Landmarks of Identity: Bronze Age Towers of the Oman Peninsula

By (author) Stephanie Döpper

Book cover: Landmarks of Identity: Bronze Age Towers of the Oman Peninsula

Extent: 238 pages

Publisher: Archaeopress Publishing

Subjects: Ancient Near East

Series: The Archaeological Heritage of Oman

Language: English

Paperback (Published)

(July 2024)

ISBN: 9781803278193

8.27 x 11.69 inches

Price: $68.00

In stock

In the Early Bronze Age, monumental stone and mud-brick structures known as towers appeared in Oman. This book aims to update the long-standing discussions on these towers and to assess their chronological depth of more than a millennium. The book also reassesses their possible functions in the light of recent archaeological research.


Five thousand years ago, in the Early Bronze Age, monumental stone and mud-brick structures known as towers appeared on the landscape of the Oman Peninsula. Since then, they have served as distinctive landmarks of identity for the people of the region. Despite many years of archaeological research and intensive excavations of some of them, much remains unknown about these impressive structures. This book aims to update the long-standing discussions on these towers and to assess their chronological depth of more than a millennium, with the first of them constructed as early as the end of the 4th millennium BCE and the last substantial building activities at the beginning of the 2nd millennium BCE. The book also reassesses their possible functions, such as defence, refuge, demarcation of property, residence of elites, involvement in complex irrigation systems, arenas for cultic practices, in the light of recent archaeological research. The book will also provide a richly illustrated catalogue with extensive bibliography, research history and coordinates of all the nearly hundred towers known to date in the Sultanate of Oman and the United Arab Emirates, creating a record for researchers and visitors alike.

Introduction

1. Bronze Age Towers: Catalogue

2. Bronze Age Towers: Chronology  

3. Bronze Age Towers: Function

4. Conclusions            

Plates

Bibliography

Index

  • By (author) Stephanie Döpper