Given the mindless destruction of archaeological sites by ISIL, here is a reminder that the UAE has its own rich heritage of ancient sites far from harm’s way.
This is Umm An Nar, the earliest human settlement discovered near what is now the city of Abu Dhabi and photographed in 1972.
The structures are tombs from the Bronze Age as part of a culture that existed more than 4,000 years ago and was linked to Dilmun, the great trading city that dominated the Arabian Gulf in what is now Bahrain.
Umm An Nar had been known about for hundreds of years but was first examined in detail in the early 1960s by a team of Danish archeologists.
A gripping account of their work can be read in Looking for Dilmun by Geoffrey Bibby, the Englishman regarded as the founding father of Arabian archaeology, and still in print after 50 years.
The island of Umm An Nar is now also the site of an oil refinery and a military airbase, meaning the tombs are not accessible to the public, but otherwise they are unchanged from this photograph.
* James Langton
