UAE to be represented at global Arabian meeting

Leading archaeologists and historians from around the world who work in the peninsula, and scholars from Arab Gulf Cooperation Council countries will be taking part in the three -day meet.

A total of six papers will be delivered on recent discoveries in the United Arab Emirates. Three papers will focus on work undertaken during the winter of 2003-2004 in Abu Dhabi. One, by Dr Mark Beech, of the Abu Dhabi Islands Archaeological Survey, ADIAS, will report on the results of recent excavations at a Neolithic (Late Stone Age) site on the western island of Marawah. The site, around 7,000 years old, has yielded the skeleton of the oldest known inhabitant of Abu Dhabi Emirate.

The second, by Dr Heiko Kallweit, also of ADIAS, Dr Beech and Dr Walid Yasin Al Tikriti, Archaeological Adviser of the Department of Antiquities and Tourism in Abu Dhabi's eastern region, will report on a group of recently-discovered Neolithic sites near Umm az-Zamul, in the deep deserts of Abu Dhabi. The third, by Dr Sophie Mery, of France's Centre Nationale des Recherches Scientifiques, Kathleen McSweeney, of Britain's Edinburgh University, and Dr Al Tikriti, will announce details of results of excavations during the winter at a Bronze Age tomb in Hili, Al Ain.

A fourth paper, by Professor Peter Magee, of Bryn Mawr College in the United States, deals with work at the important Iron Age settlement of Muwailah, in Sharjah, carried out in association with Sharjah's Directorate of Archaeology.

The fifth paper, by Professor Joaquin Cordoba, of Spain's Autonomous University of Madrid, reports on another Iron Age village, at Thuqaibah, south of Dhaid. The sixth paper, by Diane Barker, of Australia's University of Sydney, and Salah Ali, of Fujairah Museum, will examine pottery from Dibba, dated to the period shortly before the coming of Islam. Another event taking place in association with the seminar is a special party being held to honour leading British archaeologist Beatrice de Cardi, on the occasion of her 90th birthday.