The well-preserved remains of a palatial compound are among the new findings from the ongoing archaeological excavations in the abandoned town of Al Zubarah, situated on the northwest coast of Qatar, Gulf Times has learnt.
Al Zubarah, which bustled with activity 200 years ago, is considered perhaps the best preserved example of a mid-18th to the end of 19th century pearl fishing and trading town.
“Though Al Zubarah is quite recent in terms of archaeology, it is a crucial location for the history of Qatar because it was the nation’s largest town with at least 6,000 inhabitants at its heyday,” Qatar Islamic Archaeology and Heritage (QIAH) project’s deputy fieldwork director Dr Tobias Richter said.
QIAH is an initiative of Qatar Museums Authority (QMA) chairperson HE Sheikha Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani and vice-chairperson Sheikh Hassan bin Mohamed al-Thani as part of a major programme to investigate and protect Al Zubarah’s rich archaeological heritage.
As asked by QMA, teams from the University of Copenhagen are currently undertaking the third season of archaeological fieldwork at Zubarah and the surrounding hinterland with another four years of field research planned.
“Al Zubarah was for sometime one of the most important trading centres in the entire Gulf,” pointed out Dr Richter, an assistant professor at University of Copenhagen’s Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies.
The palatial compound, which the expert listed among the new findings, is the largest fortified compound, measuring 100 by 100m, in Zubarah.
The compound, with towers at each corner is sub-divided into a number of courtyards.
“We are excavating one of these courtyard areas to find out what the building was used for. It is clearly an important facility, very likely used by the ruling family of the town,” Dr Richter stated.
It should have been a really impressive structure, a palace at one point and it has some nice features inside.
“We found these hamams (baths), footprints on the floor of one of the rooms, matting impressions, and fallen roof beams that are still preserved. They are small findings but significant in terms of understanding the site,” he said.
Three major areas are being currently excavated in Al Zubarah, all of them continued from last year, the second season (Autumn 2009-Spring 2010) of excavation.
The centre of the town is being excavated. There are a number of courtyard houses or standard family homes very typical for the region.
“Then we are excavating an area what we think is a souq or market area, which is turning out some rather interesting results for the future,” Dr Richter said.
Findings suggest that the souq was in the same location for at least two or three phases of the occupation.
“The first thing we did in the first season (Winter and Spring 2009), was to do a topographic survey of the entire town, followed by mapping and detailing all the neighbourhoods, roads, squares mosques and palaces in the settlement and then we began excavations in a few locations targeting key areas of interest,” he recalled.
This was in addition to the areas previously excavated by QMA.
“There is still much to learn about the site as a whole. We now think that the site has at least six phases of occupation, the first major phase is 1760s to roundabout 1811 when the town was attacked and burned.
Subsequently Zubarah was inhabited very sporadically then resettled in the middle of the 19th century for another 50 or 60 years.
“So the phases of occupation are quite short and in particular in the earlier phase, this is a very lucky situation for archaeologists, because not only was the town founded as a sort of a planned settlement, but it also was not changed much.”
The total area is 60 hectares for the major settlement, and the later settlement is 13 hectares (during the mid 19th century, when it was resettled after the attack in 1811).
“Al Zubarah is not a site that existed without its surrounding landscape. All of northern Qatar is full of historic sites and settlements,” Dr Richter maintained.
There are small forts, small villages, coastal villages, rural settlements, wells throughout the entire region and they all operated at one point in conjunction with Zubarah as it required food and water to support its pearl fishing and trading fleets.
The trading vessels went out into the Indian Ocean all the way to Bombay (now Mumbai) and to other places on the African coast.
“We are exploring these hinterland sites as well, but with non-intrusive methods,” the expert said.
Author: Bonnie James | Source: Gulf Times [February 12, 2011]