New book on Jebel Dhanna sulphur mines launched ABU DHABI, Dec 16, 2003 (WAM) -- A major new book on the archaeology of the United Arab Emirates is issued today to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the first shipment of oil from the Jebel Dhanna terminal of the Abu Dhabi Company for Onshore Oil Operations, ADCO. Appropriately, the book deals with a group of archaeological sites at Jebel Dhanna itself - a complex of over 150 mine shafts and tunnels that were in use two or three hundred years ago to mine raw sulphur. Entitled Sulphur, Camels and Gunpowder - The Sulphur Mines at Jebel Dhanna, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates - An archaeological site of the late Islamic period, and edited by Dr. Geoffrey King, the book reports on ADCO-sponsored work at the Jebel Dhanna sulphur mines by the Abu Dhabi Islands Archaeological Survey, ADIAS, from 1998 to 2002. The book, published by ADIAS with the support of ADCO, is the first-ever study of the mines, which are the only ones of their kind known anywhere in south-eastern Arabia. According to Dr. King and his colleagues, the mines appear to have come into use in the late 17th Century, and to have flourished until around the beginning of the 19th Century, producing many tons of raw sulphur that were exported, perhaps for the making of gunpowder. Following the end of large-scale mining, the mines continued to be used by local Bedu as a source of sulphur crystals used to make medicinal treatments for their camels. MORE WAM-VV-PH 10 56 CCCCQQE
