The Early Iron Age Metal Hoard from the Al Khawd Area (Sultan Qaboos University), Sultanate of Oman (The Archaeological Heritage of Oman)

This book provides a terse introductory synopsis of archaeological literature relevant to the EIA for field use. It describes the find circumstances of the artefact-groups represented in the al-Ḫwḍ hoard: Arrowheads, axes/adzes, bangles, daggers, knives, socketed lanceheads/spearheads, metal vessels, razors, rings, swords and tweezers are assigned to the existing discrete classes for all of prehistoric south-eastern Arabia. It reviews and parses diachronically the most important relevant find contexts in south-eastern Arabia which contain metal from the Umm an-Nar to the Islamic age to structure the relative chronology, the spatial distribution of the different find-classes for the discussion of hoard function. The second part of this chapter includes analogous metal occurrences in Mesopotamian and South Asian contexts to widen the pool of comparisons regarding the function of the metal finds. It presents the geological background to the potential origin of the metals, analysis by means of reflected light microscopy, geochemical analysis. It discusses the archaeometallurgy and post-smelting production for the al-Ḫwḍ hoard and other local EIA metal finds. The development, changes of thought and opinion regarding metal production today reach a crescendo since field research began to mount in the 1970s regarding Arabia. It synthesises the main points surrounding the archaeological and technological context of the al-Ḫwḍ hoard. Main point: Paradoxically the productivity of the EIA south-eastern Arabian metals industry de facto is vastly under-rated and nebulously is skewed in the public eye which favours the Bronze Age as a general thematic focus – an implicit bias.