A brief survey of archaeological sites along the west coast of the Musandam Peninsula of Northern Oman was undertaken. Despite limitations imposed by the very rugged terrain, the survey yielded interesting results, including the discovery of about two dozen settlement-sites, ranging from homesteads to small villages, a variety of pre-Islamic burial cairns, and a number of petroglyphs depicting armed men on horseback, animals and boats. (See Appendix I on page 18.)
The earliest settlement, dated by its surface pottery to the Sasanian period, was discovered on Jazirat al Ghanam (de Cardi, 1972), where the foundations of houses were located along the shore of a small cove at the north end of the island which would have provided safe anchorage for vessels passing through the entrance to the Gulf. Sherds found on the site included a distinctive ware which can be matched both in the Sasanian levels recently excavated at Siraf near Bushire and in the Partho-Sasanian period at Tepe Yahya in Kerman province of southern Iran. A fine, decorated red ware can also be paralleled at Tepe Yahya in a context with a carbon-14 range of from 100 BCto AD 400. A few fragments of glass suggest that the site remained in occupation until about the seventh century AD.
Sasanian-Islamic pottery was noted among the foundations of buildings bordering the foreshore of a bay to the south-west of Ghubb 'Ali. As at the settlement on Ghanam Island, the buildings suggested some degree of conscious planning, an element not apparent in the random siting of huts associated with imported pottery of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. A study of the remains at the site in Ghubb 'Ali inlet indicated three periods of occupation extending from the Abbasid period to the seventeenth century when it is possible that the population shifted to the present village at the end of the inlet. The occurrence of a finely-stamped ware known from kilns near Old Hormuz was of interest as evidence of trade between the two regions, probably during the fourteenth century or later, and the presence of this ware on sites at the head of Wadi al 'Ayn behind Khasab suggests a generally stable economy.
Khasab itself could not be fully explored, but the small re-entrant in which the expedition's camp was sited had clearly been used by earlier occupants whose rubbish included fourteenth-century pottery and some fragments of good quality Chinese porcelain. Contrary to expectation, only a few fragments of the late Ming export wares, so plentiful at the old port of Julfar in the state of Ras al Khaymah, were found, and it would appear that Khasab was of strategic rather than commercial importance during the Portuguese period. The round tower built in 1623 is now enclosed within a new fort which should ensure its preservation. Contemporary records refer to the population of Khasab taking refuge in the hills when the Portuguese landed, and some of these dwellings were identified by sixteenth and seventeenth-century pottery.
In the Wadi al 'Ayn, some 5 km south of Khasab, three pre-Islamic burial cairns were noted. A sangar had been built on top of one cairn and the removal of some boulders had partially exposed a low ring wall of flat limestone slabs. Internal walling divided the tomb into two narrow compartments, and additional chambers, formed by short transverse walls, were indicated by surface depressions. Its internal structure suggests that this type of cairn may be similar to those found on the island of Umm an Nar in Abu Dhabi and dated to the third millenium, but excavation would be required to confirm this view. Two other cairns were found in the nearby Wadi Maqaqah, where a number of rock peckings were observed near the track leading along one side of the wadi. Cairns and mounds of quite different types were found on the hill south of Bukha. Examination of the valley lying inland from the present village revealed traces of mud-walling and the stone footings of buildings, which probably represent an earlier settlement, located at the foot of the hills on the north-east of the valley.
Uncertain weather conditions prevented the examination of settlements along the northern and eastern littoral of the Peninsula. It was, however, possible, by camping at Sallala at the head of Wadi al 'Ayn, to climb the ridge by the track which leads to Limah. Descending the cliffs on the opposite side with the help of a Shihuh guide, it was possible to locate two deserted villages which must represent the ruins near Qabal mentioned by Lorimer in 1908. Evidence of occupation extending from the ninth -- tenth centuries to the Portuguese period (sixteenth century) was provided by the pottery noted on the larger site. The overnight camping ground at Sallala also proved to be a small homestead with associated field-system. It was of interest to find fragments of late Sung Celadon ware (thirteenth century) of very good quality on a humble settlement of this kind, and the occurrence there of imported Hormuzian stamped ware was a further indication that the occupants were living above subsistence level during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Similar evidence for the use of what must have been luxury goods in the thirteenth century was found on a most unlikely settlement site straddling the top of the Maqlab isth- mus, where both Celadon and another Chinese ware were noted. Relatively little is known at present about the kinds of Chinese wares exported to the countries around the Indian Ocean at this period, and the discovery of even a few fragments was therefore of some interest.
In general the survey served a useful purpose, but it was disappointing that it had to be limited to the western coast. The steepness of the hills imposed a further limitation on the work which could be undertaken in a relatively short time. Local inhabitants, who were at all times most helpful, referred to old sites in the moun- tains, but it was not possible to visit them or ascertain their precise nature.
Beatrice de Cardi. [Extracted from the Geographical Journal, Royal Geographical Society, vol. 139 part 1, February 1973]
Further details available in the Archaeology Survey in Northern Oman, 1972 by Beatrice De Cardi with sections by Claudio Vita-Finzi and Anne Coles, "East and West", new series, vol. 25, nos. 1-2, March - June 1975]
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IN THE HEART OF THE
DESERT, details of which can be found at www.greenmountainpress.co.uk
is Michael Quentin Morton's biography of his father, Mike Morton, who was deputy
leader of the 1971/72 RGS expedition to Musandam - the book has three chapters on the
expedition. |