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On the Shores of Oman Thousands of years ago

TIME slips through our fingers like sand. Though we cannot arrest the present moment, we can sometimes capture frozen moments from the past. And this of course is the work of Archaeologists. The further back we can go in time, the more mysterious and precious the experience. Omanis were sailing the seas as early as seven thousand years ago. Professor Serge Cleuziou presented us with scenes starting six thousand years ago in the 4th Millennium BC when the seas of Oman were at the hinge of trading routes governed by the two great empires of the time - Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley.

An Archaeologist who has been excavating in Oman over the past two decades, Professor Cleuziou gave a fascinating lecture to the Historical Association of Oman on: "The Old Bronze Age Society of Oman and Seafaring Trade: a view from Ras Al Had and Ras Al Jinz." Copper from Oman was important to the civilisations of Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) and the Indus Valley and there is plenty of evidence of a busy seafaring trade.

In the Ras Al Had and Ras Al Jinz areas there are dozens of sites showing the evolution of Omani society over the millennia. The oldest are simple sites consisting of fossilised postholes of circular huts with fireplaces. This early economy was apparently based on fishing large tuna. Fishermen went to sea in fragile watercraft at the risk of their lives.

Though the climate was much wetter until the mid 4th Millennium BC, these fishing societies alternated between the coast and interior- going into the mountain highlands in the hotter months. They exploited life in the marshy lagoons and mangrove forests, which were more plentiful at that time, and built boats of reeds that have been reproduced in recent European archeological projects. Artifacts from this period include beautiful shell ornaments and jewelry.

Later, in the late 4th Millennium, when the climate had changed and animals were less plentiful, we find walled settlements with houses and evidence of warfare, using arrowheads made of shark's teeth. Professor Cleuziou described "tower" settlements: communities built around a well and tower 10 metres high, which appears to have been used mainly for storage of dates.

Though there is very little to give us a picture of the people, a beautiful small carving was found showing two people holding hands in between two oryx. These people were agriculturalists, not hunters, so the use of the oryx is an ideological or symbolic representation. The same image of people holding hands was found on a small stamp seal. This time there were no oryx; and instead, the two people are flanked by date palm branches. This evocative image of people holding hands seems to bridge the thousands of years between us and them.

Two small objects unearthed in a house were faced with representations that have been discovered to be the earliest form of writing found to date in Arabia. This is a remarkable and momentous find. The same house revealed an incense burner with a mixture of frankincense. This, Professor Cleuziou took to be an indication of the sociability that still marks Omani society. More objects were of course to be found in the graves of these societies. The graves were placed on higher ground overlooking the settlements, as if perhaps people wanted to be watched over by their ancestors.

Physical Anthropologists tell us that people lived only 25 to 30 years and that most children died after the time of drinking mothers' milk. People were buried collectively and very simply, without attention to gender, status, age or rank. Though some might have been buried with more possessions than others, any object would become communal property, "shared" by all in the grave. This levelling of people in death is in marked contrast to other civilisations of the time, most notably the Egyptian. A grave would be used over two centuries and might contain as many as 300 skeletons. Eventually the bones from graves would be moved to large pits and stored with skulls and various bones in different groups, for unknown reasons.

Thousands of beads, very tiny, have been uncovered in the graves. Many of the beads are made of carnelian from India; some are made of silver and three of gold. This indicates that these simple fishing societies had some wealth. This remarkably interesting and vivid reconstruction of life on the shores of Oman thousands of years ago by Professor Cleuziou was presented very naturally and with evident compassion for people so far away in time, but perhaps not in spirit. Anyone present could not have left without an enrichment of his or her personal sense of humanity.

Oman Observer, 2nd March 2003