Ближний Восток и его соседи

g 172 h David Nicolle 24. Sectional, side and front drawings of the head of an arrow from the Citadel of Damascus (CD5) showing the hole drilled to take the tang of an arrowhead, and a typi- cal form of bound strengthening with threads and a layer of varnish or laquer. (From: D. Nicolle. Late Mamlūk Military Equipment. Collection Travaux et Études de la Mis- sion Archéologique Syro-Française, Citadelle de Damas (1999–2006): Vol. III (IFPO, Damascus, 2011). Arrowheads 25. The carefully knapped stone arrowheads which archaeologists found in the pre- Islamic, Kinda tribal centre and palace at Qaryat al-Faw in the Arabian peninsula, have been dated to the 1st-5th centuries AD. If this dating is correct, they show a survival of "stone age" technology in an area and amongst a people who were by no means isolated from their wealthy and very advanced metalworking neighbours. The pre-Islamic Arabs had close trading relations with Iraq, Iran, Syria, Palestine, Egypt, Yemen, Ethiopia and indeed India. So, the only reasonable explanation for the existence of these stone arrow- heads is a relative poverty in metal which presumably convinced the Kinda tribe — and probably also neighbouring tribes — that the probability of losing arrows during hunt- ing or warfare justified the time and effort involved in making stone arrowheads. (Mu- seum of the King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia).