After finishing my last excavation season in Al Qusais burial sites which is located halfway between Dubai and Sharjah Emirates at the beginning of the year 1975, I returned to my regular post as an archaeologist at the Directorate General of Antiquities in Baghdad.
While I was going through the documented data of the site in my office, the head of the British archaeological team in Iraq, Nicolas Postage, passed by. Without any hesitation I began to explain to him the importance of the site which I had just finished excavating in Dubai Emirate.
While he was examining the data, he suddenly looked deep into my face and asked: “Since you have received your MA from New York University in Archaeology and Fine Arts, are you willing to go for your PhD to Oxford or Cambridge?”
Without any hesitation I answered him at the latter one.
When Nicolas reached home, he sent me all the necessary applications forms for applying for PhD at Cambridge University. I filled all the forms and sent them back to the university. After three months, I received the acceptance letter at Faculty of Archaeology and Anthropology Department, and was accepted at St Johns College as a member of the college.
In the middle of June, 1976, I arrived in Cambridge carrying with me all the data of my excavations at Al Qusais site and at the end of that unusually hot summer I met my supervisor in her office at Girtin College.
After she carefully went through all the data, she said: “After your matriculation next year. You need to find the settlement for those whom you have recovered their burials, otherwise, I think, it will be difficult for you to reach your objectives.”
During the first year of my resident at St Johns College I engaged in collecting written data related to Al Qusais site which can be dated to the end of the second and the first half of the first millennia B.C.
Right after my studies the department of Archaeology and Anthropology advised me to join the British archaeological team going to Bahrain and conduct excavation at any settlement site there which correspond to the material I found at Al Qusais.
After three months of excavations in Bahrain, I failed to reach any coherent conclusion for my academic problems. Thereafter, I decided to return back to Dubai and find the settlement I am looking for.
Before my return to Dubai I travelled to Denmark to examine material found at different sites in UAE and housed at Moshgaard Museum in Aarhus. After my study trip to Denmark I visited the Louvre Museum in Paris, where I studied material found in North West of Iran, which corresponds with the material I found at Al Qusais.
From Paris, I flew to Cairo to study some Egyptian scarabs, which were very akin to those found at Al Quasis. From Cairo I flew to Baghdad to examine few materials related to Al Qusais found at Nippur in the southern part of Iraq and housed at Iraq Museum .
After my arrival in Dubai on the first of January, 1978, I made necessary arrangements with Dubai Museum and Dubai Municipality to start excavations in Al Qusais.
While the excavation was in progress a small mound located within two hundred metres from the digging area attracted my attention. After examining its surface, I decided to dig a long and deep trail trench hoping to find some promising objects.
Carefully collecting all the material found in the six consecutive stratifications — mainly the plain and painted sherds — which appeared in the carbonised material and inside some of the discovered hearths, I realized the three of the top layers belong to the burials site while the other three layers belong to the so called Umm-Alnar Culture which can be dated between the end of the fourth and the beginning of the third millennium B.C.
Those few painted sherds found in the latter three layers marked the very first discovery of Umm-Alnar Culture in the northern parts of the UAE. After that unique discovery I decided to intensify my field survey until finding the real settlement corresponding to the burials site.
To be continues next week
The Peninsula
