Saudi general Dr. Anwar Eshki (center, in striped tie) and other members of his delegation, meeting with Israeli Knesset members and others during a visit to Israel on July 22, 2016 (via twitter)

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Benjamin of Tudela in the Sahara , in the 12th century, as shown in an engraving by Dumouza (Wikimedia Commons)

Historical sites pertaining to the ancient Jewish experience still exist. With the Saudis just possibly warming their ties to Israel — ex-Saudi general Anwar Eshki, who led the recent delegation to Israel, also met publicly in the US last year with Foreign Ministry chief Dore Gold — the day may be drawing near when these locales will be more accessible.

These are five top Jewish spots in Saudi Arabia, to savor online for now, and just maybe up close in the near future:

1) Khaybar is situated in a valley with natural wells that have irrigated the area since ancient times, aiding in the growth of dates known throughout the country. The oasis made Khaybar a regular stop along the incense trade route from Yemen to the Levant, which is why it was the home of the Jewish community at the time. Visitors can also stop at the Jewish cemetery, a 1,400-year-old graveyard without any headstones but known locally for its Jewish history.

2) There’s also the Khaybar Fortress, perched on a hill overlooking the oasis, which is at least 1,400 years old. The earliest accounts of its construction date from the Battle of Khaybar, when the Prophet Mohammed and his army invaded and conquered Khaybar. It was Mohammed’s nephew and son-in-law, Ali, who was able to unlock the gate of the fortress to allow the Muslim armies to finally conquer the fortress. It was rebuilt and reused several times, but is still usually referred to it as the Fortress of the Jews.

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Khaybar fortress (Wikimedia Commons)

3) The Palace of the Jewish Tribe’s Head is also located in Khaybar, and was the home of the Jewish tribe of Marhab. The tribe was known to be wealthy from dealing in gold and jewelry, and the palace it lived in is above the town, about a ten-minute climb from the center.

4) In Tayma, which was often referred to as a fortified city belonging to the Jews, most travelers stop at the Al-Naslaa Rock Formation, located in the Tayma oasis. It’s considered to have one of the most photogenic petroglyphs, or rock art, depicting the life and times of ancient communities. Al-Naslaa is also known for the perfect, natural slit between the two standing stones. Experts say the cause of this perfect slit could be the ground having shifted slightly underneath one of the two supports.

5) At the center of Tayma is Bir Haddaj, a large well considered to be about 2,500 years old, dating back at least to the middle of the sixth century BCE. It wasn’t in use until the 1950s, when it was repaired and later restored to its previous appearance.


The well is mentioned in the Book of Isaiah as the place where the descendants of Ishmael’s son, Tema, lived: “Unto him that is thirsty bring ye water! The inhabitants of the land of Tema did meet the fugitive with his bread.”

There are also the famous Tayma stones inscribed in Aramaic that are now in the Louvre Museum. Thousands of other Aramaic inscriptions that have been found in the area are stored in the city’s museum.


The Tayma Stone, a stele with Aramaic inscription. Now in the Louvre (Jastrow / Wikipedia)

http://www.timesofisrael.com/in-saudi-arabia-jewish-sites-with-ancient-resonance-beckon/
 
The historical region of Najd in KSA is home to one of the oldest civilizations (Al-Magar from the Neolithic period - 7000 BC) and is a possible/likely source of the domestication of horses and other animals as well:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Magar

https://www.scta.gov.sa/en/antiquities-museums/archeologicaldiscovery/pages/Al-Magar.aspx

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When Mutlaq ibn Gublan decided to dig a birka (pond) to keep his camels watered, he arranged for a backhoe and drums of diesel fuel to be driven from the road to the site on his ancestral grazing lands in southwest Saudi Arabia. The spot he had chosen, amid finger-like valleys that cut through low sandstone hills, was near traces of an ancient waterfall, which hinted that, in millennia past, nature itself supplied more than a mere birka.

His pond was never completed. As he supervised the excavation, he says, "I spotted a smooth, shaped stone sticking out of the ground. I recognized it was an old and important object." He could tell at once it was a statue of an animal. It was buried upright, head toward the surface, he says. "I paid off the operator and told him to follow his tracks back to the road."

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SAUDI COMMISSION FOR TOURISM AND ANTIQUITIES

Above and top: The largest, and to date the most significant, of more than 300 artifacts found so far at al-Magar is a sculpture fragment whose head, muzzle, nostrils, arched neck, shoulder, withers and overall proportions resemble those of a horse, though it may represent an ***, an onager or a hybrid. Eighty-six centimeters (34") long, 18 centimeters (7") thick and weighing more than 135 kilograms (300 lbs), it is provisionally dated to about 7000 bce.
Over the next few years, Ibn Gublan unearthed some 300 objects there. Though none was as large as the first, his finds included a small stone menagerie: ostrich, sheep and goats; what may be fish and birds; a cow-like bovid (Bovidae); and an elegant canine profile that resembles one of the oldest known domesticated breeds, the desert saluki. In addition, he found mortars and pestles, grain grinders, a soapstone pot ornamented with looping and hatched geometric motifs, weights likely used in weaving and stone tools that may have been used in leather processing, as well as scrapers, arrowheads and blades—including an exquisitely decorated stone knife in the unmistakable curved design of the traditional Arabian dagger.

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"I recognized it was an old and important object," says Mutlaq ibn Gublan, who canceled excavation of his camel-watering pond when the excavator's backhoe struck the Neolithic sculpture. "I am happy that in the footsteps of my grandfather and his long line of ancestors I have found something from the heart of Arabia that goes deep into our history and helps connect us with the past."
Two years ago, he loaded it all up in his Jeep, drove it to Riyadh and donated it to the Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities (scta).

"When I first saw the pieces, I just could not believe it. It was, how can I say, incroyable," recalls Ali al-Ghabban, head of antiquities at the scta, his French-accented English giving away his years at the University of Provence. "This is Neolithic material," he states, from "a sophisticated society possessing a high level of art and craftsmanship that we have not previously seen." Al-Ghabban had a laboratory run a radiocarbon analysis on trace organic remains found later alongside some of the objects. That dated the material to between 6590 and 7250 bce, he says.

The discovery has been named "the al-Magar civilization" after its location, a name that means "gathering place" or "headquarters" in a tribal context. It is the carvings of animals—far more numerous, and some larger, than anything previously found in the western Arabian Peninsula—that are the most intriguing. Among them, the largest, the one that prompted Ibn Gublan to stop the backhoe, has sparked the most curiosity of all.

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Eighty-six centimeters (34") long, 18 centimeters (7") thick and weighing more than 135 kilograms (300 lbs), the carving has a rounded head, arched neck, muzzle, nostrils, shoulder, withers and overall proportions that clearly resemble an equid—a horse, an ***, an onager or some hybrid. But what makes it so very curious are its two distinctive tooled markings—one in relief from the shoulder down toward the forefoot, and the other carefully, even delicately, incised around the muzzle. The question fairly leaps out: Were the people who inhabited al-Magar putting early forms of bridles on such animals? If so, they were doing it millennia before experts believe it was done elsewhere.

The discovery at al-Magar and the electrifying question it raises come as Saudi Arabia experiences a resurgent pride not only in its archeological heritage but also, particularly, in the legacy and culture of the desert-bred Arabian horse. The discovery also coincides with recent advances in analytical technologies that can help address important questions: When and where did humans begin to move from hunting wild horses (Equus ferus) for food, bone, hide and hair toward the capture, taming and exploitation of horses for meat, milk and transport—a process that gave rise to the subspecies (Equus ferus caballus) that is today's domesticated horse? This pivotal historic development revolutionized transport and trade, allowed people to connect over much larger distances, speeded migrations and changed conquest and warfare. Yet despite more than a century of archeology and the latest in genetic technology, it remains an open question exactly when, where and how domestication occurred. The discovery at al-Magar shows again just how very open a question it is.


When Ibn Gublan removes from a document case a sheaf of neatly clipped and plastic-protected press clippings, in both Arabic and English, and fans them out in the tented majlis(salon) of his brother's home, it is the picture of the banded and incised equid-like statue that takes pride of place. In a scholarly manner, he adjusts his thick-rimmed glasses and peers at a photograph of Saudi King Abdullah bin 'Abd al-'Aziz examining the objects last year, when the discovery was announced and the finds were first displayed to dignitaries and high government officials.

With mint tea brewing on the hearth and Arab coffee deftly served by his young nephew Saud, attention turns to this prize statue. It is the centerpiece of a new archeological discussion, and its initial interpretation is as challenging and contentious as it is intriguing.

A wet epoch in Arabia, starting after the last Ice Age, about 10,000 years ago, and enduring for about 5000 years, allowed widely varied flora and fauna to flourish. Evidence of this is abundant in rock art throughout the western Arabian Peninsula, where depictions of various equids appear along with other species, such as cheetah, hippo, hyena and giraffe, which disappeared as the climate dried to desert. How and when the horse appeared is a matter of both emerging science and Saudi cultural pride—this latter evidenced not only by today's pride in Arabian horses, but also by the rich legacy of poetry and legend, going back deep into pre-Islamic times, that surround and celebrate the desert-bred Arabian horse.

The sculptures from al-Magar "might be" equids, says David Anthony, author of The Horse, The Wheel, and Language and a leading authority on the domestication of the horse. "The local equid in southern Mesopotamia was the onager, and another was the ***, introduced probably from Egypt. No Equus caballus specimens have been found, to my knowledge, anywhere near Saudi Arabia before 1800 bce." For anything conclusive, he continues, "there need to be finds of definite Equus ferus caballus bones in a good stratified context dated by radiocarbon."

In March 2010, the scta flew Saudi and international archeologists and pre-historians to al-Magar for a brief daytime survey. The team fanned out and, in a few hours, collected more stone objects, including tools and another horse-like statue. They also sifted out four samples of burned bone, which were later used for radiocarbon dating of the site. The date, about 9000 years before the present, coincides with the period when the inhabitants of the first known settlements in Arabia and the Levant, already starting to cultivate crops, were also beginning to domesticate animals.

With the area now monitored to prevent illicit digging, the scta is preparing for detailed surveys and excavations expected to take years. "This impressive discovery reflects the importance of the site as a cultural center and could possibly be the birthplace of an advanced prehistoric civilization that witnessed domestication of animals for the first time during the Neolithic period," says al-Ghabban. "We now need to know more."


"All current evidence points to the Eurasian steppe, and probably not much earlier than around 4000 bce," as the place and time the horse was first domesticated, says zooarcheologist Sandra Olsen, head of anthropology and director of the Center for World Cultures at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. Olsen has studied the roles of horses in human cultures since 1975 and pioneered research on horse domestication. She and her colleagues have documented the oldest evidence for domestic horses known to date: It comes from about 3500 bce, in northern Kazakhstan.

In 2010 and 2011, Olsen joined Majid Khan, a specialist on Arabian rock art, in Saudi Arabia for a kingdom-wide survey of known rock art that shows equids—and a quest for new finds. Khan has spent the last three decades investigating Saudi petroglyphs, and he estimates there are more than 1000 that portray equids as hunted, ridden or draft animals. He believes the earliest among them date back into the Neolithic era—though assigning accurate dates is notoriously challenging.

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Al-Magar lies amid the low hills and sandy valleys of southwestern Saudi Arabia, which until 4000 or 5000 years ago was as verdant as African savannah today.
Given the limitations of the archeological record, how can archeologists make progress in identifying where and when the long process of domestication actually began? Olsen describes her team's approach as "holistic," or simply, "piecing together as much evidence as possible, whether direct or more circumstantial." In the steppes of Asia, she adds, "we also take an 'upside-down' approach: If the prehistoric horse bones are difficult to decipher, then why not look at the settlement and at traces of the human lifestyle for evidence that they were affected by horse domestication?"

According to al-Ghabban, it is just such a multidisciplinary approach that will be applied at al-Magar, where specialists will include zooarcheologists, geoarcheologists, archeobotanists, paleoclimatologists, petrologists, paleontologists, authorities on the domestication of flora and fauna, and archeogeneticists, who will likely be enlisted to use relatively new mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) analysis. What makes mtDNA analysis particularly useful is that—unlike nuclear DNA—mtDNA resides outside a cell's nucleus, which means it is inherited exclusively through the maternal line, unshuffled from generation to generation. MtDNA studies comparing a range of domestic horse breeds reveal high diversity among maternal lines, or matrilines. This diversity, Olsen says, supports the theory that horse domestication took place in a number of different places at different times. "There was no one ancestral mare that was the 'Eve' of all domestic horses," she says.

Supporting this view is a study published in January in the journal of the us National Academy of Sciences that examines the rate of mutation of equine mtdna. It not only concludes that communities in both Asia and Europe domesticated horses independently, but also suggests how far back in time domestication events may have taken place. Alessandro Achilli, assistant professor of genetics in the Department of Cellular and Environmental Biology at the University of Perugia in Italy, collected maternally inherited mitochondrial genomes from living horses in Asia, Europe, the Middle East and the Americas. Because mtDNA mutation occurs at a known rate, these samples allowed him to trace maternal ancestry using a kind of "molecular clock."

NATUREFOLIO / ALAMY; BLICKWINKEL / ALAMY; DANIEL PICKERING
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Equid species known to Neolithic humans in Africa and Asia included the African wild ***, Equus africanus somalicus, above; the onager, Equus hemionus onager, right; and the early wild horse, Equus ferus, opposite, from which today's domestic horse species are descended.
His team identified maternal lines descending unambiguously from different female ancestors. "This means that multiple female horse lines were domesticated throughout the Neolithic period—during the last 10,000 years—in multiple locations of Eurasia, possibly including western Europe," says Achilli. "The very fact that many wild mares were independently domesticated in different places testifies to how significant horses have been to humankind. Taming these animals could generate the food surplus necessary to support the growth of human populations and the human capability to expand and adapt to new environments, or could facilitate transportation." Achilli adds that "unfortunately, we have no idea about the exact location of the domestication events," a question that only archeological dna sampling can answer.

Olsen, though inclined to agree, cautions against accepting this as any kind of last word. She argues that humans and wild animals, as well as horses, all have different maternal lines. "I think that these multiple matrilines are the result of ancient horse herders occasionally catching and adding wild mares to their breeding populations," she says. And, she adds, in the other direction, "domesticated mares can be 'stolen' by wild stallions and incorporated into their harems."


However it took place, the generally accepted scenario of multiple, separate domestication events does open the tantalizing possibility that the Arabian Peninsula had its own horse-domestication event, and the Peninsula's last wet climatic period would seem like an ideal epoch for that to have occurred, if indeed it did. While Arabian domestication implies that there would have been wild horses roaming a then-verdant, savannah-like landscape, Olsen believes that picture is not supported by the petroglyphs she has seen in the country, nor by any skeletal remains, which have yet to be found. Although she accepts that wild asses or onagers are shown being hunted in Neolithic Saudi petroglyphs, she contends that the earliest horses she has seen on the Peninsula are those depicted with chariots, and those, she says, are "no older than at the most 2000 bce." That shows "why I believe it is imperative to distinguish between wild asses and hemiones [onagers] versus horses."

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Unambiguously domesticated horses appear in petroglyphs dating back to the second or late third millennium bce. The mounted hunter, above left, and the two-horse chariot, above right, are both from northwestern Saudi Arabia. The chariot of similar appearance, below lef, was drawn in southern Libya.
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LARS BJURSTROM / SAWDIA; RICHARD T. BRYANT; ROBERTO ESPOSTI / ALAMY; BRIDGEMAN ART LIBRARY

As in all detective work, one of the great dangers is flawed evidence. Nearly half a century ago in the Ukraine, a Soviet archeologist uncovered the skull and lower leg bones of a young stallion at Dereivka, near the banks of the Dnieper River. Radiocarbon analysis dated the find at 4200 to 3700 bce, and the stallion's premolars showed signs of wear by a bit. Soviet archeologists confidently pronounced that the site was evidence of horse domestication. But the find's importance collapsed when more detailed radiocarbon dating showed that the remains were what archeologists call "an intrusive deposit" placed there by Iron Age Scythians in the first millennium bce.

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This simple, even crude, petroglyph near al-Magar may show a mounted rider.

Subsequently, studies have looked not only for evidence of horses being ridden but also for evidence of their being herded. Attention shifted east, over the Ural Mountains, to the northern marches of Kazakhstan, where in the 1980's, near a small village called Botai, Viktor Zaibert of Kokshetau University unearthed horse bones—300,000 of them.

Zaibert, collaborating with American and British archeologists, found traces of bit wear on lower-jaw teeth, revealing that around 3500 bce some Botai horses were indeed probably harnessed, either for draft purposes or for riding, or both.

Olsen was among Zaibert's collaborators, and she identified in Botai traces of corrals and of roofing material that contained horse manure, as well as signs of ceremonial sacrifices. She also found tools used to make leather straps that may have served as bridles or hobbles. This is parallel to some of the stone tools found at al-Magar, which also point to the likelihood of leather or fiber processing, which could be associated with items of horse tack. But however significant indirect evidence may be, one of the lessons from Botai is that if al-Magar is to inform us, then it is not only reliable taxonomy of the statuary, or interpretation of artifacts, that is required, but also organic remains.

Wild, Tame or Domesticated?

Of the planet's roughly 5500 mammal species, only one, Homo sapiens, over the last 15,000 years or so has selected and controlled the breeding of other species for food, transport, worship, companionship and other purposes. Exactly how many species have been so controlled depends on the definition of "domestication," a word derived from the Latin domus, meaning home.

"What domestication is not," says Alan Outram, "is taming wild animals." For example, he says, although reindeer are hunted and herded for meat and are used to pull sleds, attempts to manage their breeding for specific desirable traits has so far been unsuccessful. That makes them "tame" rather than "domesticated," he maintains.

Dogs, our first successful domestication, are a dramatically different story. Current theory places the process in Russia, possibly as far back as the Upper Paleolithic. The hypothesis is that some feeble gray wolf pups, runts ejected from the pack, gravitated toward humans for survival. As subordinate creatures that could help a hunter retrieve wounded prey, they earned their adoption, and Canis lupus familiaris evolved.

At the other end of the time line is the horse, which is our penultimate major domestication. (Bactrian and dromedary camels followed around 3000 bce.)

Only 14 species account for more than 90 percent of the world's domesticated livestock. By controlled breeding, humans have developed some 4000 varieties from only nine of those species: In order of their domestication, they are sheep, goat, pig, cattle, chicken, ***, horse, buffalo and duck. Horses account for some 300 of those breeds.

And what is the most common of all the domestic animals? The answer is the chicken—population 19 billion—followed by cattle at 1.4 billion and dogs at 500 million. Horses? There are about 65 million in the world today.

It was Alan Outram, a professor of archeological science at Exeter University, who found fat residues absorbed in Botai pottery that were later determined to be from milk rather than meat. The overwhelming proliferation of horse bones on the site logically suggested mare's milk, which to this day remains a popular traditional drink throughout Central Asia. The thousands of horse bones, found in 150 house pits, show these horses were slender, like later Bronze Age domestic horses, distinct from the more robust wild horses that once roamed the Eurasian lands from the steppe to Iberia. Nevertheless, "in our science it is very difficult to determine whether the horse was domesticated or not. The answer to this question is based on a complex study of all contexts of the material culture," says Zaibert.

Olsen homes in on the bones: "Hunters abandon heavy bones of low utility at faraway kill sites, whereas herders slaughter domestic animals in or near their village. In the latter case, all of the bones of the skeleton are found at the home site, and that is exactly what appears at the Botai sites." Soil analysis in enclosures at one Botai site identified high levels of phosphate and sodium, indicating that manure and urine were present inside what were likely corrals, and Olsen has found signs of postholes around some, reinforcing the idea that at Botai, people corralled some of their horses. These enclosures, as well as houses set in circles and rows, all point toward a kind of social organization that could lend itself to horse domestication.

Just as Botai included developed settlements, the discovery at al-Magar includes traces of stone structures. Abdullah al-Sharekh, an archeologist at King Sa'ud University, was among the first experts on the site. He was impressed with the large number of scattered stone structural remains connected with settlement and with signs of agricultural activity that he saw around the site, as well as along the tops of surrounding hills, including walls erected along the slopes. The buried statues were all found within the remains of a building. "Nothing this size has been found in Arabia before, and the stratigraphic evidence will make this perhaps the most significant site in Saudi Arabia," says al-Sharekh. "In a regional context, a find of such variety must have significance. It can tell us about social aspects and the culture of the people who lived here, domestication, trade and migration, and perhaps any early ritualistic importance," he says, adding that "a pause is needed before we can make judgments."

Also present on the scta's initial survey team was Michael Petraglia, a specialist in Paleolithic archeology and stone-tool technologies of the Arabian Peninsula. He quickly found at al-Magar a far older historical horizon. Adjacent to the Neolithic finds, he found flaked stone tools, such as scrapers, that he estimates exceed 50,000 years in age. Al-Magar "was an attractive environment for human activity over multiple periods," he says. "This is very important not only for the more recent site, but also for what it can tell us about past climatic fluctuations between dry and humid periods."


It also makes al-Magar all the more intriguing as a possible site of early horse domestication. The equid-like sculpture's prominent bas-relief band, which could represent a halter, is not unique: Other, smaller, equid-like statues from the site also have bands across the shoulder. There is also on this largest piece the incision around the muzzle to the middle of the upper jaw, which resembles a noseband. Do these features portray tack, or do they represent natural aspects of the animal itself, such as musculature or coat markings? (The question has been posed before: In the 1980's, analysts of Paleolithic paintings in French caves advanced claims that certain markings on horses indicated halters and consequently suggested that domestication in Europe dated back as far as 25,000 years. World authorities, including Olsen, debunked this by showing that the markings portrayed body features and hair patterns, not halters.)

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Alan Outram hopes for the chance to examine horse teeth that may be found at al-Magar to see if they would show characteristic effects of wear caused by leather bits.
Before the use of metals, halters, reins and other tack were made entirely from natural materials, and among the al-Magar finds are stone implements that may have been used to produce long strips of leather from the hides of sheep, goats or equids. Al-Ghabban is particularly intrigued by a semi-spherical black stone with a deeply cut, rounded cleft worn smooth. Curious lines are scored on either side of the gap. "We have not seen anything like this before, and we need to carefully study this piece and what it tells us about processing leather and making rope and cord," he says.

Outram explains its potential significance. "As a culture develops away from hunting and gathering and toward such activities as horse herding, the tool kit people use changes. We find more scrapers than pointed projectiles, as well as entirely new processing tools," he says, pointing to such similar tools at Botai sites as leather thong smoothers carved from horse jawbones. Outram has conducted laboratory simulations using tools recreated from horse mandibles, processing thongs that could have been used as tack or tethers.

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JOSHUA FRANZOS
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Sandra Olsen, top, has found the oldest firm evidence for domestic horses known to date, circa 3500 bce, at Botai in northern Kazakhstan, where organic remains at house sites, above, help patches of vegetation grow thicker and greener.
Tack made from organic materials rarely survives in the archeological record, and thus stone tools, petroglyphs and equine dental wear must provide the evidence of pre-metal-age bits on equids. To establish whether soft bits leave dental wear patterns, and what those might look like, David Anthony pioneered experiments with bits made from leather, hemp and horsehair rope, which he kept in place with cheek pieces made with flint tools. Comparing before-and-after equine dental mouldings, he found that the organic bits created beveled wear that indeed differs from the abrasion patterns known from metal bits.

"The date when Equus caballus was introduced into northern and eastern Arabia has been debated since the 19th century," says Michael Macdonald, a research associate at the Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Oxford. Writing 15 years ago on the horse in pre-Islamic Arabia, he explains that controversy is to be expected until considerably more research is carried out. "It will be many years before a coherent picture emerges," he says.

But there is no controversy that al-Magar constitutes a significant discovery. To Khan, it represents the earliest known Neolithic settlement in the Arabian Peninsula and provides "solid and undeniable evidence of the presence and domestication of horses in Arabia." He backs up his claim not only with the statuary but also with the discovery, within a few minutes' walk of the site, of petroglyphs showing ostriches, dogs and ibex. One image, deeply pecked into the rock and with a heavy patina of oxides built up over millennia, hints at a figure mounted on an animal. Khan is convinced it portrays a rider and a horse, and he considers it Neolithic, contemporary with the oldest rock art he has studied so thoroughly at Jubbah, near Hail in northern Saudi Arabia.

Others remain cautious. Juris Zarins, chief archeologist of the expedition that in 1992 discovered the "lost" city of 'Ubar, and who worked in the early days of archeology in Saudi Arabia in the 1970's, says that he is "not surprised" at the finds because al-Magar belongs to a region that is "an archeological hotbed," and that it is "not out of the realm of possibility" that the markings could be the first hints of domestication. "There has not been enough exploration carried out in Arabia," he says, "and new discoveries like this could change things." Whatever the species the sculptures represent, he agrees the nose marking in particular could be significant. "In Arabia in the Neolithic period, we have tethering stones, which archeologists say represent the first attempts at domestication. I think it is Equus asinus [African wild ***]. They may have been trying to do something with it, based on the head. The earliest suggested Equus asinus domestication in the Levant is generally regarded as 3500 bce. If so, this could mark the start of a much longer-than-expected domestication process."

Olsen argues for careful study. The upstanding band could, she says, represent natural features of the animal, or it might even be a tang for attaching the carving to a wall. "And where's the mane?" she asks, elaborating that she would expect equid statuary to show the feature, whether upright as on wild horses or floppy like those on domesticated ones. "What is clearly needed now," she suggests, "is a detailed and expert anatomical analysis of all of the animal heads in order to assess their taxonomic identification."

Beyond this, the discovery of al-Magar, she says, "is extremely important in shedding light on an apparently new culture that existed at a sophisticated level in a local region previously not known for this."

Mutlaq ibn Gublan draws on a lifetime spent with domesticated herds, including, of course, camels. He sips his coffee and says, "When I saw the piece, and the large marking on it, I first thought it was an ox. But then its face told me this is a horse. I am happy that in the footsteps of my grandfather and his long line of ancestors I have found something from the heart of Arabia that goes deep into our history and helps connect us with the past." Just what that thing is will, for now, remain a mystery.

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Peter Harrigan (harrigan@fastmail.fm), a frequent contributor to this magazine, is a visiting researcher at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies at Exeter University and commissioning editor of four books on Arabian horses. He lives on the Isle of Wight.
This article appeared on pages 2-9 of the print edition of Saudi Aramco World.


Check the Public Affairs Digital Image Archive for May/June 2012 images.

http://archive.aramcoworld.com/issue/201203/discovery.at.al-magar.htm
 
World's Oldest "Standing" Church is in Saudi Arabia - 4th Century Assyrian Church with PICS.

G'day ATS,

When I was about six years old, my family moved to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. One of my first memories of living there is being woken early in the morning by loud wailing. Little did I know that this was the call to morning prayers. My sister and I were actually freaked out and she had to be comforted by my parents (being only four), I will always remember that experience.

Saudi Arabia is Muslim to the core.

It is the birthplace of the religion and home to the two holiest places in Islam (Mecca &Medina)

But the Saudis have a "dirty" little secret.

It is one of those amazing stories, a chance discovery, a government trying to cover it up to save face.

But I've found some links and information and I can bring it to you now ATS!

For a background I'll quote Wikipedia, the information is highly innadequate, but the lack of the quality and quantity of information released in the public domain will tell how sensitive a subject this is for the Saudis.

The Jubail Church

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Jubail Church is the oldest still remaining church in the world, located in Jubail, Saudi Arabia. It dates to the 4th century. It was discovered in 1986. The government hides it from locals and bans foreigners from visiting it, even archaeologists. It is an ancient Assyrian church possibly of the Nabatean culture.

That's it, all they have. But after some digging, and I must admit the sources are obscure, I can bring you more details and pics of the World's Oldest Remaining Church, in the Kingdom Of Saudi Arabia no less!

The Church of Jubail


In 1986, people on a desert picnic discovered the ruins of a church near the city of Jubail, Saudi Arabia, while digging one of their trucks out of the sand. The church is believed to have been built prior to A.D. 400, making it older than most churches in Europe. It was likely associated with one of five bishoprics existing on the shores of the Arabian Sea during the term of Nestorius, Patriarch of Constantinople and founder of the heresy that bears his name.

Anyone familiar with contemporary Latin and Eastern Rite Catholic church buildings will recognize the basic design. The foundation marks for roof support columns in the main room easily identify it as the nave of a church. Probably, the roof was a thatch of palm branches supported by risers and crossbeams about a foot above the walls for sunlight and ventilation. The congregation would have entered through the main doorway at the west side of the nave and assembled, women standing to the right and men to the left, facing east toward the sanctuary (the middle of the three smaller chambers") where the altar would have been.

At the doorways to the sacristy, sanctuary, chapel, and the main entrance, stone crosses were attached to the wall. These four crosses, in place during the early excavation, disappeared in late 1986 or early 1987. Over the years since the discovery, the desert has erased even the marks left when the crosses were removed.

The last part is not surprising, I believe this is an intentional plan to leave the Church at the Mercy of the Desert Winds:

4th Century Assyrian Church in Saudi Arabia (Assyrian International News Agency)


The ruins are known as the Jubail Church and are acknowledged by the Saudi government, who will not issue permits to visit it because 'the site is being excavated.'

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In any case, the original ruins contained four stone crosses, which later went missing, though the marks where the crosses were are still visible. The ruins are thought to date from the 4th century, which make them older than any known church in Europe. Not much else is known but speculation is that it was in some way connected to one of the five Assyrian Church of the East bishoprics which are known to have existed in this area of the Gulf in the 4th century.

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The photographs were taken by Robert and Patricia McWhorter during 1986 shortly after the ruins were partially excavated and protected by the Saudi Department of Antiquities.

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I went to the Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities and searched for Church of Jubail, guess what?

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It goes without saying that there were no results for that (as well as just "Church"), nor for the same search on the World Heritage Site either.

The oldest standing Church in the World not mentioned by either the Saudi Commission for Antiquities nor the World Heritage Site.

I find that very odd!

Note in the pictures the barbed wire fence, obviously to "Protect" the building, more likely to stop interested parties finding out that Saudi Arabia had one of the World's first Churches, and also that the current Oldest Standing Church n the World can still be found in this strictly Muslim country.

All the best ATS, Kiwifoot!

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread533512/pg1

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jubail_Church




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashtiname_of_Muhammad

Christian community of Najran

The existence of a Christian community in Najran is attested by several historical sources of the Arabian peninsula, where it recorded as having been created in the 5th century CE or perhaps a century earlier. According to the Arab Muslim historian, Ibn Ishaq, Najran was the first place where Christianity took root in South Arabia.
Contents
1Prior to Christianity












Prior to Christianity
Prior to the rise of Christianity, the people of Najran were polytheists and worshipped a tall date-palm tree, for which also they had an annual festival when they hung upon it the finest garments they could find, and female ornaments. Then they would come and dance around it the whole day. During this period, they had a Chief named Abdullah ibn ath-Thamir who became the first Najranite to embrace Christianity. A pious Christian builder and bricklayer named Phemion settled among them and led them to his religion and its religious laws, which they adopted.

Economic, political and religious center
Before the advent of Islam, it appears from indications in the Qur'an it would appear that the Jews to the West of the Himyarite kingdom, in western Arabia, maintained some form of rabbinical organisation, possibly connected to late antique Judaism, and were not wholly cut off from their brethren elsewhere in the Middle East.[1] On source speaks of rabbis from Tiberias itself enjoying the hospitality of Dhu Nuwas's court.[2] The apparent conversion of local Himyarite rulers to Judaism, or some form of a Judaic monotheism,[2] as early as the late fourth century under the Tabbāi'a dynasty,[2] is indirect evidence that suggests appear to have been effective Jewish proselytization was active in the region.[1]

The Christians of Najran were divided into two sects. One drew on a variety of Nestorianism[citation needed], which a local merchant had acquired during a sojourn in al-Hira, and took back to Najran sometime during the reign of the Sassanid ruler Yazdegerd II. The other was a form of anti-Chalcedonianism.[3] had suffered an earlier, but brief, stint of persecution with the advent of the new dynasty under the Himyarite ruler Shurihbi'īl Yakkuf (c.468-480).[2] The Jewish faith had strong roots within the Himyarite kingdom when Dhu Nuwas rose to power, and not only in Zafar but Najran also, it seems that several synagogues had been built.[2]

Najran was an oasis, with a large population of Christian Arabs, and a significant community of Jews,[4] unlike most Ṣayhadic people of that zone, had only come under the authority of the Himyarite kingdom in the early fifth century, more or less around the time that a local merchant, one Hayyān by name, had visited Constantinople and underwent conversion at al-Hīra, near Mecca, during a later journey. On his return to his native town, he began to proseyltise on behalf of the new religion.[2]

and the seat of a Bishopric (?). It sheltered an oligarchy of Christian merchants which were as rich as any in Edessa or Alexandria (?). It had been an important stop on the spice route from Hadhramaut. Najran had been an important centre of Christianity in South Arabia and the focus of international intrigues in which economics, politics, and religion were all entangled.

Persecution of Christians
Commercial reasons probably induced Christians to explore the possibilities in the area at an early period but the first attested Christian mission dates to that of Theophilos the Indian, a Christian of the Arian persuasion, who was active during the reign of Constantius II, and who was reported to have converted the Himyarites around 354/5.[5]

In the first quarter of the 6th century, a variety of records refer to a tragic episode in which a local king, Yusuf As'ar Dhu Nuwas, who had converted to Judaism and subjected the local Christian community to persecution, reportedly in retribution for the burning of a synagogue.[1] The events comprised episodes involving a massacre of Ethiopians in a Yemen garrison, the destruction of churches, punitive expeditions in a number of regions, and attempts to constrain communities to undergo conversion to Judaism. The most celebrated episode concerns the martyrdom of the Christian denizens in the great oasis of Najrān, culminating in the execution of Arethas,[6] an incident alluded to in the Qur'an, in Sura 85:4-8, where however the Christians are described as Believers martyred for their faith[7] These circumstances have a geopolitical dimension as well, in that there are indications that these Jewish communities had connections with the Iranian Sassanid kingdom, while the Christians, though Monophysites, were linked to Byzantine interests.[1]

After coming to the throne through a coup d'état, Dhu Nuwas launched a campaign which swept away an Aksumite garrison in Zafar, where a church was put to the torch, and then invaded the Tihāma coastal lowlands where a partially Christianized population dwelt, and where he took over key centres as far as the Bab el-Mandeb.He sent one of his generals, a Jewish prince, north to Najran in order to impose an economic blockade on the oasis by cutting off the trade route to Qaryat al-Faw in eastern Arabia.[8] The Christians of Najran were massacred in 524 by the Himyarite king, Yusuf As'ar Dhu Nuwas. The Najranite Christians, like other Southern Arabian Christian communities, had close connections with the ecclesiastical authorities in Byzantium and Abyssinia. They were identified by virtue of their religion as "pro-Axumite" and "pro-Byzantine".[citation needed]

Dhu Nuwas hoped to create, in the rich lands of Southern Arabia, a "Davidic" kingship which was independent of the Christian powers. He also considered Najran to be a Byzantine base that controlled the Red Sea trade route and did harm to the economic situation of Himyar.[citation needed]

When Dhu Nuwas invaded, he called upon its people to abandon Christianity and embrace Judaism. When they refused, he had them thrown into burning ditches alive. Estimates of the death toll from this event range up to 20,000 in some sources.[who?] Some sources[who?] say that Dus Dhu Tha'laban from the Saba tribe was the only man able to escape the massacre of Najran, who fled to Constantinople to seek help and promptly reported everything. This brought about the wrath of emperor of Byzantium, Justin I who, as protector of Christianity encouraged his ally, the Abyssinian king Ella-Asbeha of Aksum, to invade the country, kill Dhu-Nuwas, and annex Himyar in 525.[citation needed]

Book of Himyarites
However, according to the "Book of Himyarites", the instigation to action was not caused by a request from Constantinople but, more plausibly, the arrival at the court of the Abyssinian king of a refugee from Najran by the name of Umayya. Later, an army of 7,000 men led by Abraha al-Ashram, the Christian viceroy of the Negus of Abyssinia defeated Dhu Nuwas's forces and restored Christian rule in Najran.

In his 524 C.E letter describing the Najran persecutions in detail, the West-Syrian debater Simeon, the bishop of Beth Arsham describes how female martyrs rushed in to join "our parents and brothers and sisters who have died for the sake of Christ our lord".

In one exchange, reminiscent of the Acts of Marta and her father Pusai, a freeborn woman of Najran named Habsa bint Hayyan taunts Dhu Nuwas with the memory of her father:[9]

Habsa told him, "I am the daughter of Hayyan, of the family of Hayyan, the teacher by whose hand our lord sowed Christianity in this land. My father is Hayyan who once burned your synagogues". Masruq the Crucifier (Dhu Nuwas), said to her, "So, you have the same ideas as your father? I suppose you too would be ready to burn our synagogues just as your father did." Habsa told him, "No! I am not going to burn it down because i am prepared to follow quickly this path of martyrdom in the footsteps of my brothers in Christ. But we have confidence in the justice of Jesus Christ our Lord and our God, that he will swiftly bring an end to your rule and make it disappear from amongst mankind: he will bring low your pride and your life, and he will uproot your synagogues from our lands, and build there holy churches. Christianity will increase and rule here, through the grace of our Lord and through the prayers of our parents and brothers and sisters who have died for the sake of Christ our Lord. Whereas you and all who belong to your people will become a byword that will cause future generations to wonder, because of all that you, a godless and merciless man, have wrought upon the holy churches and upon those who worship Christ God."

Letter of Simeon of Beth Arsham
Simeon of Beth Arsham's Second letter preserves yet another memorably gruesome episode. After seeing her Christian kinsmen burned alive, Ruhm, a great noblewoman of Najran, brings her daughter before the Himyarite king and instructs him: "Cut off our heads, so that we may go join our brothers and my daughter's father." The executioners comply, slaughtering her daughter and granddaughter before Ruhm's eyes and forcing her to drink her blood. The king then asks, "How does your daughter's blood taste to you?" The martyr replies, "Like a pure spotless offering: that is what it tasted like in my mouth and in my soul."[10]

Martyrs of Najran
The martyrs of Najran are remembered in the Christian calendars and are even mentioned in the Surat al-Buruj of the Q'uran 85:4–8, where the persecutions are condemned and the steadfast believers are praised:

...slain were the men of the pit (Al-Ukhdood),

the fire abounding in fuel, when they were seated over it, and were themselves witnesses of what they did with the believers. They took revenge on them because they believed in God the All-mighty, the All-laudable...

The stories of the Najran deaths spread quickly to other Christian realms, where they were recounted in terms of heroic martyrdom for the cause of Christ. Their martyrdom led to Najran becoming a major pilgrimage centre that, for a time, rivaled Mecca to the north. The leader of the Arabs of Najran who was executed during the period of persection, Al-Harith, was canonized by the Roman Catholic Church as St. Aretas.[11]

The Martyrdom of the Christians of Najran is celebrated in the Roman Calendar on the 24 October; in the Jacobite Menologies on 31 December; in the Arabic Feasts of the Melkites on 2 October; in the Armenian Synaxarium on the 20 October, and in the Ethiopian Senkesar on November 22.

Church in Najran
The bishops of Najran, who were probably Nestorians, came to the great fairs of Mina and Ukaz, and preached Christianity, each seated on a camel as in a pulpit. The Church of Najran was called the Ka'bat Najran. (Note that several other shrines in Arabia were also called Ka'aba meaning square like building). The Ka'aba Najran at Jabal Taslal drew worshippers for some 40 years during the pre-Islamic era. The Arabian sources single out Khath'am, as a Christian tribe which used to perform the pilgrimage to the Christian Ka'aba of Najran. When Najran was occupied by Dhu Nuwas, the Ka'aba Najran was burned together with the bones of its martyrs and some 2,000 live Christians within it.

Najran pact
In the tenth year of the Hijrah, a delegation of fourteen Christian Chiefs from Najran; among them Abdul Masih of Bani Kinda, their chief, and Abdul Harith, bishop of Bani Harith, came to Medina to make a treaty with the Islamic prophet Muhammad, and were permitted by him to pray in his mosque, which they did turning towards the east.[12]

Resistance to the rise of Islam
They were ordered by Umar ibn al-Khattab to vacate the city and emigrate out of the Arabian peninsula, or accept a money payment.[13] Some migrated to Syria; but the greater part settled in the vicinity of Al-Kufa in predominantly Christian Southern Iraq, where the colony of Al-Najraniyyah long maintained the memory of their expatriation.

However, the historicity of these events is not absolutely reliably established.[13] It appears that the orders of Umar were not fully carried out and might have applied only to Christians living in Najran itself, not to those settled round about. This is because there is some evidence of a continuing Christian presence in Najran for at least 200 years after the expulsion.[13] Some sources also state that the Christian community of Najran still had considerable political weight in the late ninth century.[13]

Najran accord of 897
According to a Yemeni Arab source, the first Zaydite Imam of Yemen, al-Hadi Ila l-Haqq Yahya ibn al-Hussain (897–911) concluded an accord with the Christians and the Jews of the oasis on 897, at the time of the foundation of the Zaydite principality.[14]

A second Yemeni source alludes to the Christians of Najran in muharram 390 (999–1000). The oasis was still one third Christian and one third Jewish, according to the testimony of the Persian traveller, Ibn al-Mujawir.[15] The last evidence of the presence of Christianity in Northern Yemen of which Najran used to belong to, dates back to the 13th century.[15]

Disappearance of the Christian community
Eventually the Old Najran which was Christian disappeared, and is now represented by Al-Ukhdood, a desolate village, while another the Najran which is Islamic, has now appeared in its vicinity.[16]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_community_of_Najran


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Write "MYSTAGOGY: Saint Arethas the Great Martyr and the Christian Martyrs of Najran" on Google.
 
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Ahoadamah_Church,_Tikrit

@Saif al-Arab
This is one of the oldest churches in history and there is another one in Najaf in the city of hira

Hopefully it will be rebuilt like all other damaged/destroyed historical sites.

https://defence.pk/pdf/threads/iraq...-to-protect-its-archaeological-wealth.516515/

Very good news.

They should open donations for such projects so people can help donate. I would donate myself.

I have to go for tonight. Take care bro.
 
Thank Turks and Mongols for your "Arab Culture" without them, you'd all be dead. There'd be no Islam today. Yes? Oh, except maybe Spain and Portugal and Sicily lol

Empty Mongols and Turks help spread Islam. This was a HUGE Mistake by our leaders at the time. Like I said, we see those mistakes now. :)
A lot of Turks are leaving Islam faster. thanks to Erdogan and his Arab wife. Oh and Arabs like you. :)
Thank the Arabs for you life today, If they were like Mongols and Tatars, you won't be here today.. the Arabs defeated the Mongols not the Turks, The Egyptian men did it.., without the Turks Arabs have spread Islam all over the known world..and then Arabised Turks took over, but not before they were Arabised and Islamised.. so go cry somewhere else.. just find a corner where no one will see you crying like a little girl..
 
SAUDI ARABIA
Saudi ‘Roads of Arabia’ exhibition a big hit in Seoul
RASHID HASSAN | Published — Wednesday 20 September 2017
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South Korean visitors to the ‘Roads of Arabia’ exhibition take photos and view the artifacts on display at the National Museum in Seoul.

RIYADH: This year’s stop for the “Roads of Arabia” exhibition of Saudi archaeological treasures at the National Museum in Seoul drew a good turnout of visitors.
The “Roads of Arabia” exhibition that lasted for three months and concluded recently in the South Korean capital, was visited by over 126,000 visitors, said the event’s organizer, the Saudi Commission for Tourism and National Heritage (SCTH), on Monday.
The exhibition had put on display 466 rare artifacts highlighting the Kingdom’s cultural and historical dimensions and the successive civilizations in the Arabian peninsula through various ages, the media department said.
Impressed with the artifacts on display, visitors expressed their admiration for the archaeological pieces, saying they gave the Korean people an opportunity to learn first-hand about Arab culture.
Besides the Korean visitors, the exhibition also offered an opportunity for Saudi scholarship program students in Korea to see the history and culture of their homeland through the ages.
Archaeological objects shown in the exhibition covered a wide period of time extending from the Stone Age, the prehistoric times to pre-Islam, early, middle and late Arab kingdoms, early and middle Islamic eras, and until the emergence of the Saudi state in its three phases up to the reign of King Abdul Aziz, said the commission.
The premier heritage and cultural exhibition was inaugurated at the Seoul National Museum on May 8 by Prince Sultan bin Salman, president of the SCTH, and South Korea’s then Deputy Prime Minister Yoo Il-ho.
Seoul was the second stop for the Roads of Arabia on its Asian tour after Beijing last year, and the twelfth stop on its international tour, during which it was hosted by four European cities, five cities in the United States besides its national stop at King Abdul Aziz International Cultural Center in Dhahran.

http://www.arabnews.com/node/1164136/saudi-arabia



 
Saudi Arabia discovers 9,000 year-old civilization

Reuters Staff

JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia is excavating a new archeological site that will show horses were domesticated 9,000 years ago in the Arabian peninsula, the country’s antiquities expert said Wednesday.

The discovery of the civilization, named al-Maqar after the site’s location, will challenge the theory that the domestication of animals took place 5,500 years ago in Central Asia, said Ali al-Ghabban, Vice-President of Antiquities and Museums at the Saudi Commission for Tourism & Antiquities.

“This discovery will change our knowledge concerning the domestication of horses and the evolution of culture in the late Neolithic period,” Ghabban told a news conference in the Red Sea port of Jeddah.

“The Maqar Civilization is a very advanced civilization of the Neolithic period. This site shows us clearly, the roots of the domestication of horses 9,000 years ago.”

The site also includes remains of mummified skeletons, arrowheads, scrapers, grain grinders, tools for spinning and weaving, and other tools that are evidence of a civilization that is skilled in handicrafts.

Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter, is trying to diversify its economy away from oil and hopes to increase its tourism.

Last year the SCTA launched exhibitions in Barcelona’s CaixaForum museum and Paris’s Louvre museum showcasing historic findings of the Arabian Peninsula.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...0-year-old-civilization-idUSTRE77N5TL20110824

Archaeological finds reflect Saudi Arabia’s rich heritage
Sultan Al-Sughair | Published — Monday 29 August 2016

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TREASURE TROVE: The archaeological sites in the Eastern Province represent different periods dating back to the Stone Age.

DAMMAM: Recent archaeological findings in the Eastern Province show that the area was home to a civilization more than 7,000 years ago.
These discoveries by Saudi and international teams, under the supervision of the Saudi Commission for Tourism and National Heritage (SCTNH), highlight the cultural and historical heritage of the Kingdom.
The findings also reflect on the Eastern Province’s important role in the commercial dealings between the peoples of ancient civilizations.
Surveys conducted so far show that there are more than 300 archaeological sites in the region, representing different periods dating back to the Stone Age.
The discovery of many historical monuments highlights the civilization and the traditional architecture of the area.
Al-Rakah district, one of the archaeological sites in Dammam, contains an ancient village dating back to the period of early Islam. It has about 20 houses, in addition to rooms and residential units, including pieces of pottery and porcelain, glass, steatite and metal pieces that belong to the first and second centuries of the Islamic era.
The Thaj ancient city, about 80 km west of Jubail, is one of the most important archaeological sites in the Eastern Province. Most historians believe that Thaj was built in the period of the Greeks, following the conquest of Alexander in 330 B.C.
The most important discovery in the city was Thaj’s gold treasure that includes remains of a girl on a wooden bed, with three gold bands on her head. In addition, she wore three gold necklaces, one of which is 38.5 cm long, decorated with rubies, turquoise and pearls. The second one is made of 18 pearls hung by a golden thread, while the third necklace is 22.5 cm in length.
The discovery reflects the multicultural aspect of the Thaj civilization, most notably the technical side of the precious metals industry.
Human habitation on Tarout Island goes back to pre-5,000 BC era. It is considered one of the most ancient sites that were inhabited by humans on the Arabian Peninsula.
The most important collection found on Tarout was a golden statue representing Ashtaroot, a female deity. The statue was found placed on the ground in one of the palm groves. Besides, there are many other statues, copper and pottery vessels and traditional weapons that were found there and are now being displayed in Riyadh Museum.
The island played a significant role in trade in the entire Gulf region. It was a central point for trade between Mesopotamia and along the coastal areas in the east of the Arabian Peninsula. Its strong relationships with many of the urbanized areas along the region were well known.
President of the Saudi Commission for Tourism and National Heritage Prince Sultan bin Salman said the archaeological finds confirm the prime position people of the peninsula enjoyed among the nations of the world in religious, political, economic and cultural spheres in ancient times.

http://www.arabnews.com/node/977031/saudi-arabia

Some ancient artifacts found by hunters recently.

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Video:


Amazing. I can spot Arabian Jewish, Christian and ancient pre-Abrahamic Semitic pagan religious symbols.

Private individuals, as soon as they start digging, appear to find treasures all over KSA.

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Does this finger prove our ancestors left Africa earlier than believed? 90,000-year-old human bone discovered in Saudi Arabia

  • The bone is the middle section of the middle finger, measuring 1.2 inches
  • It was found near to the northwestern city of Tayma in Saudi Arabia
  • It could be the oldest trace of human life in the Arabian Peninsula
  • This could prove that humans ventured out of Africa earlier than believed
By SHIVALI BEST FOR MAILONLINE

PUBLISHED: 16:58 GMT, 19 August 2016 | UPDATED: 17:11 GMT, 19 August 2016

Archaeologists in Saudi Arabia believe they have discovered the Middle East’s oldest human bone during an excavation.


The bone is the middle section of the middle finger of a human that scientists claim lived 90,000-years-ago.

If this estimate is correct, it would make the bone the oldest trace of human life in the Arabian Peninsula and predate the time when humans are thought to have migrated out of Africa to spread around the world.

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Archaeologists in Saudi Arabia believe they have discovered the Middle East’s oldest human bone during an excavation. The bone is the middle section of the middle finger of a human who was thought to live 90,000 years ago

According to London-based newspaper, Asharg Al-Awsat, the discovery is 'considered an important achievement for the Saudi researchers who participated in these missions and one of the most important outcomes of Prince Sultan’s support and care for the archaeology sector in the Kingdom.'

The researches claim this is the old human bone found in the Middle East.

The bone found in Saudi Arabia is not the oldest in the world, however. The most ancient human bone, thought to belong to an early species of human, is a jaw bone found in Ethiopia in 2015.

It is dated to 2.8 million years ago, and predates all other fossils in the lineage by 400,000 years.

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The finding comes from a joint project between archaeologists from the University of Oxford and Saudi researchers, as part of the Green Arabia Project. They found the bone at the Taas al-Ghadha site near to the northwestern Saudi city of Tayma

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The oldest bone from an early species of human is a jaw bone found in Ethiopia in 2015. It is dated to 2.8 million years ago, and predates other fossils in the lineage by 400,000 years

Saudi and British archaeologists dig up 90,000-year-old middle finger

Project jointly run between Riyadh and Oxford University dates human habitation of Saudi desert back 325,000 years

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Scientists have also studied ancient rock art in the deserts of modern-day Saudi Arabia as part of the joint venture (Palaeodeserts Project)​

Archaeologists have discovered the oldest human bone ever found in Saudi Arabia, digging up part of a middle finger dating back 90,000 years.

The discovery was part of a joint project begun in 2012 by scientists from Saudi Arabia and the UK’s Oxford University.

The discovery was announced late on Wednesday by the head of the Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities, Ali Ghabban.

“The Green Arabia project has studied sites at ancient lakes in the Nafud desert,” Ghabban said, referring to an area in the north of the Arabian Peninsula.

Ghabban said that excavations at the Taas al-Ghadha site, close to the northwestern city of Tayma, suggested human habitation stretching back up to 325,000 years.


The bone that was discovered during the dig is the middle part of a middle finger belonging to a human being who lived some 90,000 years ago, making it the oldest physical trace of human habitation discovered in the area.

Al-Arabiya, a state-owned Saudi newspaper, reported in its English edition that the bone was the “world’s oldest”.

However, the oldest bone belonging to a member of the Homo genus, the lineage that ultimately led to modern human beings, is a jaw bone discovered in Ethiopia last March that is believed to be around 2.8 million years old.

The Green Arabia project, established in April 2012 and set to conclude next year, looks at how the various phases of climate change over millennia in the area that is now Saudi Arabia have affected human settlement and migration patterns.

Oxford University is a “key partner” of the state-run Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities, according to the project’s promotional material.

The venture, whose full name is Green Arabia, The Palaeodeserts Project, has also looked at ancient rock art found in Saudi Arabia as well as fossils from vertebrates that lived around 700,000 years ago.

Another recent (last month as well) discovery:

Mosque from Early Islam Discovered in Saudi Arabia

ASHARQ AL-AWSAT

August 18, 2016
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Riyadh-Antiquities found in Al-Kharj in Saudi Arabia highlight an important civilization dating back to the Stone Age. Therefore, the joint French-Saudi mission for archeological exploration maintains its works in a number of governorates mainly Al-Yamamah site to reveal the history of the region and the old civilizations that settled in it.

The mission that has 18 members of Saudi and French scientists and experts in archeological excavation has discovered at the Yamamah site in Kharj many architectural antiquities of a huge mosque that existed in the early Islamic era in between first and fifth centuries hegira. The mosque was composed of three roofed halls, two mihrabs, and open body hall. There are indicators that it may be the third biggest mosque in the Arabian Peninsula after the two holy mosques.

The survey made by the mission also comprised Bana settlement in addition to five other Islamic sites distributed on many areas lining between Riyadh and al-Dawasir valley.

The Old Stone Age
Results of exploration process have shown many sites that refer to the Old Stone Age for the first time in this region. Fractions of old pottery and glassy utensils were also discovered.

These utensils are likely to be from the Abbasside era and may have been used in the last phase before Islam and till the fifth century hegira.

Researchers found antiquities that refer to early Islam like pottery utensils and a bunch of bracelets made of glass paste.

At Ain al-Delai site in the western side of Kharj, archeologists have found 5,000-year-old traces of human settlement that may refer to the first millennium B.C., in addition to a 56-centimeter-long silver sword.
The mission also discovered a number of old farms and architectural establishments that go back to the fifth century hegira.

Mawan Mountain and Ain Farzan
The mission of archeologists moved to the mountains surrounding Kharj to implement a filed survey for sites from the Stone Age. The area included Mawan Valley and Ain Farzan, where they discovered sites that refer to the old Stone Age.

The mission will continue its work this year looking for sites from the Bronze Age in Ain Al-Delai region to complete the work that begun in 2013, along with the excavation process in the newly discovered mosque.

The Saudi-French mission is working according to the agreement inked between the Saudi Commission for Tourism and National Heritage and the French authorities in September 2011.

His Royal Highness Prince Faisal bin Bandar bin Abdul Aziz, the chairman of the Saudi authority, recently met with the Saudi-French team which is carrying out the archeological excavation work at the Yamamah historical site in Kharj. His Highness praised the efforts of the mission aiming at offering the Saudi people the opportunity to learn more about their country’s heritage and the old civilizations that settled in it before them.

Dr. Abdulaziz al-Ghazi, archeology professor at King Saud’s University and head of the Saudi team in the mission, considered that this mission is the first-of-its-kind in the country and that its work will continue over the next five years, which will pave way to the discovery of more sites.

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A quite famous statue of the pagan God Ishtar from the Sumerian (neighboring area) period was found on Tarout Island in KSA. A farmer found it. Dilmun, Magan and other civilizations in Eastern Arabia were very close to neighboring Sumer or even in some fields extensions of each other. Many historians and experts believe that Sumerians themselves came from neighboring Eastern Arabia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Arabia#History

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumer

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Article in Arabic about the finding. Amazing what kind of heritage that you can find in our part of the world. We are talking about a statue that is almost 5000 years old.

http://www.alsharq.net.sa/2014/05/04/1134854

When words, facts and photos speak for themselves.

@TheCamelGuy @Malik Alashter @SALMAN F

@EgyptianAmerican @The SC @Gomig-21 @Full Moon @Bubblegum Crisis @Arabi @Saudi Typhoon etc.
 
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Extremely interesting discovery.

Saudi-French team discovers Stone Age sites in Tabuk
ARAB NEWS | Published — Friday 13 October 2017

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The joint Saudi-French team found ancient artifacts and a large number of rock-and-animal drawings which date back to the Stone Age. (SPA)

TABUK: Saudi international missions operating in the Tabuk region under the supervision of the Saudi Commission for Tourism and National Heritage (SCTH) have discovered a large number of tools, engravings and architectural units in three sites in the region.
These discoveries date back to different civilizations beginning from the Stone Age until the Islamic Era.
The specialized teams said that these sites need further study and excavation. Tabuk region was a conduit for ancient trade routes.
There are rock and animal drawings at Kilwa site, northeast of Tabuk. The Kilwa site is located inside the Al-Tabik Reserve. The joint Saudi-French team found ancient artifacts and a large number of rock-and-animal drawings which date back to the Stone Age.
The Kilwa historical site and the surrounding area are important archaeological sites, because these sites contain distinguished archaeological units.
Thus, many stages of civilization can be distinguished from prehistoric times to historical periods and pre-Islamic periods in addition to the Islamic period.

The stone drawings in the region of Kilwa are among the most ancient places in the Arabian Peninsula and could date back to 7,000 BC to 9,000 BC.
In the valleys and pastoral areas between the Tabuk and Jouf regions, a Saudi-Japanese team recorded 30 sites dating back to various periods and ages of the Paleolithic, Neolithic, Bronze, Iron Age and sites of Islamic times.
Under the supervision of the SCTH, there are more than 30 missions and scientific teams specialized in research and archaeological exploration. These teams include Saudi scientists and others from the world’s top universities and the most prestigious research centers from countries including France, Italy, the United States, Britain, Germany, Japan, Belgium, Poland, Finland, the Netherlands, Austria and others.
The Kingdom will hold the first forum specialized in archaeology. It is the first of its kind in Saudi Arabia, which will be held in Riyadh under the auspices of King Salman from Safar 18-20, 1439 AH.

http://www.arabnews.com/node/1176846/saudi-arabia

@Full Moon @Arabi @Bubblegum Crisis @Saudi Typhoon @Gomig-21 @The SC @Khafee @EgyptianAmerican etc.
 
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