Les Tombes protohistoriques de Bithnah, Fujairah, Emirats arabes unis.

• Author: Potts, D.T.
• Position: Review

By PIERRE CORBOUD, ANNE-CATHERINE CASTELLA, ROMAN HAPKA, and PETER IM OBERSTEG. Terra Archaeologica, vol. 1. Mainz am Rhein: PHILIPP VON ZABERN, 1996. Pp. xv + 171, 77 illustrations. DM 120.

This handsomely produced volume presents the results of excavations carried out in the United Arab Emirates by the Swiss-Liechtenstein Foundation for Archaeological Research Abroad (SLFA) between 1987 and 1991. Presided over by Prince Hans-Adam II of Liechtenstein, and directed in the field by Pierre Corboud, the SLFA team conducted several seasons of survey in the mountainous emirate of Fujairah, as well as carrying out excavations at Bithnah, the site of an important oasis settlement in the Wadi Ham. Although archaeological work in the U.A.E. has been intense of late, the number of full-scale monographs on sites in the region is still small, comprising only two on Umm an-Nar, two on Tell Abraq, one on al-Sufouh, and one on Asimah. Apart from these, a large and ever-growing number of articles exists, along with an expanding number of unpublished masters and Ph.D. theses. The appearance of a final report on Bithnah is thus a very welcome event indeed.

The Bithnah area contains a number of sites, including tombs, settlements, metallurgical work areas, petroglyphs, and sherds scatters (fig. 3). The SLFA team excavated three small, individual inhumations which were almost entirely devoid of material (tombs 1-3) but the major part of their effort was directed towards the excavation of tomb 4, a T-shaped subterranean tomb built of unworked stone. Access to the tomb was via a slightly trapezoidal antechamber (dromos) with a descending floor pitched at a 20-25 [degrees] angle which led to a corridor opening onto the 10.5 m long, 1.6-1.8 m wide funerary chamber. The description of the architecture is excellent and I particularly appreciated the schematic drawings (fig. 26) which show the stages in the construction of the tomb. No fewer than twenty-two stratigraphic units were discernible based on sedimentary differences, but the tomb had certainly been disturbed in antiquity and the preservation of skeletal remains was poor. With the exception of an articulated skeleton datable by associated pottery and finds to the Parthian period (fig. 37), none of the human remains was recovered in anatomical position.

The date of the tomb's construction and its periods of subsequent use were determined entirely on the basis of typological indicators. No radiocarbon dates...