Ed-Dur is an archaeological site in the emirate of Umm Al Quwain, a settlement and port of the late pre-Islamic period occupied from roughly the first century BCE to the third century CE. It is one of the largest and most productive sites of its era in the Gulf.
Finds
Excavations at Ed-Dur have produced glass vessels, coins, metalwork, carved stone and large quantities of ceramics. The assemblage includes Roman and Hellenistic material, objects from India and South Arabia, and others of local manufacture. A well-known find is a bronze statue of a bird of prey from the site, and there are tombs with substantial grave goods.
The breadth of the imported material indicates a port plugged into the Indian Ocean network at the point where Roman demand for Gulf and Indian goods was at its height, and Ed-Dur was probably a major transhipment point between the Gulf coast and the caravan routes into the interior and toward Mesopotamia.
Significance
Ed-Dur fills a gap in the region's history between the Iron Age centres such as Mleiha and the coming of Islam, showing that the coast was not abandoned but reorganised around long-distance maritime trade.
Visiting
The site is protected and is not a developed tourist attraction; access is arranged through the emirate's antiquities authorities and finds are displayed in the Umm Al Quwain Museum.