• Home
• /
• In The City

A glimpse into ancient UAE

Exhibition at Sharjah Archaeology Museum showcases artefacts from Ed-Dur and Mleiha.

It's hard to imagine the UAE as anything ancient. However an exciting new archaeological exhibition tracing an important period of early UAE history gives us a different perceptive of the UAE. A Glimpse into Civilization, the first collaboration between Sharjah Museums Department and the Department of Archaeology and Heritage in Umm Al Quwain, focuses on the historic development of two contemporary locations, Mleiha and Ed-Dur.
The exhibition, which will run until March 26, 2016, at Sharjah Archaeology Museum, traces the historic relationship between the major inland settlement of Mleiha and the important coastal port of Ed-Dur.
Visitors will get to see more than 79 artefacts excavated from sites in Umm Al Quwain and Sharjah that provide a unique insight into the way the region evolved into a hub of transport and commerce linking east and west. The remains of fishing tools and lustrous pearls, buried with their owners, for instance, found at Umm Al Quwain 2, point to complicated rituals practiced on the shore 7,000 years ago.
Running alongside the exhibition will be a series of monthly workshops aimed at children and families, beginning this month. Participants will get to print their favourite hunting tools onto ceramic or create their own archaeological piece inspired by the exhibition.
Excavations of key archeological sites began in Umm Al Quwain in 1973, and have played an important role in the documentation of much of what is known about the UAE's ancient past and the lives of its inhabitants over the last 7,000 years.
For more information visit: www.sharjahmuseums.ae