Camel and horse skeletons from protohistoric graves at Mleiha in the Emirate of Sharjah (U.A.E.)

Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy

Volumn 10, Issue 1, 1999, Pages 102-118

  Uerpmann, H P ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF TÜBINGEN   (Germany)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0002710775     PISSN: 09057196     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1600-0471.1999.tb00131.x     Document Type: Article

References (28)

1. Eg. Boucharlat R & Mouton M. Mleha (Emirate of Sharjah, UAE) at the Beginning of the Christian Era. PSAS 24: 1990: 13-25.
2. The manuscript provided by Marjan Mashkour was of great help during the field studies for identifying the contexts and for reconstruction of the original situation. From our side there is not much to be added to her interpretation of the ritual meaning of the burials. We are most grateful to her for the manuscript and for permission to use her drawings in this paper. The article by M. Mashkour is in press and expected to appear in 1998: Mashkour M. The Funeral Rites at Mleiha (Sharja-U.A.E.): The Camelid Graves. Anthropozoologica 25-26: 1997: 725-736.
3. Excavation of the camel burial at al-Buhais 12 was undertaken by the present author together with Margarethe Uerpmann who also participated in the studies carried out at the Mleiha graveyard. See also Uerpmann H-P & Uerpmann M. The Camel Burial of Al-Buhais 12 (Sharjah, U.A.E.): In press.
4. See S. A. Jasim, this volume.
5. For the first see note 3, the second was excavated by the Australian expedition; see Benton J. Excavations at Jebel Emalah. Tribulus 4: 1994: 12-13.
6. Skeleton CA 4 of the comparative collection of the Institute of Pre-and Protohistory of Tübingen University.
7. Bulliet RW. The Camel and the Wheel. New York: Columbia University Press, 1990: 144.
8. Wapnish P. The Dromedary and Bactrian Camel in Levantine Historical Settings: The Evidence from Tell Jemmeh. In: Clutton-Brock J & Griegson C, eds. Animals and Archaeology 3: Early Herders and their Flocks. BAR Intern. Series 202, Oxford, 1984: 171-200; Steiger C. Vergleichend morphologische Untersuchungen an Einzelknochen des postkranialen Skeletts der Altweltkamele. Dissertation, Munich, 1990.
9. Wapnish P. The Dromedary and Bactrian Camel in Levantine Historical Settings: The Evidence from Tell Jemmeh. In: Clutton-Brock J & Griegson C, eds. Animals and Archaeology 3: Early Herders and their Flocks. BAR Intern. Series 202, Oxford, 1984: 171-200; Steiger C. Vergleichend morphologische Untersuchungen an Einzelknochen des postkranialen Skeletts der Altweltkamele. Dissertation, Munich, 1990.
10. Many thanks are due to Ilse Köhler-Rollefson who saved the skeletal remains of these animals and presented them to the Tübingen collection.
11. Köhler-Rollefson I. Zoological Analysis of Camel Skeletons. Appendix to: Smith RH & Day LP. Pella of the Decapolis 2. Final Report on the College of Wooster Excavations in Area IX, The Civic Complex, 1979-1985, The College of Wooster, 1989: 142-164.
12. Steiger, Vergleichend morphologische Untersuchungen: 18f.
13. Steiger, Vergleichend morphologische Untersuchungen: 67.
14. Smallest breadth of the diaphysis (SD) in percentage of the greatest length (GL) expressed as mean value ±one standard deviation.
15. Steiger, Vergleichend morphologische Untersuchungen: 100.
16. Steiger, Vergleichend morphologische Untersuchungen: 103.
17. The specimen was encountered during the excavations of 1989 directed by M. Korfmann (Tübingen) in square M18 of the Lower City of Troy. It was identified by the present author in 1990. Its full publication is being prepared by Marian Fabiš, who is studying the animal remains from the historic occupations of the site, eg. Fabiš M. Archaeofaunal Remains from the Lower Sanctuary. A preliminary report on the 1994 excavations. Studia Troica 6: 1996: 217-227.
18. Bulliet, The Camel and the Wheel: 167ff.
19. Salvage excavations carried out by Sabah A. Jasim and Aissa Abbas of the Directorate of Antiquities of the Department of Culture and Information of the Government of Sharjah Emirate yielded Parthian pottery and some fragments of very large camel bones at a site in the Sharjah part of Dibba on the east coast of the peninsula close to the border towards Musandam. They could not yet be studied in detail, but the size of one humerus fragment is clearly above the size range of dromedaries and well within the range of the hybrid camels.
20. Burckhardt JL. Notes on the Bedouins and Wahabys. London: 1831, and Lesbre M. Recherches anatomiques sur les camélidés. Archives du Musée d'histoire naturelle de Lyon 8: 1903: 1-195, cited after Köhler-Rollefson, Zoological Analysis of Camel Skeletons: 149.
21. Burckhardt JL. Notes on the Bedouins and Wahabys. London: 1831, and Lesbre M. Recherches anatomiques sur les camélidés. Archives du Musée d'histoire naturelle de Lyon 8: 1903: 1-195, cited after Köhler-Rollefson, Zoological Analysis of Camel Skeletons: 149.
22. Köhler-Rollefson, Zoological Analysis of Camel Skeletons: 149.
23. For the methods of estimation of the withers height based on bone length see Driesch A von den & Boessneck J. Kritische Anmerkungen zur Widerristhöhenberechnung aus Längenmaßen vor-und frühgeschichtlicher Tierknochen. Säugetierkundliche Mitteilungen 22: 1974: 325-344.
24. LSI values based on an Icelandic pony as a standard, comp. Uerpmann H-P. Die Domestikation des Pferdes im Chalkolithikum West-und Mitteleuropas. Madrider Mitteilungen 31: 1990: 109-153.
25. Compare Mashkour, The Funeral Rites at Mleiha, and Vogt B. Death, resurrection and the camel. In: Nebes N, ed. Arabia Felix, Beitrage zur Sprache und Kultur des vorislamischen Arabien. Wiesbaden: Harrasowitz, 1994: 279-190.
26. At the camel burials of Beles, Hadramaut, there was evidence that dogs had access to the carcasses and that the bones were shifted from their anatomical position before they were embedded in the grave fill, see Uerpmann H.-P. & Langguth K. Archaeozoological Observations on Four Camel Skeletons from Beles (Hadramaut, Yemen): In press.
27. There could of course also have been practical reasons for this order, because it may have been quite difficult to make a huge male bukhti camel enter the steep and narrow grave corridor even without a dead horse already lying there.
28. Van Neer W & A Gautier. Preliminary report on the faunal remains from the coastal site of Ed-Dur, 1st-4th century A.D. Umm al-Quwain, United Arab Emirates. In: Buitenhuis H & Clason AT, eds. Archaeozoology of the Near East. Leiden: Dr W. Backhuys, 1993: 110-118.