Umm an-Nar settlement in the Wadi Andam area (Sultanate of Oman)

This paper describes a number of archaeological sites of different sizes dating to the Umm an-Nar period (2500–2000 BC), which were discovered or investigated during the course of a systematic archaeological survey of the Wādī Andam in the al-Sharqīyah region of northern Oman. The first, al-Khashbah, is a very large site with a number of round towers and other structures. The second is a smaller but very well preserved site, al-Ghoryeen (al-Gharīyān), with a single round tower, a tomb field, and traces of domestic structures. A number of much smaller sites are also described that have no structural remains. The existence of these sites was detected by the employment of systematic, large-scale pottery collection in small wadi villages, a technique that has not previously been widely employed by archaeological projects in the region. These sites therefore represent an aspect of Umm an-Nar rural settlement that has not received due scholarly consideration. Having described the various sites, the paper discusses the possibility that they represent three different tiers of an Umm an-Nar settlement hierarchy.