Petroglyph KM21-22 Khatm Al Melaha, Sharjah. Animal and ovoid loop. Carvings still under investigation.

Probably Neolithic or earlier. These are common motifs in southern Arabia, Oman, and the UAE. Many similar motifs are found in “Fossati 2019 Messages from the Past: Rock Art of the Al-Hajar Mountains (Oman).”

After initial documentation in 2019, the site was revisited in 2021, with many new discoveries, and the additional documentation of some of the more important petroglyphs.

Khatm Al Melaha is an archaeological site on the coast of the Oman Sea near Kalba in Sharjah, UAE. It is one of the largest rock art sites in the UAE. There are also stone houses, a shell midden, stone tombs and other features that date this site has having occupations from at least the early Holocene to the 19th century.