On a windswept ridge overlooking the plains of northern Oman, a pair of ancient cymbals lay buried beneath layers of plaster and stone. They were placed there deliberately, one atop the other, sometime between 2300 and 2100 BCE. For over four millennia, they remained silent—until archaeologists unearthed them at a site called Dahwa 7.
What they found wasn’t just an artifact. It was an ancient sound. A beat. A faint echo of music played during rituals in a Bronze Age settlement at the edge of the Arabian Peninsula—music that linked Oman to the distant cities of the Indus Valley and the temples of Mesopotamia.
A Rare Bronze Age Musical Instrument
The cymbals were excavated from a building dating to the third millennium BCE, associated with the Umm an-Nar culture. Though musical instruments are rarely preserved in archaeological contexts due to the perishable materials they’re often made from, these copper-alloy cymbals survived in excellent condition.
“These copper alloy cymbals are the first of their kind to have been found in good archaeological contexts in Oman and are from a particularly early context that questions some of the assumptions on their origin and development,” said Professor Khaled Douglas of Sultan Qaboos University, the study’s lead author. Their results are published in the journal Antiquity.
Visually, the cymbals bear a striking resemblance to others found in the Indus Valley, the heart of a sophisticated Bronze Age civilization in what is now Pakistan and northwest India. But isotopic analysis of the copper revealed that the metal did not come from the Indus, but from Oman itself.
This means that while the instruments may have been stylistically inspired by the Indus Valley, they were locally produced. Cultural influence was shaping life in Bronze Age Arabia.
More Than Trade: A Cultural Connection
The instruments are unmistakably percussive: two round, thin copper discs, each 13.8 centimeters wide, with a raised central boss pierced by a small hole—perfect for stringing and playing in pairs. Their closest analogs would be Bronze Age cymbals from the cities of the Indus Valley, particularly Mohenjo-daro.
Trade across the Arabian Gulf during the Bronze Age is well documented. Archaeologists have found Indus-style ceramics, beads, and metal tools in coastal settlements throughout the region. These artifacts suggested vibrant commerce between Arabia and South Asia—but only in goods.
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The cymbals, however, hint at something deeper.
The instruments were discovered inside a rectangular building, likely a ritual or communal space. One cymbal lay neatly atop the other, carefully buried under the floor. That placement suggests a ceremonial offering—perhaps to gods, ancestors, or the community itself.
Excavators believe music played a central role in the life of this settlement. Ceremonies may have involved chanting, drumming, and dance—an ensemble of cultural expression not unlike those known from the Indus Valley, where cymbals are often depicted in artistic scenes of religious or public rituals.
“Ritual traditions in which the Dahwa cymbals were used may have been transmitted from southeastern Arabia to the Indus Valley, or vice versa,” Douglas told Science News. The direction of influence remains unclear, but the cultural resonance between these regions is now unmistakable.
Music as the Medium
Unlike pottery or beads, music is intangible. Its echoes fade, its performers forgotten. Instruments, when they survive, offer rare proof of how prehistoric societies celebrated, worshipped, and connected through the power of music.
“Discovery of the Dahwa cymbals encourages the view that already during the late third millennium BC, music, chanting and communal dancing set the tone for mediating contact between various communities in this region for the millennia to follow,” the researchers concluded in Antiquity.
This idea—that music helped knit together the diverse peoples around the Arabian Gulf—is gaining support. It challenges older views that saw ancient trade as purely economic. Instead, music may have been the glue of diplomacy, the backdrop to ritual, and the universal language binding disparate cultures.