Overview

• Found embedded in a courtyard wall of one of nine small houses first excavated in 1992, the roughly 30-centimeter plaster cross provides the first direct link between the houses and the church–monastery complex.
• Abu Dhabi’s Department of Culture and Tourism presented the find as definitive evidence of a monastic settlement, with senior monks likely using the houses for seclusion and prayer.
• Stylistic features connect the cross to Eastern Church traditions seen in Iraq and Kuwait, placing the site within wider Gulf Christian networks of Late Antiquity.
• Researchers say the community may have included up to around 40 monks and lasted more than a century before its 8th-century abandonment, with ongoing excavations seeking clues to daily life and departure.
• The protected site remains open to visitors with shelters and signage, and officials underscore the discovery as part of a longer record of cultural coexistence in the United Arab Emirates.