Iron Age Copper Metallurgy in Southeast Arabia: A Comparative Perspective

Abstract

From the southern Levant to southeast Arabia, new technologies and social networks shaped metal production and trade in a variety of important ways. In this paper, we review the development of copper metallurgy in Early Iron Age Oman ca. 1300–800 BCE and compare it with development in the southern Levant. Settlement intensification, innovations in irrigation technologies, dromedary domestication, and the emergence of industrial copper sulfide smelting played major roles in shaping southeast Arabian societies during the late second to early first millennium BCE. Although there are similarities in the scale of copper production between the southern Levant and southeast Arabia during this period, key differences in resources impacted how societies adopted and organized metal technologies. Based on recent surveys and excavations, we discuss evidence for large-scale copper sulfide smelting at Wadi al-Raki, one of the largest copper-producing areas in Oman, and findings at ‘Uqdat al-Bakrah, where hundreds of pits and more than 600 copper-based artifacts have been recovered.KeywordsIron AgeArabiaMetallurgyCopperSocial organisationHierarchyMobility

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Iron Age Copper Metallurgy inSoutheast
Arabia: AComparative Perspective
JosephW.Lehner , IoanaA.Dumitru , AbigailBufngton ,
EliDollarhide , SmitiNathan , PaigePaulsen , MaryL.Young ,
AlexanderJ.Sivitskis, FrancesWiig , andMichaelJ.Harrower
Abstract From the southern Levant to southeast Arabia, new technologies and
social networks shaped metal production and trade in a variety of important ways.
In this paper, we review the development of copper metallurgy in Early Iron Age
Oman ca. 1300–800BCE and compare it with development in the southern Levant.
Settlement intensication, innovations in irrigation technologies, dromedary domes-
tication, and the emergence of industrial copper sulde smelting played major roles
in shaping southeast Arabian societies during the late second to early rst millen-
nium BCE.Although there are similarities in the scale of copper production between
the southern Levant and southeast Arabia during this period, key differences in
resources impacted how societies adopted and organized metal technologies. Based
on recent surveys and excavations, we discuss evidence for large-scale copper sul-
de smelting at Wadi al-Raki, one of the largest copper-producing areas in Oman,
and ndings at ‘Uqdat al-Bakrah, where hundreds of pits and more than 600 copper-
based artifacts have been recovered.
J. W. Lehner (*)
Department of Archaeology, The University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia
e-mail: joseph.lehner@sydney.edu.au
I. A. Dumitru
Centre for Urban Network Evolutions (UrbNet), Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark
e-mail: ioana.dumitru@sydney.edu.au
A. Bufngton · M. L. Young
Department of Archaeology, College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA, USA
e-mail: afbufngton@wm.edu; mlyoung@email.wm.edu
E. Dollarhide
New York University Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi, UAE
e-mail: eli.dollarhide@nyu.edu
S. Nathan
Anthico LLC, Baltimore, MD, USA
e-mail: smiti.nathan@anthico.com
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023
E. Ben-Yosef, I. W. N. Jones (eds.), “And in Length of Days Understanding” (Job
12:12): Essays on Archaeology in the Eastern Mediterranean and Beyond in
Honor of Thomas E. Levy, Interdisciplinary Contributions to Archaeology,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-27330-8_59

1392
Keywords Iron Age · Arabia · Metallurgy · Copper · Social organisation ·
Hierarchy · Mobility
1 Introduction
How metallurgy originated in Arabia, its causes and consequences, remains a major
issue in archaeology. The Arabian Peninsula and adjacent regions of the southern
Levant and Iran provide some of the earliest evidence of metal production in the
world. Even so, the diversity of technological lineages from the southern Levant/
Sinai to southeast Arabia demonstrates certain discontinuities. Primary copper
smelting sites currently dating as early as the mid- to late fth millennium BCE in
the southern Levant (Ackerfeld et al., 2020; Golden 2010; Hauptmann, 2007;
Klimscha, 2013) and the late fourth millennium BCE in Oman (Giardino, 2017;
Schmidt & Döpper, 2019), show similarities, yet it is unclear how these regions
interrelated, if at all, in the innovation and adoption of metallurgy. Perhaps one of
the most astounding parallels is the mutual rise of large-scale industrial copper pro-
duction in the Wadi Arabah and in Oman during the thirteenth century BCE, with
some waste heaps amounting to tens of thousands of tons of serially produced slag
that accumulated over the course of ve to six centuries.
During a period of intense productivity ca. 1300–800BCE, bracketed in time by
periods of relatively less production, both regions also experienced major social and
cultural changes that are highly visible archaeologically. Yet how the social and
cultural traditions are expressed in these copper-producing regions are profoundly
diverse. In this contribution we examine how these differences are evidenced
archaeologically. This comparative approach offers insight into the social capital
and capacities of Iron Age communities in Arabia, and how differing political econ-
omies can manifest large-scale, high intensity and serialized production. We pro-
vide an argument here that the political economy in Iron Age southeast Arabia
contrasts with the southern Levant in terms of archaeologically visible or histori-
cally attested social stratication and elite administration. We suggest that there is
little evidence that supports an overarching direct elite control of industrial copper
smelting in southeast Arabia, and that copper materials were rather exchanged in a
P. Paulsen · M. J. Harrower
Department of Near Eastern Studies, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA
e-mail: ppaulse2@jhu.edu; mharrower@jhu.edu
A. J. Sivitskis
Teton Science Schools, Jackson, WY, USA
e-mail: alex.sivitskis@tetonscience.org
F. Wiig
School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of New South Wales,
Sydney, NSW, Australia
e-mail: frances.wiig@environment.nsw.gov.au
J. W. Lehner etal.

1393
highly regionalized and internal exchange system that fostered social cohesion
through ritual consumption, intentional deposition and decommissioning of wealth.
These two divergent networks of copper exploitation highlight how emergent and
established industries can take on a variety of organizational systems and are not
necessarily contingent on the sponsorship or control of elites and their legitimation.
2 The Rise ofExtractive Metallurgy inArabia
Our knowledge of Arabian metallurgical technologies, their evolution over time,
and the societies associated with them is largely limited to the southern Levant due
in large part to decades of careful and focused research. Archaeometallurgical
investigations in this region, as argued by many authors (e.g., Ben-Yosef & Shalev,
2018; Golden, 2010; Hauptmann, 2007; Levy & Shalev, 1989; Rothenberg, 1990),
establish clearly that metals and metal production are important markers for techno-
logical histories and sociocultural processes in the region, and more broadly, the
kinds of long distance relationships that developed with the craft.
One of the emergent themes of this uneven attention, due in part to historical
circumstances, is that the development of metallurgy and how it interfaced with
society in the southern Levant has in some cases been used to describe analogous
developments elsewhere in West Asia. As summarized by Thornton (2009), models
of metal technology and its development in the Levant, in particular copper smelt-
ing technologies, inuenced how scholars understood copper production in other
regions in Anatolia, the Caucasus, Iran and Oman, despite the fact that data from
these regions are not entirely consistent with how early metal production developed
in the southern Levant. Most recently, the work by Radivojević etal. (2021) pro-
vides convincing evidence that metallurgical technologies in the Balkans exhibit
early convergence and independent innovation through pathways that are poten-
tially distinct from neighboring regions. While these studies principally deal with
the earliest phases of copper smelting during the early fth to fourth millennia BCE,
their cautious criticism urges us to be careful when applying our understanding of
the innovation and adoption of metallurgy in all time periods.
The Arabian Peninsula as a whole, extending from the southern portions of mod-
ern Iraq and Jordan to Yemen, the Sultanate of Oman and the Persian Gulf, occupies
an immense region rich with metal deposits (Figs.1 and 2), yet empirical data con-
cerning metal industries, in particular primary copper smelting, is poorly known
outside of the Levant. Precambrian basement rocks, which extend as part of the
Arabian-Nubian shield from the Sinai through the Hijaz and Yemen, host numerous
major deposits of copper, gold, silver, lead and iron that have archaeological signi-
cance (Hassan Ahmed, 2022a). Associated with these sources in western Arabia are
expansive industrial landscapes, including mining settlements and copper smelting
sites, though concrete evidence providing dates earlier than the Early Islamic period
is rare (Al-Zahrani, 2014; de Jesus, 1982; Hassan Ahmed, 2022b; Hester et al.,
1983; Kisnawi etal., 1983), a fact owing to the dearth of available evidence and
Iron Age Copper Metallurgy inSoutheast Arabia: AComparative Perspective

1394
Fig. 1 Major copper deposits in the Arabian Peninsula. (Data Source for Geologic Provinces:
(Pollastro, 1998). Copper localities after ArWHO survey and Hauptmann, 2007: 41; Hassan
Ahmed, 2022: 464; Hauptmann, 1985: 116; Levy et al., 2014: 18; Pugachevsky et al., 2009;
Roberts, 1975: 46. Basemap Credits: Earthstar Geographics; Esri, USGS; World Hillshade)
targeted research. Historic gold and silver processing in Yemen has been docu-
mented through some materials analysis, brief survey reconnaissance and remote
sensing (Deroin etal., 2012; Mallory-Greenough etal., 2000; Merkel etal., 2016),
and local second millennium BCE copper production in southwest Arabia has been
inferred on the basis of lead isotope analysis of nished copper-alloy objects alone
(Weeks etal., 2009).
Our understanding of the traditions of extractive metallurgy in southeast Arabia
is substantially improved due primarily to geological and archaeometallurgical sur-
veys and small-scale excavations in Oman conducted primarily during the 1970s
and 80s. Extending along the piedmont of the Hajar Mountains of Oman, one of the
world’s best-preserved exposures of ophiolite attracted prospectors because of its
rich association of volcanogenic massive sulde (VMS) bodies rich in copper and
other metals like gold, nickel, cobalt, and arsenic (Coleman etal., 1979). Similar to
J. W. Lehner etal.

1395
Fig. 2 Major copper deposits in the Arabian Peninsula: close-up of the Levant and the Sinai
Peninsula (left) and southeastern Arabia (right). Data source for bedrock geology: Pollastro, 1998.
Copper localities after ArWHO survey and Hauptmann, 1985: 116; Levy etal., 2014: 18. Basemap
Credits: Earthstar Geographics; Esri, USGS; World Hillshade
the ores associated with the Troodos ophiolite in Cyprus, many of the copper depos-
its are near the surface and immediately identiable by iron-rich gossan caps. While
there is important variation in the VMS deposits in terms of general composition
and stratigraphic placement geologically (Belgrano et al., 2019), most available
copper ore used by past communities would have interfaced quickly with a range of
copper mineral types, from leached, weathered, and oxidised ores to deeper massive
suldes.
After brief recording of signicant production sites by archaeologists working
closely with geologists mapping the region for major minerals (Berthoud etal.,
1978; Carney & Welland, 1974; Goettler etal., 1976), the rst focused research
targeting the deep history of mining and metallurgy in Oman was conducted by
Gerd Weisgerber and Andreas Hauptmann with the support of the Deutsches
Bergbau Museum (DBM). This extensive eldwork developed along the same lines
of inquiry as the same team’s eldwork in Faynan in Jordan, and it led to the
Iron Age Copper Metallurgy inSoutheast Arabia: AComparative Perspective

1396
documentation of over 100 copper smelting sites located within the vicinity of cop-
per sources associated with the Semail ophiolite exposed along the piedmont of the
Hajar Mountains and further copper producing sites on Masirah Island (Weisgerber,
1977, 1978, 1980, 1987; Weisgerber & Al-Shanfari, 2013). This ground-breaking
work also included physical analyses of copper ores and slags (Hauptmann, 1985;
Hauptmann & Weisgerber, 1981), extensive analyses of copper metal (Prange,
2001) and chemical ngerprinting of ores collected through the course of their sur-
veys (Begemann etal., 2010).
One of the most important results of these early investigations is evidence for
cycles of intensive copper production. Rough dating of slag heaps based on associ-
ated pottery, and more rarely with radiocarbon, demonstrate that most smelting sites
can be attributed to three major periods of intensity, including bursts of production
during the Early Bronze Age Hat and Umm an-Nar periods (3200–2000BCE),
Early Iron Age (ca. 1300–800BCE), and Early Islamic period (ca. CE 650–900).
While evidence for copper consumption is known in the interim periods, these
multi-century gaps of little to no copper production are likely linked to a combina-
tion of factors, from fuel depletion to major shifts in trade networks and political
economy.
Current data demonstrate that the earliest evidence of copper metal consumption
in southeast Arabia dates to as early as ca 4200BCE.Small tools and fragments of
smelted copper from small coastal Late Neolithic settlements, including Wadi Shab
and Ras al-Hamra, provide concrete evidence of copper consumption (Giardino,
2017: 33–39). These earliest examples display variations in elemental concentra-
tion, many with signicant and anomalous quantities of silver (>8.0wt.%). While it
remains untested whether this copper was locally produced or imported from other
regions in Iran or beyond, current data are nevertheless consistent with locally avail-
able copper ores. Contrary to so-called natural alloys, these types of alloys may
have been intentionally produced through mixed smelting as is evidenced by more
complex copper alloys in Anatolia (Dardeniz, 2020; Lehner & Yener, 2014; Yener,
2000), the Caucasus (Courcier, 2014), and Balkans (Radivojević etal., 2013).
The best-documented evidence for the earliest copper smelting in southeast
Arabia is from the Hat period site of al-Khashbah in central Oman. Dating to as
early as 3200BCE, small fragments of copper slag, prills, and thousands of furnace
and crucible fragments, were recorded in abundance and associated with settlement
activities and monumental architecture (Schmidt & Döpper, 2019, 2020). Marking
an important transition in southeast Arabia, al-Khashbah provides key data on a
Bronze Age cultural horizon that develops regionally through to the end of the third
millennium BCE.This and earlier work have helped build the case that the copper
sources in southeast Arabia were linked with third millennium BCE attestations of
Magan in Mesopotamian texts (Desch, 1929; Hauptmann & Weisgerber, 1981;
Laursen & Steinkeller, 2017; Peake, 1928; Weeks, 2004; Weisgerber, 1983, 1984).
Analysis of slags from Maysar-1 by A.Hauptmann (1985), dating roughly to the
late third millennium BCE, demonstrates a sequence of possible crucible and fur-
nace smelting and selective ore choice. Some slags show undeveloped microstruc-
tures and pronounced concentrations of copper up to 30wt.%, due to signicant
J. W. Lehner etal.

1397
inclusions of copper prills, cuprite, and Cu-Fe oxides. Slightly later slags and cop-
per ingots from the site demonstrate a different technology including use of fur-
naces and tapping of a more developed slag. Clear indications of direct smelting of
mixed copper oxide and sulde ores together with iron oxide/hydroxide uxes at
this site reveal an advanced smelting technology that resembles evidence from
roughly contemporary sites in Iran, including Shahr-i Sokhta (Artioli etal., 2005).
Planoconvex ingots and slags with bottom circular impressions in these cases show
smelters were able to achieve a highly efcient separation of copper from the slag.
The intensity of copper production declined during the beginning of the second
millennium BCE (known from distinct material traditions during the Wadi Suq
2000–1600 BCE and Late Bronze Age 1600–1300 BCE), which accompanies a
regional transformation that sees novel mortuary traditions, shifts towards increased
mobility patterns and pastoralism. S.Döpper (2021) recently summarized likely
causes, including environmental degradation, resistance against social hierarchies,
reorganization of long-distance trade networks, and challenges around the mobili-
zation of labor in settlements. This provides for intriguing comparison with the Late
Bronze Age/Early Iron Age transition in the Mediterranean region, which also gave
rise to new cultural traditions that dramatically altered political and economic
landscapes.
3 Iron Age Copper Industries inSoutheast Arabia
The Iron Age of both southwest and southeast Arabia is a period of pronounced
transformation and one that witnesses numerous technological and social innova-
tions (Magee, 2014; McCorriston, 2011, 2013). A resurgence in settlement intensi-
cation is associated with novel environmental niches associated with new irrigation
technologies. This is coupled with the rapid adoption of the domestic camel for
transportation. Long-distance trade, ritual spaces associated with monumental
architecture, fortied settlements, new types of mortuary structures, and ritual elab-
oration associated with several types of sites mark an Iron Age phenomenon in
southeast Arabia that is dened also by a distinctly shared material culture.
Another distinct innovation during the Iron Age is the sudden appearance of
industrial scale copper production likely linked to copper sulphide smelting (Weeks
etal., 2016). Scores of Iron Age copper smelting sites across southeast Arabia attest
to this dramatic change, many of which are multiperiod occupations (Yule etal.,
2021). According to the DBM surveys, there is a range in size of smelting sites,
from sites with just 100 tons to 1000 tons; however one site, Raki 2, has up to
45,000 tons (Fig.3) (Hauptmann, 1985). This transformation represents at least an
order of magnitude greater intensity of copper production than the rst burst of
productivity during the third millennium BCE and spans a broad period of time ca.
1300–800BCE or 500years of activity.
Raki 2 is located within the Wadi al-Raki drainage ca. 10km northeast of mod-
ern Yanqul in al-Dhahirah governate (Fig.4). Wadi al-Raki is known variously in
Iron Age Copper Metallurgy inSoutheast Arabia: AComparative Perspective

1398
Fig. 3 Distribution of primary copper producing sites and their absolute weights. (Data source
Hauptmann, 1985. Basemap Credits: ESRIWorld Hillshade)
the geological literature and maps as Wadi Rakah. The wadi develops around and
erodes the edges of signicant exposures of upper and lower extrusives of the vol-
canic sequence of the Semail ophiolite, including several areas of copper-bearing
pillow lavas. There are at least three major VMS deposits in this zone, including
al- Bishara, Hayl al-Sal, Raki, and and smaller deposit at Tawi Raki (also modern
al- Bukhaira). Of these, modern open cast mining operations extracted copper and
gold from the weathered gossan caps of the al-Bishara and Raki sulde bodies from
1994 to 2005.
First recorded in the 1970s by Prospection (Oman) Limited (Prospect Nos.
29–30), and soon after by the United States Geological Survey (Coleman & Bailey,
J. W. Lehner etal.

1399
Fig. 4 Distribution of smelting sites in Wadi al-Raki, Yanqul, Ad-Dhahirah Governorate, Oman.
(Basemap Credits: Earthstar Geographics; Esri, USGS; World Hillshade)
1981), the archaeological signicance of Raki was quickly apparent. Raki was sub-
sequently discussed by Goettler et al. (1976) and Berthould et al. (1978).
G.Weisgerber conducted two seasons (1995–96) of survey and excavations in Wadi
al-Raki, focusing efforts on the early Iron Age settlement and slag heaps at Raki 2
(Weisgerber & Yule, 1999; Yule & Weisgerber, 1996). The Archaeological Water
Histories of Oman (ArWHO) Project renewed investigations of the Raki sites start-
ing in 2019 (Harrower et al., 2021; Sivitskis etal., 2019).
Weisgerber’s investigations at Raki 2 found convincing evidence for the serial
production of copper and mining associated with an agglutinated village that is
dispersed over an approximately 12ha area. Radiocarbon determinations place this
activity between 1200–800calBCE.Slag heaps are composed of crushed and frag-
mented tap and furnace slags and signicant quantities of ceramic furnace lining.
The deepest accumulations of slag (ca. 6.5m) occur at the western edge of the site
(Fig.5).
Evidence from Raki 2 is consistent with smelting practices reconstructed for Iron
Age sites in southeast Arabia involving one-off furnace smelting producing ca. 4–8
kgs of slag with characteristic ow patterns and preserved furnace bottoms with
planoconvex impressions where copper or matte separated (Fig.6). Presently, there
is no evidence for use of tuyères or bellows, since fragments of these have yet to be
documented. Further, given the morphological uniformity of the slags at Raki, it
appears that the production sequence maintained a certain degree of standardiza-
tion, though there is little overarching material evidence for elite administration and
control, such as administrative technologies or specialized architecture.
Iron Age Copper Metallurgy inSoutheast Arabia: AComparative Perspective

140 0
Fig. 5 Excavations of the largest slag heap (ca. 6.5 m deep) at Raki 2 in 2019. (Credit:
Archaeological Water Histories of Oman Project)
4 Copper, Complexity, andtheIron Age Transformation
inArabia
The transition between the Late Bronze Age (LBA) and the Early Iron Age (EIA) is
accompanied by a shift in the sociopolitical and cultural landscape of the Aegean,
Eastern Mediterranean, and Southwest Asia. Earlier reconstructions of this period
theorized societal collapse (Cline, 2014; Drews, 1993; Muhly, 1980) engendered by
population migration and foreign invasion (Albright, 1939; Lapp, 1967; Redford,
1992, 2000; Stager, 1995). Recent reinterpretations are more nuanced, both in terms
of motivating factors and scale of transformation, highlighting one or a combination
of catalysts including mounting internal social tensions (Magee, 2014; Zuckerman,
2007), natural disasters (Nur & Cline, 2000), and large-scale, drought-induced fam-
ine brought about by rapid climate change (Cunliffe, 2005; Drake, 2012; Langgut
etal., 2013; Singer, 2007). Instead of outright collapse, such theories see this transi-
tion as characterized by a decline in political centralization and palace economies,
where present, and a renegotiation of internal social structures.
Beginning in this period, the balance of power gradually shifted in favor of previ-
ously marginal social actors, with the rise of historically attested groups of
Arameans, Phoenicians, Philistines, Chaldaeans, Hebrews, Edomites, Ammonites,
Moabites, Arabs, Iranians, Urartians, Phrygians, Medes, and Ionians. In contrast to
J. W. Lehner etal.

1401
Fig. 6 Typical example of a larger copper slag from Raki 2. Examples like this are preserved
because they were selected for architectural building materials and were not crushed down further.
(Credit: Archaeological Water Histories of Oman Project)
earlier periods, community and social organization during the EIA were deeply
ideologically connected to notions of family ties and alliances between kin-based or
nomadic groups (Porter, 2013). This transition altered regional geopolitics as an
Iron Age Copper Metallurgy inSoutheast Arabia: AComparative Perspective

140 2
increasing strain was placed on old empires in Egypt, Anatolia, Assyria, and
Babylonia. What emerged was a period characterized by elements of continuity
amid considerable change, cultural and technological synergies, and sundry new or
reinforced expressions of socio-cultural identity (Cline, 2014; Mazzoni, 2010).
The break-up of the Bronze Agesystem in the Levant system left a vacuum of
power that generated the conditions for the rise in prominence of different locally
organized groups that arguably embraced opportunities towards some level of eco-
nomic, socio-political, and cultural self-determination. In the southern Levant, LBA
copper production within the Timna Valley was controlled by the Egyptian
Nineteenth Dynasty (Rothenberg, 1972; Rothenberg & Bachmann, 1988; Sapir-Hen
& Ben-Yosef, 2014; Ventura, 1974; Yagel etal., 2016). By the Twentieth Dynasty,
evidence is consistent with a shift in control from the Egyptians, and subsequent
EIA production demonstrates a move towards local control by nomadic groups
(Ben-Yosef, 2010; Ben-Yosef et al., 2012). In the Arabah, the Negev, and the
Edomite Plateau, the emerging model of social organization was one of elite control
and legitimization through copper production (Ben-Yosef, 2010, 2021; Howland,
2021). Among the elite were arguably the craft producers themselves (Howland,
2021), nomads who transitioned polymorphous nomadic societies into politically
resilient polities (Ben-Yosef, 2010, 2021).
Interpretations of the southeast Arabian LBA variously identify either external
geopolitical dynamics or internal restructurings as catalysts for the transition into
the distinct EIA cultural horizon. Where external factors are concerned, scholars
have pointed to the political changes that took place in Mesopotamia, southern Iran,
and the Indus Valley (Crawford, 1996; Crawford, 1998). Others propose a Marxian
model intent on highlighting the impact of local developments (Azzarà & De Rorre,
2018). This model afrms that some changes within southeast Arabia predate the
period of political breakdowns in Mesopotamia (Sallaberger & Schrakamp, 2015)
and the Indus Valley (Kenoyer, 1998; Kenoyer, 2008) and suggest that socio-
political reorganization developed as a response aimed at curbing rising wealth
inequality in the southern Gulf (Magee, 2014: 124–125). Both models iterate the
importance of seeing southeast Arabia as embedded in and entangled with social
groups across southwest Asia (Magee, 2005).
The narrative reconstructed for LBA southeast Arabia(1600–1300 BCE) includes
lower densities in settlement pattern and increased economic dependence on pasto-
ralism (Cleuziou & Tosi, 2007: 258; Magee, 2014: 188). This was accompanied by
a notable shift away from monumental architecture. The so-called towers of the
Bronze Age seem to enter into disuse at the end of the third millennium
BCE.Similarly, above-ground stone cairns gave way to a new form of mortuary
expression, including semi-subterranean collective tombs (Magee, 2014: 189;
Laursen & Steinkeller, 2017: 66). Where copper production was concerned, south-
east Arabia experienced a transition in copper consumption and production
(Weisgerber, 2007). Evidence of LBA metallurgy is limited, consisting principally
of objects uncovered in mortuary contexts (Weeks, 1997; Nasser S. Al-Jahwari
etal., 2021). A signicant decrease in long-distance exchange is also associated
J. W. Lehner etal.

1403
with this period. Except for a small number of texts that mention commercial con-
tacts with Dilmun, the rest of the southern Gulf is scarcely mentioned in the cunei-
form record from this period (Potts, 2001). When exchange is recorded, it seems to
indicate that the export of Omani copper to Mesopotamia was mediated by the com-
munities from Dilmun of the Upper Gulf (Begemann etal., 2010: 160–161; Laursen
& Steinkeller, 2017: 68; Frenez, 2019: 29–31).
5 Factors Linked toTransformation inEarly Iron Age
Southeast Arabia
Socio-political, economic, environmental, and climatic conditions and changes
across the eastern Mediterranean and southwest Asia led to a diverse array of local
adaptations including contrasting trajectories in southeast Arabia and the southern
Levant. In both regions, changes occurred amidst considerable continuity in mate-
rial culture, social structure, and composition (Gregoricka & Sheridan, 2017) and
were marked both by transformations (Avanzini & Phillips, 2010) and by a rein-
forcement of elements of Bronze Age cultural expression (Frenez etal., 2021). As
for the broad trajectory of the EIA, the southern Levant saw the development of
centralized polities born out of polymorphous societies which are dened as com-
prising uctuating proportions of nomadic and settled populations (Ben-Yosef,
2019; Ben-Yosef, 2021). In contrast, a centralized polity did not develop in south-
east Arabia, where elements of social stratication are either negligible or do not
adhere to our expectations of material culture correlates (Cleuziou & Tosi, 2007;
Magee, 2014).
The southeast Arabian early Iron Age is commonly associated with settlement
expansion, economic intensication, and population growth (Boucharlat, 1984:
190; Schreiber, 2007: 272–273; Al-Tikriti, 2002: 150; Nasser Said Ali Al-Jahwari,
2013: 168; Yule, 2014; Magee, 2005, 2014: 214). Two major autochthonous
changes– appearance of falaj irrigation technologies and the use of domesticated
dromedary camels for transportation – facilitated and encouraged major socio-
political and socio-economic changes (Magee, 2005). These internal catalysts con-
travene the notion that powerful regional neighbors (like Mesopotamia) had an
outsized and fundamental impact on changes in southeast Arabian societies. Instead,
major social changes EIA southeast Arabia appear to have been part of eminently
indigenous shifts in cultural expression.
Falaj (pl. aaj) irrigation systems, involving underground inltration galleries
that tap aquifers, are found at Iron Age settlements along the piedmont anks of the
al-Hajar Mountains. This technological innovation led to an expansion of irrigated
lands and facilitated permanent settlements in previously marginal ecological zones
(Magee, 2000: 33, Magee, 2014: 214, 258; Häser, 2010). This led to an unprece-
dented increase in the number of settlements, and most Iron Age oases are associ-
ated with evidence of falaj irrigation (Häser, 2010).
Iron Age Copper Metallurgy inSoutheast Arabia: AComparative Perspective

140 4
Another major push factor is represented by the domestication of dromedary
camels (Camelus dromedaries) in southeast Arabia. While exclusively used for
meat over the previous millennia (Curci etal., 2014; Magee, 2015: 271–272), drom-
edaries began to be used for transport and as pack animals during the Iron Age. This
change in human-animal relationships generated a network of terrestrial trade routes
that expanded and invigorated long-distance trade crisscrossing the Peninsula
(Loreto, 2021; Magee, 2014).
The Iron Age in the southern Levant is similarly characterized by settlement and
population growth. In contrast to southeast Arabia, socio-political changes in the
southernLevant involve gradual centralization under local, nomadic groups thatcul-
minated in kingdoms (LaBianca & Younker, 1995). This process is closely entwined
with control over copper production and trade, particularly where evidence from
copper-producing sites in the Faynan and Timnadistricts is concerned. Recent mod-
els connecting evidence from sites like Khirbat en-Nahas (KEN) to the kingdom of
Edom have proposed an EIA date for this state (Ben-Yosef, 2019, 2021; Levy etal.,
2005, 2007, 2014; Levy & Najjar, 2014; Smith & Levy, 2008). This contrasts with
earlier interpretations which argued that Edom developed largely as a result of inter-
actions with the Assyrian empire beginning in the eighth century BCE (Bienkowski,
1990). Initial challenges to this model (Finkelstein, 2005; Finkelstein & Singer-
Avitz, 2008, 2009; van der Steen & Bienkowski, 2006) have largely been resolved
(Ben-Yosef, 2020;Higham etal., 2005; Levy etal., 2005; Levy & Najjar, 2014).
Patterns evident in the southern Levant also highlight indigenous processes and
dynamics amid active involvement of Egyptian agency at the time of the 22nd
Dynasty. Despite losing control over the Levant during the Twentieth Dynasty
(Bietak, 2007; Martin, 2011; Stager, 1995), the Egyptians appear to have main-
tained economic relations with this locally-controlled enterprise(Ben-Dor Evian
etal., 2021). As a primary importer, they had a vested interest in streamlining cop-
per production and decreasing operating costs and did so primarily by disseminat-
ing technological knowledge to the Edomites (Ben-Yosef etal., 2019; Sapir-Hen &
Ben-Yosef, 2013; Ben-Yosef, 2021) who had stepped into the vacuum of power.
Consolidating control of the immensely lucrative copper industry, the same nomadic
group likely occupied the contemporaneous producing regions in Timna and the
Faynan (Ben-Yosef, 2016; Ben-Yosef etal., 2019).
6 Community Life
Evidence pertinent to reconstructing public life during the EIA can be retrieved by
evaluating settlements patterns, public or communal architectural forms, and the
scale and degree of unity within the material culture record. In southeast Arabia,
examination of Iron Age settlements (Benoist, 2001; Boucharlat, 1984; Boucharlat
& Lombard, 1985; Córdoba, 2010; Magee, 1998; Potts, 1990) have enhanced our
understanding of socio-political organization and social life. Instead of a centralized
polity, a set of village communities emerged to form a network of settlements that
J. W. Lehner etal.

1405
were connected by the circulation of commodities, people, and ideas. With some
important local differences, as represented by divergent trajectories in material cul-
ture between central Oman and the UAE (Phillips, 2010; Schreiber, 2010), expres-
sions of cultural unity characterize southeast Arabia, as indicated by commonly
intelligible social and ritual practices (Benoist, 2010a). Although inuenced by
interactions with long-distance trade partners, this was a broadly indigenous cul-
tural patterning (Magee, 2005). This network demonstrates the development and
sharing of collective resources, technologies, beliefs, and norms. In contrast to the
Levantine example, there is an absence of evidence of social stratication both
among and within settlements (Benoist, 2010a; Córdoba, 2010).
Over the years, different properties have been variously selected to develop a
settlement model according to environment (Boucharlat, 1984; Boucharlat &
Lombard, 1985), geography (Potts, 1990), innovations in hydraulic technologies
(Magee, 1998), developments in social-organization of water management
(Benoist, 2001), and activities associated with production and trade (Córdoba,
2010). These properties converge to reveal a network of coastal settlements (with
differences between sites of the al-Batinah coast and sites of the western littoral of
the Arabian Gulf), oasis settlements of the interior, mountain villages, and forti-
ed sites.
To the extent that this is understood, the layout of Iron Age settlements and pub-
lic architecture associated with defense, public gatherings, meetings, festivities,
religious life, and cultic practices reveal aspects of community life and social orga-
nization that further delineate a society with little evidence of coercion and elite
control and a exible approach to adherence to norms and rules (Benoist, 2010a).
As public works, fortied sites are expressions of large-scale cooperation and
community defense over settlements, structures, resources, economic activities, etc.
These have been found in different locations across southeast Arabia and demon-
strate variation in layout or construction methods (Benoist, 2010a). The extent to
which these structures, together with the large assemblages of IronAge metallic
weaponry, emerged as a response to perceived or actualized threats, is a topic of
ongoing debate (Aksoy, 2018; Potts, 1998; Yule, 2014).
Community building was also structured around collective events that occurred
at cultic and gathering sites. Despite a lack of standardization in religious architec-
ture in southeast Arabia (Benoist, 2010a: 118), material culture associated with cul-
tic sites demonstrates some degree of homogeneity, as represented by the ubiquity
of snake symbols among a characteristic assemblage with ritual associations
(Condoluci & Esposti, 2018).
Collective events also occurred in so-called columned or pillared buildings
(Benoist, 2010a; Condoluci & Esposti, 2018), where communal gatherings involved
ritual consumption of food and drink. The co-occurrence of ritual paraphernalia
with items associated with feasting (drinking vessels, carinated cups, long-handled
bowls, bridge-spouted jars, bronze ladles, etc.) evokes communal gatherings where
cultic activities took place alongside feasting and banqueting (Condoluci & Esposti,
2018; Benoist, 2010b; a; Benoist etal., 2015). A model that emerges is one where
feasts and festivities are understood as ways of reifying social cohesion and
Iron Age Copper Metallurgy inSoutheast Arabia: AComparative Perspective

140 6
negotiating aspects of community life. An association with ritual or religious prac-
tices would have arguably legitimized these social events (Benoist, 2010a).
Examples of social architecture generally appear to be spatially distinct from
private residences. This provides further support that an elite class with structural
power had not emerged in the southeast Arabian EIA.Instead, this infrastructure
suggests the existence of a society that valued community building activities, one in
which the group was arguably the smallest unit of control (Avanzini & Phillips,
2010; Benoist, 2010a). In addition to serving cultic and ceremonial functions, col-
umned buildings have also been interpreted as administrative centers (Boucharlat &
Lombard, 2001; Magee, 2003), loci that facilitated discussions around shared com-
munity issues, such as the collective management of common strategic resources
including water (Al-Tikriti, 2002; Benoist, 2000; Boucharlat & Lombard, 2001).
In contrast to southeast Arabia, where the role of nomads in the development of
EIA society is less understood, EIA nomadic groups of the southern Levant were
arguably the prime movers in Iron Age state formation (Ben-Yosef, 2019, 2021). A
fundamental part of the southern Levantine social matrix, nomadic groups estab-
lished political institutions and centralized polities in ancient Israel (Finkelstein,
1994; Rainey, 2007), Ammon, Moab, and Edom (LaBianca & Younker, 1995).
Iron Age social organization departs from the traditional ethnographic model.
Based on observations of twentieth-century Bedouin societies, the ethnographic
model describes a society with a dimorphic structure (Rowton, 1976), made up of
both a settled and an enclosed nomadic component (Lattimore, 1962; Rowton, 1974),
wherein nomads existed in a state of dependency in relation to settled populations
that wielded disproportionate political power. Diverging from this model, scholars of
Iron Age southern Levant have recently argued that nomadic groups, like the
Edomites, developed a socially stratied society that built political institutions and
controlled the Iron Age copper industry. Rather than existing in a subordinate social
position, nomads represented the core of the emerging polity, driving socio- political
processes both for themselves and arguably for the settled populations within their
sphere of inuence. What emerges is a model of enclosing nomadism (Abbas
Alizadeh, 2010; Ben-Yosef, 2021), based on a polymorphous society (Lemche,
1985) whose population existed on a continuum between nomadic and settled.
In addition to an overreliance on analogies with the Bedouin model and the
ancient Near Eastern textual record (Rowton, 1974), the reluctance to associate state
formation with mobile populations results from the awed expectation that seden-
tism necessarily precedes states. A reticence to accept the political importance of
nomadic groups is also owing to the characteristically ephemeral nature of the mate-
rial culture associated with mobile populations. The nomads of the southern
Levantine EIA, however, are exceptionally visible within the archaeological record
due to their command of a large-scalecopper industry with a rich assemblage (Ben-
Yosef, 2021).
Indeed, the development of social hierarchy within the southern Levant’s Arabah
valley is tied to control of copper exploitation, production, and trade (Ben-Yosef,
2021; Howland, 2021). A process of political consolidation in this region appears to
have occurred soon after the departure of Egyptian forces from the Timna Valley in
J. W. Lehner etal.

140 7
the twelfth century BCE (Ben-Yosef etal., 2019). Adapting models and technolo-
gies from the Egyptians, the nomadic population took charge of copper production
in the Arabah, defended regional copper trade networks, and maintained stability
over their territory (Ben-Yosef, 2021). Both the geographical extent of the Edomite
polity and the broader structure of the economy are difcult to ascertain by virtue of
the characteristically muted material signature of mobile populations.
7 Power, Ritual andCooperation
In addition to being a traded commodity, copper in the southern Levant also retained
symbolic associations and was arguably central to an ideology of elite legitimiza-
tion (Howland, 2021). Imbuing metal objects with symbolism is a recognized phe-
nomenon (Arnold, 1987; Budd & Taylor, 1995; Helms, 1993; Inomata, 2001). By
extension, those involved in copper production are often marked with the same con-
notations. In the southern Levant, this model relies on the discovery of evidence of
smelting within elite domestic contexts (Howland, 2021). An alternate scenario in
which smelters are non-elite individuals attached to elite circles is also possible
(Costin, 2005); however, a current model convincingly argues that copper smelters
themselves, possessed highly specialized knowledge, traded on the positive associa-
tion that their contemporaries had with copper production to legitimize their status
in society(Sapir-Hen & Ben-Yosef, 2014). What emerged was a social class with
enduring structural power in Levantine society (Howland, 2021). Whether this was
power to coerce or merely logistical power over production and trade has yet to be
established (Levy etal., 2014).
In southeast Arabia, smelting and metal objects were similarly imbued with rit-
ual and symbolic connotations having been found in funerary contexts, hoards, cul-
tic, or ceremonial spaces (Nashef, 2010; Goy etal., 2013; Benoist et al., 2015;
Weeks etal., 2017; Rodrigo etal., 2017; Karacic etal., 2017; Frenez etal., 2021;
Nasser S.Al-Jahwari etal., 2021). Hoards rich with nished metal objects, ingots,
and slags are known also at settlements with ritual deposits at Masa 1in Fujairah
(Benoist etal., 2012), and at Mudhmar East in central Oman where scores of copper
alloy weapons, including facsimiles of quivers produced of copper alloy, were dis-
covered in the oors of a prominent building (Gernez & Giraud, 2019; Jean
etal., 2021).
Further evidence linking copper production, consumption and ritual has also
been identied in the far reaches of the Rub al-Khali desert. Extensive evidence
from three stratigraphic horizons spanning ca. 1300–800BCE at Saruq al-Hadid in
the UAE link ritualized deposits of high-quality status objects produced of a wide
variety of metals and shapes, including exotic iron weapons, in association with
copper smelting slags and feasting events (James Roberts etal., 2018; Weeks etal.,
2019; Stepanov et al., 2019b; Stepanov et al., 2019a). The diversity expressed
within the material culture at Saruq al-Hadid, connecting cultural spheres from
Egypt to Iran, demonstrates profound connectivity in a limiting geography.
Iron Age Copper Metallurgy inSoutheast Arabia: AComparative Perspective

140 8
The site of Uqdat al-Bakrah, located in Oman ca. 100km southeast of Saruq al-
Hadid, is a comparable site with ritual signicance. Similarly associated with a
landscape of hundreds of circular pits of presumably different functions all linked
to pyrotechnological practice, hundreds of copper-alloy objects and a smaller
amount of fragmentary iron weaponry were discovered deposited over the surface
of the desert oor. Objects include a wide range of types, including mostly heavy
agricultural implements, vessels, and weapons. The rst excavators of the site inter-
preted the location to be a metal workshop deep in the desert (Yule & Gernez,
2018), however, the data are also consistent with ritual deposition and decommis-
sioning. Unlike at Saruq al-Hadid, very few slags or technical ceramics were recov-
ered at the site.
In contrast to developments in the southern Levant, engaging in copper metal-
lurgy and trade did not catalyse the development of social stratication and inequal-
ity in southeast Arabia. Rather, evidence is most consistent with an internal trade
system of copper where, unlike the previous period during the Bronze Age, copper
and copper-related materials were used in part to promote social cohesion. Primary
production sites, such as at Raki 2, show very little evidence of elite administration
and rather supplied localized networks of interaction to produce a wide range of
objects that were consumed regionally. In some cases, evidence from sites located
at the edge of the Rub al-Khali dune elds like Saruq al-Hadid and ‘Uqdat al-Bakrah
support the hypothesis that nished objects and bulk materials were provisioned,
deposited or decommissioned inlocations that were not necessarily tied to regional
centers. The overarching pattern in southeast Arabia is one where industrial produc-
tion may not have been driven by a need of elites to legitimize their own position in
society or produce power through access to scarce materials, but rather materials
like copper and its alloys were fed into a sector of society where power was gener-
ated through ritual. This stark contrast with other regions in southwest Asia, like the
southern Levant, provides an important comparative perspective that highlights how
industry need not center on social hierarchies and power imbalances to thrive.
Acknowledgments We would like to acknowledge the Ministry of Heritage and Tourism of the
Sultanate of Oman, including Sultan Al-Bakri, Khamis Al-Asmi and Suleiman Al-Jabri, for their
collaboration and permission to conduct eldwork in Oman. We thank the communities in Wadi
al-Raki, Yanqul and Dhahir al-Fawaris for welcoming us through the course of our eldwork in the
region. We are grateful to the editors of this volume for their patience and feedback. This research
was supported by grants from National Aeronautics and Space Administration (ROSES) Research
Opportunities in Space and Earth Sciences (#NNX13AO48G), Australian Research Council
Discovery Early Career Award DE180101288, Johns Hopkins University Catalyst and Space@
Hopkins grants, and Danish National Research Foundation under grant DNRF119– Centre of
Excellence for Urban Network Evolutions (UrbNet). Finally, we thank Tom Levy, whose research
has transformed our understanding ancient society in West Asia, especially in the southern Levant,
and inspired many aspects of our own work in Oman.
J. W. Lehner etal.

1409
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