Bronze Age cymbals from Dahwa: Indus musical traditions in Oman

Understanding the development and use of musical instruments in prehistory is often hampered by poor preservation of perishable materials and the relative rarity of durable examples. Here, the authors present a pair of third-millennium BC copper cymbals, excavated at Dahwa, Oman. Although they are the only well-contextualised examples from Arabia, the Dahwa cymbals are paralleled by contemporaneous examples from the Indus Valley and images in Mesopotamian iconography. Not only do the cymbals add to the body of evidence interpreted in terms of Indus migrants in Early Bronze Age Oman, they also suggest shared musical and potentially ritual practices around the Arabian Gulf at that time.