DHOFAR
The trading routes of frankincense

Its image has been forged In the thousand years old essence In the indigo water In the ochre desert

Oman's history is rich and goes back to the Stone Age: oil prospectors have found buried deep down in its soil flints and arrows over 12,000 years old. Archaeology has made it possible recently to decipher its connections with the greatest civilisations of antiquity. Its copper and frankincense resources as well as the reputation of its sailors put Oman in contact with the Sumerians, Dilmun (now Bahrain), the Indus Valley. The sailors of Magan -this is the name used to refer to Oman in the tablets covered in cuneiform writing in Mesopotamia- were amongst the first to sail the Gulf waters and reach the Indian subcontinent. They loaded their ships with copper ingots, and diorite which they unloaded in Mesopotamia, at Melukkah or Harapah. From the Indus Valley they brought back precious stones or wood so sought after in Mesopotamia. It is difficult to imagine that kind of cargo on the reed boats first and then on the wood boats made of planks rubbed in fish oil and tied together with ropes made of natural fibres threaded in and out of the holes. The Dilmun seals show that image. Navigators of exception, the Arabs learnt very early on how to calculate their latitude by studying the stars and how to use the monsoon winds.

At the end of the third millennium BC, the Omani sailors were transporting copper ingots and frankincense gum to Mesopotamia

It is quite likely that frankincense was first harvested in south Arabia towards the end of the Stone Age, around 8000 years ago. However the first written record mentioning the frankincense trade date from the end of the third millennium (2300 BC). Those first tablets covered in Mesopotamian cuneiform writing tell the true saga of those sailors, the importance of the existing trade in the Gulf: copper, frankincense, precious wood, fabric, oil, dates, pearls, bronze sculptures. Very detailed, they state the weight of the purchases and ship cargoes. They also confirm that the purest of frankincense came from southern Arabia, these regions where men had captured and controlled the waters of the wadis by building wonderful dams allowing them to water their terraced fields. The largest of those dams was at Ma'rib in Yemen. It consisted of a 600 m long jetty, strengthen by rocks between two rows of matching stones. They could irrigate over 5000 hectares. In fact, frankincense grew in the mountains, in the valleys and in the desert of southern Arabia bringing wealth to the area.
Was that the mysterious kingdom of Fount where the Pharaohs sent their fleet in search of white frankincense, reddish myrrh, all kinds of herbs, spices and gum and balsam wood. A fresco on the left portico of the Hatshepsout temple at Deir El Bahari shows 31 frankincense potted trees from Pount, each carried by six servants to the kingdom of Amon in the valley of Thebes. Another at Luxor, shows a boat from the Pharaoh's fleet at Sumhuram.

Sumerians, Egyptians, Assyrians, Greeks, Romans used large quantities of frankincense for religious rites but also for cosmetics and perfumes

The frankincense tree held such an important place in the Egyptian civilisation that one could compare it to the cosmic tree; it was used in religious rites, official ceremonies but also to make cosmetics, balms and perfumes.
For many people frankincense smoke as well as the sacred oils mixed with frankincense allowed them to reach the skies and a contemplative state, to attract the attention of gods and even to calm their anger. It seems that Osiris and Thot judged the soul of the dead by weighing them and also by smelling them? No other scent than of frankincense could reach so high!
Frankincense gum together with myrrh and vetch were used in embalming rites.
Some was found next to the mummies of Ramses II and Tutankhamen.
The Assyrians and the Romans were also great consumers of frankincense. The Temple of Baal in Babylon used two and a half tons of frankincense a year. Nero, the Roman emperor had more than one year's production of Arabian frankincense burnt for his wife's funeral.
After reading the description of the caravan sent by the Queen of Sheba, Bilqis to King Salomon in 970 BC, loaded with tons of frankincense, gold and precious stones, it is impossible to question the importance of frankincense. It was an extremely precious commodity and its resin, the olibanum, used to be more expensive than gold.

The frankincense trading routes crossed the whole of the Arabian Peninsula

There were several kingdoms in Southern Arabia at that time: Sheba, whose capital was Ma'rib, Ma'in (capital Baraqish), Qataban (capital Tamna) and Raydan which included Hadhramaut which continues into Dhofar. Its capital was Zafar. The frankincense was transported by sea from Sumhuran and Taqah in Dhofar to Qana in Yemen where long caravans carried it across Arabia.
The discovery of some texts and some inscriptions, the detailed exploration of archaeological sites and satellite photos have made it possible to discover the routes taken by the caravans.
The frankincense trading route started at Tarim on the Hadhramaut wadi in Yemen and went to Raybun, Shabwa, Ma'rib and Najran in Saudi Arabia where it forked out. One side went to Riyad via Bir Hima, well known for its cave paintings, Qaryat Al Faw, the Dawasir wadi and Al Hillah to the port of Gerrha north of Bahrain. By the late third century BC, Gerrha had become the principal commercial centre in the Gulf. The other side went west following the Red Sea to r^ach Mecca, Medina, Petra and Gaza. This was the road the Queen of Sheba followed to meet King Solomon and sign the alliance.
It was the Romans who developed the frankincense sea trade. They made Alexandria the main distribution centre for frankincense in the Mediterranean. They tried in vain to capture the port of Qana to the south of the Red Sea. However they frequently used the port of Sumhuram in Dhofar, founded in the third millennium. In the first millennium, Sumhuran added to the frankincense trade that of Arab horses and spices from India. Those new activities were very beneficial and long lasting.
It is still possible to see the foundation of the Sumhuram fortress, built by King Elaus in the first century AD. It towered over the Khor Rori: the few stones of a temple dedicated to the moon and graves are signs of a once important town. Many ships came to take the frankincense produced in the mountains overlooking the town, almost 3000 tons each year. They carried the gum in goatskins to the port of Qana in Yemen. They were then handed over to the great caravans that carried them to Petra or Gaza where they were reloaded on board ships sailing for Alexandria.
Decorated jars, still containing the precious resin, have been discovered at Sumhuram. It is no surprise that Herodote wrote that the whole country is scented with them and exhales an odour marvellously sweet.

Irem, Ubar Two names for the Atlantis of Rub Al Khali

The map of the Arabian Peninsula drawn by Ptolomy in 150 AD shows a town with a strange name: Omanum Emporium. That name intrigued both archaeologists and historians. Some wandered whether it could be Irem, the mythical town mentioned in the Koran, called Ubar by some and also mentioned in the tales of One Thousand and One Nights. It was described as surrounded by marble walls, set with precious stones and topped with golden roofs and surrounded by heavenly gardens. The town was supposed to have been built by Shaddad bin Ad who dreamt of building paradise on earth. Nothing was too beautiful for the city that took 500 years to build. Faced with the debauchery and paganism of Shaddad bin Ad, Allah sent one of his prophets, Hud, to convert him, but to no avail. Once the work finished, Shaddad leading 300 000 people entered his capital. And at that very moment, a great roar filled the sky and Allah buried the town that wanted to rival with heaven in the sand.
This Atlantis of Arabia has long haunted the minds. Many explorers and adventurers have looked for it. It seems here that myths, legends and reality intermingle. It was thought to have been found at the beginning of the century, but it was just a mirage. At the end of the 80s, an American film director, Nicholas Clapp thought of asking the Nasa to use the SIR equipment on Challenger, which helps detect old river beds, to take pictures of this area of southern Arabia where the city was buried. Challenger brought back some exceptional images showing tracks (one over 100 km long) buried for more than 2000 years under ten meter high dunes and all leading to the same point, the Omanum Emporium mentioned by Ptolomy. These data were later refined by images from Landsat 5 and the French Spot satellites.
Clapp and his team started searching the area in 1992 and discovered various sites dating from antiquity with pottery over 3000 year old. When they reached Shisr, 150 km north of Salalah, they discovered buried in the sand, an octagonal fortress with 9 towers which could have been built one century BC. Graves were spread over an area of 20 km, and there was sufficient water to supply a town, a palm oasis and orchards. Pottery, Roman, Egyptian, Greek and Syrian money, porcelain from China were unearthed. More than 4000 artefacts were found at Shisr: iron, cloth, bone fragments, carbonised wood and some pieces of a 1500 year old chess set made from sandy clay, the oldest set in Arabia; one sandstone South Arabian lamp from 200 BC represents the oldest artefact connected with the incense trade yet found in southern Arabia.
While digging, the American archaeologists found traces of an even older habitat, flint blades, tools and mirrors made from stone or metal and grindstones, which were about 7000 years old. This indicated that Shisr was a main caravan meeting point from the Stone Age until the 13th or even the 15th century.
Was this Ubar or Irem? Some archaeologists are not quite certain. Where are the marble walls and the golden roofs? It is a well known fact that descriptions made in tales were often exaggerated, so the controversy goes on.
The digs are still going on as Shisr obviously holds the key to a whole period of the history of Oman and Dhofar. It is quite clear that caravans from the whole of the Middle East met there as proven by the different coins discovered. The fortress had been destroyed by a catastrophe, the collapse of the sub-soil. Under the fortress there is a deep water filled cave. The Omani government has asked that all archaeological digs should be carried out in liaison and under the control of the Ministry of Information and Ministry of Culture and Heritage. A special committee has been set up to deal with the digs which are of great importance to Dhofar and to the history of Oman.
Other caravan meeting points in Dhofar were: the oasis of Andhur on the road to Hadhramaut and Hanun in the Nejd.
Although the Wise Men brought Baby Jesus frankincense, myrrh and gold and although frankincense was used in many religious ceremonies in Christian rites, the demand began to fall in the third century, but without ever ceasing completely. The frankincense tree was mainly exploited by the Bait Kathirs and the Al Mahras.
Its sale at monsoon time was the occasion for great gatherings, celebrations and eddings. Other tribes lived on fishing, farming and livestock. The Bedouins in the Nejd were independent and moved around according to the need of their camels and goats, their main source of income, and the position of the watering holes.

Marco Polo, Ibn Batuta visited Salalah which was then called Al Balid

Many graves in Dhofar date from the pre-Islamic era (Razzat, Ain Hamran...). The inscriptions they bear, together with their shape and the cave paintings show archaeologists the way of life, the rites, the beliefs of the tribes who lived in Dhofar then.
The Al Azds had lived in Raysut since Malik bin Fahm's passage when he had left the Yemen after the collapse of the Ma'rib dam in the 6th century BC. They had moved towards the north of the Gulf, settling as they went along the coast of Oman. In 630 AD, Oman embraced Islam.
In the 10th century Mirbat became the stronghold of the Minjawis, a community of Persian merchants who traded in the Gulf and in the Red Sea. They gave Mirbat its trading port status. Until now, the Minjawis hold an important place in the Dhofari history.
In the 13th century, the Habidi succeeded to the Minjawis and founded Al Balid which was to become Salalah. Unfortunately the city was destroyed in 1261 when the Emir of Hormuz invaded Dhofar. The city was rebuilt and prospered. However, Salim bin Idriss, the last of the sovereign of the Habudis wanted to extend his authority on Hadhramaut and attacked Aden from the sea which angered the sultans of Yemen who in turn invaded Dhofar and kept it for 50 years from 1278 to 1328. The occupation was not detrimental to Dhofar which together with the Yemen, developed its trade in the Red Sea, while trading in the Gulf was slowing down due to the fall of Baghdad after the invasion of the Moguls in 1258.
In 1290, Marco Polo visited Al Balid which was then called Al Mansourah, but he called it Dhofar. Dhofar, he wrote, is a great and noble and fine city...It stands upon the sea and has a very good haven, so that there is a great traffic of shipping between this and India; and the merchants take hence great numbers of Arab horses to the market, making great profits thereby. The city has under it many towns and villages.
All the harbours in southern Arabia traded profusely with India, South East Asia and Africa where Oman had opened trading posts. Chinese chronicles of the 12th and 13th centuries talk about ships coming from Mirbat and Aden to Sumatra to sell frankincense to the Chinese ships in exchange for spices, precious wood and silk.
Ibn Batuta, the great geographer, came to Dhofar and visited Al Balid. The remains of that old city now reveal its importance. It is possible to see the 16 octagonal pillars of the mosque's prayer room, (some of the pillars have been reconstructed), the foundations of the palace and other buildings which must have been impressive and elegant. Digs have also been carried out at Taqa, an ancient harbour which like Sumhuram exported frankincense to Egypt and the Mediterranean and horses to India. Another important city in Dhofar between the 14th and the 15th centuries was Robat. The fort that can be seen at Raysut was probably built before the arrival of the Portuguese at the beginning of the 16th century. The port never ceased its activity.
The trading power of Oman attracted the attention of the Portuguese who at the beginning of the 16th century were looking for a trading route to India and wanted to capture the spice trade. Although it was an Omani sailor, Ahmad bin Majid, who led them to India, the Portuguese occupied Oman and the Gulf coast for 150 years. Many of the Omani fortifications date from that time. In 1650, Sultan bin Saif Al Yarubi succeeded in pushing them out of Muscat and also from the rest of the Omani coast. The sea trade quickly recovered and new trading posts opened in East Africa. But the Persians who had always coveted the Omani ports captured Sohar and took control of the northern Omani coast. They were in turn thrown out in 1749 by Ahmad Al Bu Said, the founder of the great dynasty whose Sultan Qaboos is a descendent.
Ahmad Al bu Said turned Muscat and Sohar into real emporiums. The shipyards of Sur were at full capacity building baghlahs, ghanjas, sambuqs, jalibuts and badans. When Said bin Sultan, one of the great sovereigns of the history of Oman took power in 1806, his kingdom stretched from Musandam to Dhofar, to the east coast of Africa as far as Zanzibar and included the Beluchistan in Persia. A huge empire that he ruled in preference from Zanzibar where he had coconut and clove plantations. This can explain why African features can be found in Dhofar. The Dhofar held a privileged position between Africa and the Gulf.
Following the death of Said bin Sultan in 1856, his kingdom was divided between his two sons: one received Zanzibar and the other Oman. It was not a fair share out in spite of the Canning Award (a financial pay out) given by the sovereign of Zanzibar as Said bin Sultan had mainly developed trading in Zanzibar. However the prosperity in Zanzibar ended with the abolition of the slave trade, the opening of the Suez Canal and the first steam ships which gave the final blow to the Omani sailing fleet and its economy. Money became short and civil riots burst out all over Oman. Great Britain offered its help to bring back peace and calm. However, Oman slowly shut itself off from the rest of the world. And several decades went by thus, with very few foreigners allowed to visit the country and no Omani allowed to go and study abroad.
In 1945, Wilfred Thesiger visiting Salalah wrote: Salala is a small town, little more than a village... When I arrived, fishermen were netting sardines and piles of these fish were drying in the sun... The sultan's palace white and dazzling in the strong sunlight was the most conspicuous building, and clustered around it was the small suq or market, a number of flat roofed mud-houses, and a labyrinth of mat shelters, fences and narrow lanes. The market consisted of only a dozen shops, but it was the best shopping centre between Sur and Hadhramaut, a distance of 800 miles... As I entered the town of Salala I passed a small caravan, two men with four camels tied head to tail, and when I questioned the guard who was with me he said that these camels were carrying frankincense. Today however, the trade is small and of little value, hardly more important in the market at Salala than the buying and selling of goats and firewood. That description reveals the state of the country then.

The Renaissance saw the light in Salalah

When Sultan Qaboos, who was born and had spent his childhood in Salalah, took power in 1970, his country was in a state of utter destitution. There were no roads, no airports, no schools and no infrastructure. It had a great need for hospitals and housing. To talk to his people the Sultan had only one radio! There were no cars in the Sultanate either.
In thirty years, it has come a long way. Any visitor will immediately understand the admiration and the deep respect that the Omani people have for their Sultan, for the energy and the will he showed in rebuilding his country catching up on 70 to 80 years, educating, housing and giving work to each and everyone and building a solid economy. This experience must have prepared the country better than any other, to face the post-oil era, to diversify and privatise the economy, and to involve all the regions in Oman so they could play a part in the new policy and invest themselves on a national level.
The construction of Port Salalah is one of the great achievements of this policy of diversification. But the Sultan has other projects for Dhofar: more privatised industries on its Industrial Estates, a Free Trade Zone near the port, agricultural development, and tourism. Dhofar, which for a while seemed to have fallen behind the great oil boom, has now woken up to recapture its trading vocation. A port ready to become one of the ten leading ports in the world, a soon to open international airport, an excellent road network, this is the fantastic challenge facing the area which 5000 years ago sent its ships and caravans towards the greatest civilisations.