A rare insight into pre-Islamic Arabian religion has been afforded by recent excavations at Akab in the United Arab Emirates. A mound of skulls, ribs and other bones from more than 40 dugongs, initially thought to be a marine hunters’ midden, was found to have been carefully constructed, with a row of skulls and jaws all facing the same way.

It is “the oldest sanctuary in Arabia”, according to Sophie Méry, a French archaeologist, and her colleagues, “unique in the Middle East, and with no parallel in the Neolithic in other parts of the world”. The Akab bone mound has been dated by radiocarbon to between 3500 and 3200BC, and overlies a village of the fifth millennium BC whose inhabitants included dugong in a wideranging seafood diet.

The dugong is a marine mammal that lives along the coasts of the Indian Ocean and western Pacific. It is related to the manatee in the Caribbean and off Florida, both being members of the order Sirenia, thought to have evolved from four-legged mammals more than 60 million years ago; they are thought to have given rise to the myth of the mermaid, and are sometimes called seacows.

The lagoon island of Akab, some 50km (30 miles) north of Dubai, was an ideal hunting station, and when the site was first investigated the remains were thought to have purely economic significance. The recent French excavations, which are continuing, have shown that things are more complicated: “This is not an unorganised accumulation of bones, but an intentional structure, one whose construction was accomplished in stages,” the team report online and in the journal Antiquity.

“This complex construction consists of an ovoid platform covering approximately ten square metres and 40cm high. The top level was organised with two rows of skulls with the same orientation on the northern edge of the mound: all the skulls were carefully wedged into place with wedges of ribs placed all around them, and bundles of ribs were deposited just in front of the first row of skulls.” They faced east, something found in some Neolithic cemeteries in the UAE also.

The lower level of the platform was impregnated with a red ochre solution, and had dugong jawbones laid flat. No whole animals were found, although articulated limb bones showed that some freshly killed and butchered animals were deposited. Large numbers of shell and tubular stone beads were found among the bones, as well as stone tools and bones from domestic herd animals including sheep and goat. “All these elements indicate that the organisation and use of the Akab monument responded to precise rules. The spectacular and ritualised display is reminiscent of that of the green turtle in the necropolis of Ra’s al-Hamra in Oman, which is contemporary with the Akab monument”, the team say. In Oman “the animal skulls were placed near the face of the deceased or on the tomb, and elements of the shell were placed on the body, or pebbles in imitation of turtle eggs”.

They see a link with fishing and hunting magic rituals, citing the more recent dugong bone mounds built by Torres Strait islanders just north of Australia between the 16th and 20th centuries. There, “the dugong is an animal of special status, the subject of propitiatory rites concerning the preparations for its capture, dismemberment and consumption.”

As the oldest ritual site in Arabia, Akab has “provided new data on the relations between humans and their environment, in particular on the symbolic use of animals”, the team concludes.

“We interpret the dugong bone mound as a monument, with a preconceived organisation, constructed to last.”

www.inrap.fr/archeologie-preventive

Antiquity 83: 696-708