Tag: History of Oman

Pictographs – Dhofar.

All images have been colour shifted to try & enhance the art for viewing – several being very faint and smudged through weathering & age. As can be seen, these pictographs are a form of rock art that is totally different from that found in northern Oman. It portrays images of the camel interspersed with horses and their rider: there are clusters of dots & lines seen as well; the significance of these is not known, although it has been suggested by some, probably notational.
Domesticated by humans in southern Arabia, the Camel seems to have arrived around 3,000 BCE and following a 2010 discovery of artefacts dated between 6590 and 7250 BCE in south-western Saudi Arabia, which appeared to portray horses, they arrived much earlier.
The age of this art is not really known but probably first or second millennium BCE.
This is only a small representation of the art found in Dhofar: it would need more time than I had available for a comprehensive presentation.

Ubar ?

Ubar ?
Ubar again.I have another post somewhere about this place they claim is The lost City of Ubar: known by various other names (Wubar, Wabar, Iram of the Pillars and Atlantis of the Sands mentioned by Lawrence of Arabia) but the more I visit, the more I think it lives by reputation & reality is something quite different.

It certainly held some significance for the Frankincense trade route but; looking at the site with mark one eyeball, it is small compared to Khor Rorī or Al Balid on the coast: a lot of wishful thinking going on me thinks.
Freya Stark sums it up.

When the explorer Freya Stark consulted the works of Arab geographers, she found a wide range of opinions as to the location of Wabar: “Yaqut says: “In Yemen is the qaria of Wabar.” El-Laith, quoted by Yaqut, puts it between the sands of Yabrin and Yemen. Ibn Ishaq… places it between “Sabub (unknown to Yaqut and Hamdani) and the Hadhramaut. Hamdani, a very reliable man, places it between Najran, Hadhramaut, Shihr and Mahra. Yaqut, presumably citing Hamdani, puts it between the boundaries of Shihr and San’a, and then, on the authority of Abu Mundhir between the sands of B.Sa’d (near Yabrin) and Shihr and Mahra. Abu Mundhir puts it between Hadhramaut and Najran.”

I paraphrase:   With such evidence, it seems quite possible  to find Wabar in opposite corners of Arabia.

Bronze Age Trilith – Dhofar.

Trilith - Dhofar.Bronze Age Trilith – Dhofar.

This unusual row of stones is one of Oman’s more enigmatic archaeological finds: found in eastern Yemen & South West Oman,  C.400 B.C.E – 300 C.E.
The stones are usually found in groups of 3 to 15 (although longer rows have been seen) about 2 or 3 foot high and standing on end, forming a tripod structure with sometimes a capstone. Placed along side & parallel with Wadis or tracks; mostly stood on bedrock.
They are not burial places because they seem to be always placed on a hard rocky surface and that is about all anyone can be certain of. The construction period has been reasonably well confirmed by Carbon-14 dating, from ash remains of wood fires that seem to have been used within the structures.

The fence has been placed for their protection; a lot of sites can get damaged through ignorance or just basic theft of the stone as building material.

P.S I can thank Freyja my daughter who noticed these while we were driving some way off on the main road.

A window in Ibri.

window-ibriWidow – abandoned village of Ibri.
Nikon F2sb with Nikkor 25-50mm f/4 Ai lens.

P.S.
I have just answered a comment by Jane & realised that this image was taken with a camera that was produced between 1976-1977, a lens that was made in 1979, Kodak Microdol-x  from a bag dated 2007 & film with a use by date of 2010.
At least the distilled water I used for development, was only 6 months old   🙂

As Sulayf fort.

As-Sulayf-castleBuilt by Al Immam Sayf bin Sultan Al Y`aribi in 1718 & overlooking As Sulayf Valley.
Nikon F2sb with Nikkor 25-50mm f/4 Ai lens

An early morning visit that proved to be rather a waste of time in some ways – the place has been touristified: isn’t open all the time and has a guide !! now the last thing I wanted was a guide……. but to be fair, he was only doing his job.
I did not need someone leading me by the hand and telling me things I already knew, he did not seem to understand that all I wanted to do was make photographs: I gave up in the end. Hay-ho, it did make me go the extra couple of Kilometres and visit the old town of Ibri.

Interior decoration – abandoned village Ibri.

Interior decoration of rooms in abandoned village of Ibri – a rather more important village on the camel route
between  Muscat and Al Buraimi.
A lot of things were traded in Ibri – not all exactly above-board in the old days. In the 1800’s, conflicting descriptions were made by visitors: from it being called a place of vagabonds, scallywags & thieves to the exact opposite, a most friendly & hospitable place. Somewhere in between was probably nearer the truth.
Today it is a modern thriving town that makes visitors very welcome.