Julfar was a port settlement on the northern coast of the Arabian Peninsula, near what is now Ras Al Khaimah. It was one of the most substantial towns on the Gulf coast in the medieval period and a principal centre of the pearl trade.
Trade
Excavations at Julfar have produced large quantities of imported ceramics — Chinese celadon and blue-and-white porcelain, wares from Persia and Southeast Asia — alongside locally made pottery, glass and metalwork. The presence of so much imported material indicates a port connected to the Indian Ocean trading system rather than a purely local fishing town, and the Chinese ceramics in particular provide tight dating for the site's main phases of prosperity.
Julfar's economy rested on pearls, fished by divers working from small boats during the summer season, and on the re-export of goods landed from the Indian Ocean and carried onward into the interior.
Decline
The town went into decline in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The coastline shifted, silting closed or moved the harbour approach, and regional competition from other ports — including the rising settlements of what are now Dubai and Abu Dhabi — took trade away. The modern city of Ras Al Khaimah grew up in a different location from the medieval port.
Today
The site is protected and excavated, and finds from Julfar are displayed in the Ras Al Khaimah National Museum. It remains the single most important archaeological demonstration of the medieval Gulf economy in the United Arab Emirates.