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economy of the United Arab Emirates today is based
on two key components--the exploitation of oil
and gas, and utilization of its strategic location
between East and West to act as a international
transhipment point. In both, maritime commerce
plays a crucial role, one that can be traced back
to the dawn of human settlement in the country,
in the Late Stone Age, a little more than 7,000
years ago.
Excavations
at the UAE's oldest-known settlement, on the western
island of Dalma, have shown that trade was an important
component of the economy. Among finds from the excavations
are pearl oysters, testifying to the antiquity of
the pearling trade, which lasted until the 1950s.
Also found were numerous shards of pottery made in
southern Mesopotamia (Iraq), and imported to Dalma
by sea.
The importance of trade is evident throughout
the recorded history of the Emirates.
Cuneiform tablets excavated in Iraq show,
for example, that during the Bronze Age,
from around 3200 BC to 1300 BC, copper
mined in the UAE mountains was exported
by sea to the Sumerian and Assyrian empires.
Other exports included pearls and diorite,
a hard rock from the mountains used for
making statues.
Imports during the same period included
pottery from Iran and the Harappan civilisation
of Pakistan's Indus Valley, as well as
fine gold and silver ornaments and carved
ivory decorations from Central Asia and
northern Afghanistan. Similar trading
connections continued throughout the
Iron Age period, from around 1300 BC
to 300 BC, and by this time, the sailors
of the Emirates had succeeded in developing
the lateen sail, an innovation that permitted
them to make use of the winds to sail
back and forth across the Indian Ocean.
By around the beginning of the Christian
era, sailors from the Gulf had succeeded
in making their way as far as China.
Links extended westwards, too, towards
the Mediterranean. The navy of Alexander
the Great sailed through the Gulf in
the late 4th century BC, and by the 3rd
century BC, the UAE was trading with
Greece, as shown by the discovery of
amphorae from the island of Rhodes at
a site in the emirate of Sharjah. Luxury
glass, metal goods and coins from Rome,
dating to the 1st and 2nd centuries AD,
have been found at the coastal site of
Ad Door, in the emirate of Umm al-Qaiwain,
while by the 6th century, the Nestorian
Christian Church, one of the Eastern
churches, had established monasteries
on two of the UAE's Gulf islands, probably
using these partly as way-stations on
a well-attested trading route from Mesopotamia
to India.
The arrival of Islam in the Emirates
in the early 7th century AD provided
further impetus for trade, with Julfar,
in the emirate of Ra's al-Khaimah, emerging
as one of the leading ports of the region
from the 7th to the 17th Century. Its
most famous son, Ahmed bin Majid, who
lived in the 15th century, was a sailor
and navigator who wrote manuals of seamanship
that continued to be used by sea captains
in the Indian Ocean well into the 19th
century.
The tradition
of seamanship has lasted until today,
with large trading ëdhowsí built
locally of wood imported from India and
Sri Lanka still being used for trading
with other Gulf states, Pakistan, India
and East Africa, although replaced by
modern, and much larger, vessels, for
the longer routes. The goods being traded
have changed, of course. The copper industry
died out after nearly 5,000 years in
the 17th century AD, while the pearling
industry finally ended in the 1950s after
some 7,000 years, although dates, first
consumed in the UAE in the Late Stone
Age, and recorded as being exported in
the 12th century AD, are still an important
agricultural export.
The stereotype image of the United Arab
Emirates is one of an arid land with
few natural resources until the relatively
recent discovery of oil and gas, a land
whose people played little part in the
development of civilisation in Arabia
and West Asia as a whole. In fact, the
contrary is true. The resources may have
been limited, but the trade over thousands
of years in copper, pearls and other
goods, such as dates and sulphur, was
by no means negligible, except by comparison
with today's oil and gas riches. In terms
of their involvement in maritime trade
throughout the Indian Ocean, moreover,
the people of the United Arab Emirates
have, for millennia, played a role of
enormous significance, linking East to
West, as they continue to do today.
(Peter Hellyer is the Executive Director
of the Abu Dhabi Islands Archaeological
Survey, ADIAS, and is author and editor
of several books on the UAE's heritage
and environment.)
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