It's not every day that the largest settlement of its period ever found on the coast of the UAE is unearthed. This year, however, after three months of digging, archaeologists working in Umm Al Quwain at the site on Al Sinniyah Island hit upon what is believed to be the ancient city of Tu'am. The capital of the Gulf coast in the sixth century, Tu'am is mentioned in ancient Arabic texts and is said to be the predecessor of the pearling towns of the 19th and 20th centuries.
Archaeological revelations are not new to the region. Nevertheless, the discovery of this ancient lost city is both exciting and significant for the UAE. The country has dedicated teams of archaeologists who collaborate with local and international experts, and build on what are already enormous feats: the discovery of the oldest pearling town in the Arabian Gulf last year, and the site of an ancient Christian monastery dug up in 2022 – which was the second such in the UAE after one monastery was discovered in the early 1990s, on Abu Dhabi’s Sir Bani Yas Island.
Over the years, those sites have been frequented by travellers to the region, who have an interest in tracing the possible beginnings of habitation in these parts. There's good reason to assume that this round of excavation, too, will lead to increased visits to the site by those keen on learning about the origins of people on this land, much before the formation of the UAE as we know it today.
A natural outcome to such a discovery, then, is likely to be an increase in tourism. People will want to have a look for themselves at the accommodation of forebears and trace their lifestyles and the ways in which civilisations over the centuries have evolved.
This discovery could shed light on questions pertaining to society and commerce: the sort of houses that were the norm then, tightly packed around narrow alleyways – the alleyways have been dug up by the team this past winter – the language they communicated in; what people might have cooked on the tannour ovens apart from fish, and so on. The vast evidence on Al Sinniyah Island provides several vignettes of the lives of early settlers.
This fascinating world of the past, specifically the sixth to the eighth centuries, runs counter to a tiresome contemporary narrative of the UAE among some who do not know the country– sometimes seen solely as an oasis of upmarket hotels, malls, beaches, modern cultural centres and amusement parks. For the heritage seeker, a discovery such as last week's underlines once again the rich and varied dimensions of the country, many of which can go unmentioned in popular recommendations to tourists.
But even as people in the UAE will be eager to know from the experts what can be extrapolated from the discovery of this ancient site, the wider region, too, will benefit. It may well lead to extensive information gathering, surmising and sharing, as is the goal of archaeology. In that regard, these findings could well have relevance to historians around the world.
Last year, when remains of an ancient Roman city were found on the eastern bank of the Nile, the dig had led to finding kettles, flasks, pottery and Roman coins made of copper and bronze that were a window into early smelting processes. In another discovery last year, in southern Iraq, in the ruins of ancient Lagash, north-east of the city of Nasiriyah, an Italian-American team managed to dig up, among other artefacts, a primitive refrigeration system.
Such consequential findings not only carry historic significance on their own, they are also of interest to ordinary people. The ancient sites in the Middle East, and most recently in Umm Al Quwain, show the many ways in which historic ruins, some of which were once important bustling cities, inform our understanding of a very different time in an earlier age. In giving us a broader perspective, such discoveries serve to link the modern world with an often unimaginably rich past.
