PARIS, FRANCE—According to a press release, a team of French archaeologists headed by Guillaume Gernez of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) has discovered a complex made up of two main buildings and several smaller ones at a site in central Oman known as Mudhmar East. In a small room in the larger of the two buildings, the team found a collection of under-sized bronze weapons dating to between 900 and 600 B.C. scattered on the floor. Thought to have been models of actual weapons, the two small quivers, five battle axes, five daggers, arrowheads, and complete bows may have been placed on furniture or shelves, or perhaps hung on the walls. Objects like this have never been found before on the Arabian Peninsula or in the Middle East. Incense burners and small bronze snakes have been found in the other building at the site, suggesting that the weaponry may have served a ceremonial function. To read about a Bronze Age dagger found in Denmark, go to "Artifact."
