Joint Heidelberg University/Ministry of Heritage and Tourism project (2023): Archaeological rescue operation at Al-Khod, Ḥūr ad-dabʿ, Muscat

In: Alathar – Archaeology and Heritage Bulletin, 1 (2024), pp. 246-252

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Abstract

In September 2018 the population of the capital area reached 1.4 million. Places such as Al-Khod need room for growth. The development of this area during the past 20 years includes the building of the Nizwa road, highway 15, to its north-east Lulu Al-Bandar super market and flanking to its west a large housing settlement. There, pre-Islamic hut tombs are scattered over the three low mountains (600m x 300m area). The Ministry of Defence plan to develop the mountains (Fig. 2) as a recreational facility – the ‘Heritage Hill’ project. This report sketches the mapping and excavation (12.01. to 26.01.2023) and documents 140 burial structures, the excavated finds, the clearance of stone from the tomb cluster on the southern mountain, figures of the 3D and drawings of the tomb images. This site, with its hut tombs and niche graves is important to solve the problem of the dating and nomenclature of prehistoric funerary architecture. The author searches for an alternative to the nomenclature ‘cairn’ which describes not the original architecture, but rather an undifferentiated, dishevelled state of preservation.