Radar technology has helped researchers delve deeper into one of the UAE's most important archaeological sites and pinpoint potential new discoveries.
The work at Al Sinniyah Island in Umm Al Quwain has found what appear to be underground structures from the pre-Islamic era.
This information could guide future excavations on the island, which is known to have hosted a monastery and a pearling city.
“Our results show that Al Sinniyah Island was a major human settlement in the Gulf area at the time," said Dr Diana Francis, an associate professor and head of the Environmental and Geophysical Sciences laboratory at Khalifa University, and one of the authors of a new study.
"The people who used to live there had developed their ways of living in this island as well as their communities and economy.”
Initially, larger-scale satellite data using synthetic aperture radar, processed by artificial intelligence, highlighted areas of interest.
Modern methods reveal ancient secrets
These locations were investigated using ground-penetrating radar (GPR), which examines how high-frequency radio waves transmitted into the ground are reflected.
Al Sinniyah Island, which hosts the Khor Al Beida natural lagoon, already ranks among the country’s significant historic sites.
In 2022, it was revealed that an ancient Christian monastery, with a church, dining hall, cistern and cells for monks, had been discovered on the island.
The following year, archaeologists disclosed that they had found the oldest pearling town in the Arabian Gulf, dating back 1,300 years.
A further major announcement came in 2024, when archaeologists said that these areas were likely to be the site of the sixth-century settlement of Tu’am, mentioned in old Arabic texts.
With narrow alleyways and tightly packed residential buildings, the area is thought to have been home to thousands of people.
In the new study, three rectangular areas on Al Sinniyah Island — A, B, and C — were examined in greater detail. C lies in the north. B is further south and to the west of the monastery. A, the smallest, is south of the monastery.
Al Sinniyah Island – in pictures
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Excavations have revealed the oldest pearling town in the Arabian Gulf in Umm Al Quwain. All photos: Chris Whiteoak / The National -
An ancient weight for pearl fishing was found at the site on Al Sinniyah Island -
The Umm Al Quwain Department of Tourism and Archaeology said digs have yielded evidence of a thriving 1,300-year-old settlement that predates the rise of Islam — with hundreds of houses and several thousand people -
Sheikh Majid bin Saud Al Mualla, Chairman of the emirate’s Department of Tourism and Archaeology, said the discovery was of major historical significance for Umm Al Quwain, the UAE and the wider Arabian Gulf -
A tandoor, a large urn-shaped oven, was unearthed at the site -
Prof Tim Power of the UAE University said vast courtyard houses similar to those found across the Arabian Gulf were discovered -
Archaeologists believe the palatial dwellings with large courtyards housed wealthy pearl merchants and elite members of society
In the northeastern part of area A, GPR identified what the study describes as “sharp anomalies” or distinct features.
These, the researchers wrote, “suggest the presence of [an] intact and potentially significant archaeological structure”.
Digging deep into rich history
Thanks to its ability to penetrate metres underground, GPR also suggested that a previously identified building appeared to have an additional storey.
By highlighting apparent features previously unknown, the GPR findings cement the view that Al Sinniyah Island hosted one of the most important settlements of the time, the researchers say in their paper.
“In addition to the known archaeological sites, GPR data, analysed through … scans and three-dimensional models, reveal a high concentration of sharp anomalies resembling archaeological features, suggesting that the island was once home to a high-density ancient population,” they wrote.
“The results not only assert the exceptional archaeological significance of the region … but invite deeper multidisciplinary research of its rich ancient past.”
GPR does not provide definitive data on what lies underground but can help discover new features by guiding excavations.
“The added value of GPR is unparalleled as it allows to map the features that are buried under the ground with a great precision,” said Dr Francis.
“This will [allow] the archaeologists to excavate later on without damaging the structures by knowing their 3D structures thanks to the GPR mapping.”
The work also pinpointed features that could be houses, walls or columns.
The study, Reconstructing history: 3D high-resolution GPR analysis based on SAR discoveries in the ancient [Al] Sinniyah Island of Umm Al Quwain, United Arab Emirates, is published in the International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation.
About a month’s worth of fieldwork went into the paper, which is written by five scientists from Khalifa University.
This is not the first GPR study to have highlighted features at a UAE archaeological site.
In 2024, a paper by some of the same researchers used the technology to create a three-dimensional model of structures at the Muraredh Oasis, an archaeological site in Al Ain.
The work found features from the Islamic era and structures from further back in the Bronze Age, which ran in the UAE from 3300 BCE to 1200 BCE, and the Iron Age, which followed it and lasted until 550 BCE.
