Bat, Al-Khutm and Al-Ayn archaeological sites
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How it came to be
The site of Bat lies in a palm grove in Wadi Sharsah, about 24 km east of Ibri in north-western Oman. Few places keep such a complete and well-preserved group of settlements and cemeteries from the 3rd millennium BC. A further tower stands at al-Khutm, 2 km to the west, and another group of tombs lies at Qubur Juhhal at al-Ayn, about 22 km to the east-south-east.
Seven stone towers have been found at Bat. Each has a circular outer wall 20 to 25 m across, with two rows of compartments on either side of a central well. They are built of dressed local limestone set in mud mortar, and quarries and workshops show every stage from quarrying to construction. The latest is probably of the Late Umm an-Nar period, around 2200 to 2000 BC, and what the towers were for is still unknown.
Hafit-period 'beehive' tombs line the rocky slopes, and more than a hundred dry-stone cairn tombs stand on a river terrace. Tombs from the start of the millennium are small single chambers; later ones are larger, with several chambers. Around 3000 BC locally mined copper was traded with the Sumerians. A Danish team led by Karen Frifelt excavated here in 1972, and the sites were inscribed in 1988.
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