The Bronze Age
3000 – 1300 BC
The Bronze Age in Sharjah was a time of great change and development despite a more arid climate. Craft and metal industries flourished, local pottery was manufactured for the first time and trade networks expanded. The demand for copper and other raw materials from the Arabian Peninsula brought new wealth to the region, and a number of gold objects have been found in the tombs of this period.
Like their nomadic ancestors, the people continued to herd sheep, goats and cattle, hunt wild animals, gather shellfish and fish the seas for food. But now they began to settle in villages and to grow crops such as wheat and barley, developing methods of irrigation and building mudbrick houses with palm frond roofs. By this time the date palm had become another important source of food as well as being used for building materials and to make ropes and baskets.
Settlements at Tell Abraq and Kalba on the coast were flourishing Bronze Age centres, while tombs at Jebel Emailah, Mleiha, and Jebel al-Buhais show the inland areas were also populated. Discoveries at these sites have given us a vivid glimpse of life during the 3rd and 2nd millennia BC.
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Gold jewellery recovered from the Bronze Age tomb at Tell Abraq
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A model of a Bronze Age house
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