Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies 37 (2007): "Transformation processes in oasis settlements in Oman" 2005 archaeological survey at the oasis of Nizwā: a preliminary report JÜRGEN SCHREIBER Summary In the context of the German-Omani co-operation project “Transformation processes in Oasis settlements in Oman” the last phase of archaeological investigations started in the spring of 2005. After Izkī and the Jebel al-AΟΡar in 2004, field work concentrated on Nizwā, which always played an important part in the country’s history as a political and religious centre. Today, Nizwā oasis has a north-south extension of nearly 20 km and is with its 60,000 inhabitants one of the largest inland oases of central Oman. As the process of urbanisation is in fast progress at Nizwā, large areas are already covered by modern building activities and many archaeological sites have been destroyed. Despite this situation it was possible to record nearly 300 find-spots from the late 4 th /early 3 rd millennium BC to the Late Islamic period. These sites, with a major emphasis in the Early Iron Age and the Middle Islamic period, allow us to sketch the development of settlement activities within this oasis. The preliminary results are presented in this paper. Keywords: Hafit, Umm an-Nar, Early Iron Age, Late Iron Age, Islamic periods Introduction In 1998/1999 the project "Transformation processes in oasis settlements in Oman" was started, an interdiscipli- nary co-operation project between the Sultan Qaboos University at Muscat and several German Institutions. 1 In a first phase of the project from 1999–2001 ar- chaeological survey was conducted at Wμdī Banī ΚAwf and al-ДamrāΜ (Häser 2000; 2003), followed in 2002/2003 by a second phase with surveys in Кīwī and Wādī Кīwī (Korn et al. 2004; Schreiber & Häser 2004), part of the eastern Дajar-mountains (Siebert et al. 2005) and IbrāΜ (Schreiber 2005). In December 2003 this project was extended again for another two years by generous financial grants from the German Research Foundation and the German Ar- chaeological Institute. Archaeological research in this third phase concentrated on fieldwork in Izkī and the Jabal al-AΟΡar in 2004 (Schreiber 2004) and concluded with a survey at Nizwā (Fig. 1) in 2004/2005. 2 With this survey, field-work of the project was finished and the final publication is now in preparation. The topography of Nizwā The oasis of Nizwā is located at the southern foot of the Jabal al-AΟΡar massif, some 140 km south-west of Muscat or 30 km west of Izkī. Today, around 60,000 inhabitants live in this oasis (Ministry of National Economy [n.d.]), which stretches from Farq in the south to Wādī SamiΓ in the north for nearly 20 km along Wādī al-AbyaΡ and Wādī Kalbūh, reaching a maximum east– west extension of around 3 km in some places. This makes Nizwā one of the largest oasis centres of inner Oman. The oasis is surrounded by ophiolite mountains to the west and by the foothills of the Jabal al-AΟΡar to the east. A passage to the north-west along the Wādī al- AbyaΡ leads in the direction of Tanūf and BahlāΚ. The southern access to the oasis is at Farq, where the south- ern plains meet the mountains. The core of the oasis is formed by the main residen- tial areas of Sufālat Nizwā and ΜAlāyat Nizwā, also known as Samad al-Kindi, and several other minor set- tlements such as SoΚāl, Hay al-ΚAīn or al-Maddah, to name just a few. The souk and the famous fort are lo- cated in Sufālat Nizwā, which is separated by Wādī al- AbyaΡ from ΜAlāyat Nizwā (Costa 1983: 253).