Umm an-Nar Mortuary Landscape at Dahwa with Dr. Kimberly Willliams

Dr. Kimberly Williams presented SQCC’s first lecture of 2019 on 26 March, which explored the mortuary practices of the early Bronze Age. Dr. Williams is an associate professor of anthropology at Temple University. The lecture delved in to Dr. Williams’ recent work at Dahwa, where she led a collaborative excavation between Sultan Qaboos University and Temple University. Dahwa has revealed important information about the relationship between the prehistoric Oman Peninsula and the Indus Valley. Dahwa is the first Umm an-Nar settlement excavated on the Batinah coast. It is a large industrial settlement that was used intensively for copper smelting, but also had a significant agricultural component. Dr. Williams’ lecture included captivating 3-D models of the Dahwa site, which allowed the viewer to explore every foot of this early Bronze Age site and gave the audience a more tangible understanding of the site’s mortuary practices.

After the lecture, there was a Q&A session that touched upon the future of digital culture heritage management techniques in Oman, how the site differed from other Bronze age sites, and what mortuary practices can tell us about the changing norms and traditions of ancient peoples.

A video of the lecture can be viewed here.