Indus Valley style bronze age cytobals discovered in Oman -the

A pair of 4000-year-old copper c-wood was found on the ancient Dahwa site in northern Oman, very similar to the example found in the Indus Valley in Pakistan. Metallurgical analysis shows that Dahwa Cymbals are made of copper sourced from Oman, so they are not imported, but their closest style and date similarities can be found on Mohenjo Daro in Pakistan. They demonstrated the cultural links, perhaps even religious crossovers between the Indus Valley and the peoples in the southeastern Arab Republic.

These instruments were made by Umm an-nar (“Mother of Fire” in Arabic), a culture that occupied the United Arab Emirates and modern countries in northern Oman (2600 B.C.-2600 B.C.). Since 2014, ancient ruins near Dahwa village include domestic buildings, huge structures, ritual buildings and a tomb from the Umm an-nar culture.

Cymbals discovered in 2018 in a building from a building and location, which has the tallest settlement with a ritual function. Two copper alloy plates were excavated from a fill layer in the northwest corner of the building. They are perfectly nested in the filler with each other, and then the new flat panel board is mounted on the filler. This shows that they are a dedication deposit.

The copper plate is round, with a diameter of 3.4 inches and a diameter of 3 inches. They both perforated in the center of the elevated boss. They weigh nine ounces. Because they were found as a pair in their original context, they could be identified as cytobals without ambiguity, unlike the Mohenjo daro examples found by individuals, which could be combined and interpreted as pot lids. Therefore, Dahwa’s cy is found in the Indus Valley that confirms matching the design.

Other objects were produced locally, but in the style of the Indus Valley, including ceramic cookware, clay toys and metal products such as seals, axes and spearheads, were found in ancient locations in southeastern Arabia. There are also imports, including storage tanks. This shows the direct trade links and the possibility of Indian arts and craft residents moving to the Umm an-nar cultural field. A lead isotope analysis of copper objects in the Indus Valley found ores that originated in Oman, so immigrants may have been extracting ores and smelting copper in Oman and sending metals home.

Our understanding of the nature of cultural relations among the various groups in Oman’s Bronze Age is still in its infancy, but archaeological records reflect a rich cultural tradition that found a common basis in the collective practice of the time. […] Like Dahwa, the mixing of communities with various contexts may reveal social tensions. In such an environment, the act of co-producing music, dance, and even performing cult activities may help build a stable community. From this perspective, in the early second millennium BC, dance scenes became a common decorative feature in Southeast Arabia, transitioning to the Wadi Suq period, which is visible on cans of paint sprays associated with public consumption (de vreeze 2016), and reveal more than just the appreciation of dance. The sound of cybone in the tallest building of the Dahwa settlement may have resonated with the sides of the hills and heard most of the residents, perhaps even further along the valley. The discovery of Dahwa Cymbals encourages the idea that in the late third millennium BC, music, chanting and public dance set the tone for the contact between various communities in the region to be followed by a millennium.

[…] From their inception, the Cymbals seemed to be associated with ritual activities and the environment of the temple and found the pair in Dahwa, Umm An-Nar and Indus artifacts coexist, suggesting that music and instruments are important cultural components of inter-period contact and collaboration around the Arab gulf.