CHAPTER THIRTY

THE SUMERIANS AND THE GULF



Robert Carter

INTRODUCTION

R

elations between the peoples of Mesopotamia and the Gulf go back at least to the
late sixth millennium (Carter 2006 , 2010 ), but contacts were ruptured after the
mid-fifth millennium BC, probably because of the near-total depopulation of eastern
Arabia at that time (Uerpmann 2003 ). Links were re-established during the fourth
millennium, beginning in the Early or Middle Uruk but intensifying towards the end
of the millennium when there was renewed settlement in eastern Arabia, stimulated by
wetter conditions beginning around 3200 BCand the development of oasis-farming
practices in the region. Until very recently, it was thought that these renewed connec-
tions did not become significant until the Jamdat Nasr period, with the export of
copper produced in the Oman Peninsula to Mesopotamia via the central Gulf. New
evidence indicates that this exchange relationship began even earlier, in the Middle
Uruk period or before, making it contemporary with the much-discussed Uruk
Expansion, when Uruk colonies flourished in the upper Euphrates region and western
Iran during the Middle and Late Uruk periods (Algaze 1993 , 1989 ; Stein 1999 : 91 ;
Wright and Rupley 2001 ). Thus, remarkably, for a brief period of time the trading
network of the Uruk world stretched from Anatolia to eastern Oman.
Priority will be given in this chapter to evidence for fourth and early to mid-third
millennium interactions between the peoples of Mesopotamia and the Gulf (Middle
Uruk to ED III). A prolonged period of intensive exchange subsequently occurred,
lasting into the first quarter of the second millennium BC, involving bulk trade in
commodities by sea, a degree of cultural exchange and perhaps the sporadic extension
of Mesopotamian hegemony over the region. These later phases of the relationship are
well known and have been exhaustively published (Oppenheim 1954 ; Leemans 1960 ;
Laursen 2011 ; Potts 1990 , 1992 ; Edens 1992 ; Carter 2003 ). They therefore will be
discussed only briefly.

EARLY CONTACTS (URUK TO ED II PERIOD)

The early copper trade and Oman

According to textual, archaeological and archaeometrical data the Oman Peninsula
(Figure 30. 1 ) was a major source of copper for Mesopotamia during the early Bronze