The National Authority for Tourism and National Heritage revealed here today a new archaeological trove, due to results of the field work during the first season of the excavation project, at Halit Al-Athari site, in Dawadmi Province, in Riyadh Region, which proved the importance of the site as it uncovers a range of different ancient urbane traces. The head of the excavation team and director of the National Heritage Department, Ajab al-Otaibi said that the excavation revealed a mosque that mediates a settlement in the style of early mosques, in the first Islamic era, and models of houses consisting of yards, storage rooms and work areas containing furnaces to melt metals and treating them into different items, as well as the discovery of adjacent furnaces that were a model of the stages of mining described by Islamic sources, as well as pottery and glass improvisations and other implements of stone soap and precision tools such as beads and glass bottles, which give an initial impression of the existence of economic mobility and commercial transactions, in the settlement. He pointed out that a number of inscriptions and Islamic writings were documented around the site, pointing out that these writings give a new dimension to the history of the region and its civilization during the early Islamic period. Pottery that was discovered on the site was studied and classified and it emerged from the preliminary results, that it can be dated to the early Umayyad or Abbasid eras, he stated, adding that the exploration project focuses on the excavation work in the fenced area of the archaeological site, indicating that the objective of the project is to verify the density of archaeological troves and uncover the tools and means associated with the mining work.
