Bronze age city unearthed in Saudi Arabia reshapes history
Archaeologists have made an extraordinary discovery in Saudi Arabia. Under the Khaybar oasis in the Madinah province, they identified traces of an ancient Bronze Age city that existed around 2400 BC. This find, named al-Natah, is one of the earliest pieces of evidence of urbanisation in the northern part of the Arabian Peninsula.
Khaybar, an oasis in the northwestern part of the Arabian Peninsula, is a remarkably fertile area surrounded by vast deserts. Archaeologists discovered structures with solid foundations supporting at least one-story and even two-story houses here.
These traces demonstrate a relatively advanced form of urban settlement when most of the region was still dominated by pastoral communities. Research indicates that from 2400 BC to around 1300 BC, al-Natah developed as a small urban settlement. It spanned an area of about 2 hectares and housed approximately 500 residents.
The traces of the settlement suggest the city had a clearly organised structure – a central district surrounded by a protective wall and a residential area, reflecting the transition from nomadism to a settled lifestyle.
Scientists discovered a cluster of graves on the city's outskirts, forming a sort of necropolis. Within the graves, metal objects such as axes and daggers were found alongside semi-precious stone ornaments like agate, suggesting that the inhabitants of al-Natah possessed craft skills and traded with other communities.
The diversity of the burials indicates the existence of social stratification, providing further evidence of this site's gradual evolution from a pastoral settlement to a more complex urban community.
Significance of the discovery for studies on early urbanisation
Archaeologists believe that northwestern Arabia during the Bronze Age was inhabited by nomadic pastoral groups already part of an extensive trade network.
"By comparison with the contemporary situation in the Southern Levant, we also envisage that the archaeological record bears witness to a 'low urbanization' (or 'slow urbanism'), indigenous to North Arabia, evidencing weak but increasing social complexity through the Early and Middle Bronze Ages," wrote scientists in an article published in the journal PLoS ONE.
These trade networks may have been the precursor to the later "incense route," where spices, incense, and myrrh from southern Arabia reached the Mediterranean region.
As researchers highlight, the discovery of al-Natah provides evidence for the first time of the existence of small fortified cities in northwestern Arabia during the Bronze Age, raising new questions about the development of local urbanization.
