Saudi Arabia discovers 9,000 year-old civilization

[Bengal_Tiger]

Saudi Arabia discovers 9,000 year-old civilization

(Reuters) - Saudi Arabia is excavating a new archaeological site that will show horses were domesticated 9,000 years ago in the Arabian peninsula, the country's antiquities expert said on Wednesday.
The discovery of the civilization, named al-Maqar after the site's location, will challenge the theory that the domestication of animals took place 5,500 years ago in Central Asia, said Ali al-Ghabban, Vice-President of Antiquities and Museums at the Saudi Commission for Tourism & Antiquities.
"This discovery will change our knowledge concerning the domestication of horses and the evolution of culture in the late Neolithic period," Ghabban told a news conference in the Red Sea port of Jeddah.
"The Maqar Civilization is a very advanced civilization of the Neolithic period. This site shows us clearly, the roots of the domestication of horses 9,000 years ago."
The site also includes remains of mummified skeletons, arrowheads, scrapers, grain grinders, tools for spinning and weaving, and other tools that are evidence of a civilization that is skilled in handicrafts.
Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil exporter, is trying to diversify its economy away from oil and hopes to increase its tourism.
Last year the SCTA launched exhibitions in Barcelona's CaixaForum museum and Paris's Louvre museum showcasing historic findings of the Arabian Peninsula.
(Reporting by Asma Alsharif; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...77O01R20110825

[Bengal_Tiger]

Archaeologists Uncover Ancient Site In Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabian officials said archaeologists have begun excavating the site of a 9,000-year-old civilization, including horse fossils, suggesting people in the Arabian Peninsula domesticated horses in the ancient culture.
HRH Prince Sultan bin Salman, president of the Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities (SCTA), submitted the discovery to the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, King Abdullah. Salman said the discovery at the al-Maqar site challenges the popular notion that horses were only domesticated 5,500 years ago in Central Asia.
Ali al-Ghabban added that the discovery changed what was known about the evolution of culture in the late Neolithic period.
“This discovery will change our knowledge concerning the domestication of horses and the evolution of culture in the late Neolithic period,” Ali al-Ghabban told reporters at a news conference in Jeddah, according to Reuters.
“The al-Maqar civilization is a very advanced civilization of the Neolithic period. This site shows us clearly, the roots of the domestication of horses 9,000 years ago,” he added.
Archaeologists also discovered a number of artifacts at the site. These included arrowheads, scrapers, grain grinders, tools for spinning and weaving, and other handicraft tools. Ghabban said carbon-14 tests on the artifacts, as well as DNA tests on human remains at the site, dated them to about 7,000 BC.
“These antiquities proved that [the] Al-Maqar site, in the heart of Saudi Arabia, was the oldest place in the world so far with people domesticated in horses, in addition these artifacts also manifested the cultural activities of people in the region during the Stone Age,” said Salman.
Salman said efforts are underway to excavate antiquities in various parts of the country, in addition to protecting them in a scientific manner. He also revealed plans to establish new museums in various parts of KSA.
“The results of the excavation show that taking care of horses has been an old tradition inherited by Muslims from their forefathers. There is no wonder that during the time of Prophet Mohammed and the Caliphs, special areas had been allocated for breeding and rearing horses,” he said.
Although humans first came into contact with horses nearly 50,000 years ago, they were originally herded only for their meat, skins, and possibly for milk. The first undisputed evidence of horse domestication dates back to 2,000 BC, when horses were buried with chariots. Domestication had spread through Europe, Asia and North America by about 1,000 BC.
However, researchers have found evidence suggesting that horses were used by the Botai culture in northern Kazakhstan 5,500 years ago.
Saudi Arabia has been trying to diversify its economy away from oil and hopes to increase tourism there.
Ghabban said the SCTA began excavating the site after receiving information about the area from a Saudi last year. He said Saudi archaeologists were aided by international archaeology experts in the excavation process.
The SCTA last year launched exhibitions in Barcelona’s CaixaForum museum and Paris’s Louvre museum showcasing historic findings from the Arabian Peninsula.

http://www.redorbit.com/news/science...n-saudi-arabia

[Bengal_Tiger]

http://arabnews.com/saudiarabia/article492860.ece

The site was near the city of Abha in south western Saudi Arabia.





This area is part of an area historically called "Arabia Felix", which included Yemen. Yemen is rich in history and even had Jewish Kingdoms in the past as well as others. Being not just desert unlike central Arabia it produced more sedentary civilizations.



Ancient statue of a Yemeni queen.



Another ancient Yemeni sculpture.

[Bengal_Tiger]

1. We know the ancient Arabs were not just located in central Arabia but also in countries such as what is now Jordan and Iraq.

The Nabatean Arabs produced Petra.



Ruin in Petra.

The Quran refers to these powerful ancient Arab nations and also mentions how prophets such as Hud and Salih (alaihima salam) were sent to warn these nations to stop their evil ways when their culture became idolatrous and decadent, in the same way the holy prophet (solAllahu 'alaihi wa sallam) warned the ancient Meccans and condemned their slavery, their economic corruption, infanticide (burying of girls alive) and idolatry.

These nations which used to be so powerful were then destroyed with nothing left of them besides a few ruins, in great contrast to the delusions of eternal grandeur they held.

The Quran mentions the Queen of Seba, which is most likely in Yemen. Also the original Arabs are from Yemen, e.g. the tribe of Banu Jurhum who saw Ismail (alaihi salam) in Mecca. In Suratul Buruj, mention is made of pious believers who were tortured, this is believed to be during a kingdom in Yemen. So "Arabia Felix" (Yemen) was developed and powerful, and it was from there an Abyssinian army set out to destroy the holy Kaba. The Kaba still stands and is the centre of a live, vibrant city visited by millions from all over the world, whereas the pagan ancient Arab cultures are extinct including that of Aad and Thamud.





So the ancient Arabs of the past perished with their civilizations, whilst Islam and Mecca live on.

[Afghanistan2010]

Yes the female Ruler of Sheba is mentioned in Surah An Namal.

[Karachi]

saudi has over 2000 sites waiting to be discovered. its a very ancient country. some people even say that real Mt Sinai is in Saudi arabia

[Toramana]

eh...Arabs and civilization...that is a far cry...

[Levanaye Zalmaye]

This is a neolithic civilization - a modern stone-age civilization, in which man still lived in his "primitive state". This isn't Mesopotamia, Egypt or the Indus Valley, not even by a long-shot.

The only thing interesting about this is that they claim horses here were domesticated as far back as 9000BC, which is around 5000 years further back than what we believed otherwise.

I wonder why the KSA government didn't hush up reports about this excavation. After all, following in the footsteps of American Bible literalists, quite a few Muslims nowadays claim that there was never any such thing as the stone-age.

[Levanaye Zalmaye]

This is a neolithic civilization - a modern stone-age civilization, in which man still lived in his "primitive state". This isn't Mesopotamia, Egypt or the Indus Valley, not even by a long-shot.

The only thing interesting about this is that they claim horses here were domesticated as far back as 9000BC, which is around 5000 years further back than what we believed otherwise.

I wonder why the KSA government didn't hush up reports about this excavation. After all, following in the footsteps of American Bible literalists, quite a few Muslims nowadays claim that there was never any such thing as the stone-age.

1. We know the ancient Arabs were not just located in central Arabia but also in countries such as what is now Jordan and Iraq.

The Nabatean Arabs produced Petra.

The Nabateans were a multicultural society and given the location of Petra on the map, there would have been very few Arabs settled there. In fact, the predominant language there was Aramaic.

Also, Petra has a rich Syrian (non-Arab), Greek and Roman heritage and Syria and Jordan were only Arabized after the spread of Islam in the 8th century AD. Arabic language and culture was insignificant until all of North Africa, Syria, Jordan, Palestine, Iraq were Arabized by the Hejazi invaders in the 8th century and beyond.

In fact, if one goes through the list of the great thinkers and scientists from the Medieval Era, he won't be surprised that most of them were Persians, Turks, Spaniards or even Jewish and there were very few Arabs among them and even they were not native Arabs but Arabized Syrians, Iraqis or Berbers. The fact is that the Arab culture and/or people have failed to come together and form an intellectual civilization despite the many advantages that nature has endowed them with.

Even today, despite their vast resources and immeasurable wealth, all of Arabia, whilst full of concrete and steel, is virtually devoid of intellectual prowess. When the oil runs out, they will devolve back into camels and horses.

[Karachi]

who says arabs didn't have civilization??? they had many ones infact, Nabatians built petra and many other great monuments in saudi arabia, i have been to them. Then we have the empires in Yemen(Queen of Sheba) which also built great monuments, then even earlier we had the civilization in Ubar (Oman) which was found in 1992 using Nasa satelite. The truth is arabs are one of the oldest surviving people in the world.

Like i said, more civilizations are waiting to be discovered in saudi arabia, in a recent satellite scan they found potential 2000 new sites in saudi arabia

[Levanaye Zalmaye]

who says arabs didn't have civilization??? they had many ones infact, Nabatians built petra and many other great monuments in saudi arabia, i have been to them. Then we have the empires in Yemen(Queen of Sheba) which also built great monuments, then even earlier we had the civilization in Ubar (Oman) which was found in 1992 using Nasa satelite. The truth is arabs are one of the oldest surviving people in the world.

Like i said, more civilizations are waiting to be discovered in saudi arabia, in a recent satellite scan they found potential 2000 new sites in saudi arabia

The Nebatians were not Arabs. They spoke the language and followed the culture of the people who remain today as the speakers of Syriac and not Arabic. Palmyra in central Syria was a part of the Greek-speaking world along with Susa, Babylonia, Antioch, Opus, etc (all of which are in modern-day Iraq, Syria and Lebanon).

The Arabs, as we know them, were confined to Hejaz, Yemen and parts of the Gulf. The ancient peoples of Yemen were a settled agrarian society and hence, naturally got involved in the arts and crafts but the fact remains that their influence beyond their borders was zero and they didn't produce a single great thinker.

[Bengal_Tiger]

The Nabateans were at the very least Semites of some sort though some hold the view they are Arabs (not that I care if they are/are not).

Proper names on their inscriptions suggest that they were true Arabs who had come under Aramaic influence. Starcky identifies the Nabatu of southern Arabia (Pre-Khalan migration) as their ancestors. However different groups amongst the Nabateans wrote their names in slightly different ways, consequently archeologists are reluctant to say that they were all the same tribe, or that any one group is the original Nabateans

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nabataeans

Geographically however Petra falls within the Arabia peninsula as opposed to the fertile crescent, and as we know geographies play a huge part in determining socio-economics and the cultures which arise. In other words geographically they are part of Arabia and not the Levant/Meditteranean, though they were influenced by their Roman neighbours at certain times in their history.

Among the oldest references to Arabs in what is now Jordan is the account of the battle of Qarqar in 853 BCE, in which the Assyrian king Šalmanasser III claims to have conquered a coalition of Syrian rulers. It may have been a defeat, actually, but the operations at Qarqar opened the road to what is now called Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and Jordan. After this, Assyrian texts several times refer to Aribi, which by the time of Tiglath-Pileser III (ruled 745-727) appears to have been a regular payer of tribute. The first reference to Arabs of the Nabataean tribe, which may have lived as nomadic pastoralists near Hegra (modern Mada'in Salih in the northwest of Saudi Arabia), dates to the seventh century. The Biblical book of Genesis mentions a son of Ishmael called Nebajoth, which has been taken as a reference to the Arabian tribe (Genesis, 25.13, 28.9, 36.3), but although this identification is ancient (cf. Josephus, Jewish Antiquities, 1.12.4), it is by no means certain.

The above quote cites Assyrian and Hebrew (Biblical) sources. The quote below quotes a Greek.

The next reference to Arabs in southern Palestine and western Jordan comes from the Greek researcher Herodotus, who tells us that the Persian king Cambyses did not subdue the Arabs when he attacked Egypt in 525 BCE, but concluded an alliance, in which the Arabian leader promised send supplies to the Persian army (Histories, 3.4-9). Herodotus also tells that in his own age, the mid-fifth century, Gaza was an Arabian town: interesting evidence for the expansion of the Arabs.

http://www.livius.org/ap-ark/arabia/...abataeans.html

The Arabic alphabet was developed from a script of the Nabateans.

The other thing to bear in mind about the Arabian peninsula is that is a cross-roads between east Africa, Egypt & Nubia (with their highly developed civilizations) the Iranian, Iraqi (Assyrian, Babylonian) and Indian civilizations just across the Persian gulf so has at times been influenced by all of them.

Even today it is said 40% of Emirati Arabs - who are actual Emiratis with UAE nationality and consider others as foreigners - are Balochis in origin i.e. originate from what is Iran/Pakistan.

However as for how much could have emerged from the barren lands of central Arabia (e.g. Najd) which simply did not have the water and natural resources to support a developed sedentary culture, that is very questionable.