1.1. Bandar Abbas
This site lies on the coast some eight kilometers east of Berbera and two kilometers southwest of the Biyo Gure river mouth, the main wadi east of Berbera.1 We surveyed Bandar Abbas in 2016 and considered it to be a trade settlement of foreign merchants (González-Ruibal et al., 2017: 142–145). Further survey in 2020 complicated the picture. The densest artifact scatter occupies a consolidated dune of around two hectares, along a SW-NE axis. During our first visit, we were able to document a rectangular stone and brick structure—which we can now confidently identify with a mosque, for its orientation and the existence of a mihrab—and a large number of imported materials, including sgraffiato wares, Chinese celadons, Indian pottery and glass, and stone beads, as well as remains of domestic animals (sheep/goat, cattle and camel). Imported materials suggested a chronology of the early second millennium CE.
During our second visit, recent torrential rains had exposed the NE edge of the site, which was hardly visible during our first survey, as well as new features in the part that was already exposed in the SW (Fig. 2). The NE zone has a concave topography and, being outside the consolidated dune, lies at a lower elevation than the rest of the site, which is 1.5 to 3 m higher. Given the limited available time and the size of the site, we decided to document this zone in detail, which was self-contained and where all materials and features were visible on the surface. We mapped the entire area, using a drone and digital photogrammetry and inventoried and made drawings of each of the artifacts. Collecting (or documenting in situ) the faunal assemblage would have been impossible as there are thousands of bones, so we sampled some of the features with osteological material for laboratory analysis. Attempts to radiocarbon-date the bones have been unsuccessful. The NE zone occupies around 2000 m2, or 10% of the entire site. It has several hearths, artifact scatters with pottery, glass and bones, heaps of bones with butchery marks (some charred), complete pots buried in stone-lined pits and even a rectangular structure made with camel bones, all arranged around an elongated empty space, where we retrieved a lithic anchor. There is a small cairn in a more or less central position. Outside the ring, there are more bone dumps and a large storage vessel broken in situ. We recorded the entire artifactual assemblage: 108 ceramic vessels, all types comprised, 7 glass vessels, and one soapstone vase. Fine wares (Iranian sgraffiatos, other glazed wares and Chinese celadon) represent 13% of the assemblage; whereas imported kitchen and storage wares (Yemeni and Indian) comprise 57% of the total. Local hand-made pottery is very abundant, amounting to 30% of the collection. The bone assemblage is composed of goat/sheep, cattle, and camel. In terms of the total number of elements, goat/sheep is the most represented, in terms of meat volume, camels are first.
We also mapped the SW zone with the drone, comprising around 4500 m2. Here there also exist different activity areas, in this case organized around the stone and brick building that we documented in 2016. On the southwest limit of the zone there is a slag dump and in-between dump and building many hearths, bone heaps with thousands of bones, buried pots lined with stones, and artifact scatters, which also extend to the northeast of the building. Near the stone building, there is a tomb surrounded by a stone ring. We were unable to record the SW zone in the same detail as the NE, but we surveyed it thoroughly and documented with a GPS the location of all imported fine wares. The central part of the site was simply surveyed, but not mapped. The density of finds, however, was noticeably lower (perhaps because it was not as exposed as the NE and SW zones).
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