Old Cemetery near Al Baleed Archeological site, Salalah. March 2016
View from Al Baleed Archeological site, Salalah. March 2016
Al Baleed Archeological site, Salalah. March 2016
[from FB post: March 14, 2016]
Day 2 in Salalah, Oman. I walked down to the Royal Place which takes up a huge chunk of the beachfront. The sea is absolutely unspoilt. Just clumps of coconut groves ... A long walk down the beach and I saw a lot of demolition and buildings slated for demolition along the way. Something is brewing. I reached medieval Salalah which is an archeological park. Not much to see there... Really in ruin. I met an Italian archeologist from Pisa and she gave me some information on the area and also told me that they were tearing down most of the old city (what would be pre 20th century) to make way for a beachfront promenade. (Sigh). So on the way back I took photos of a lot of old buildings in various states of decay. The sun is HOT and I am sure I got some sunburn...
The Frankincense Trail
Downtown Salalah being a bust, I walked through its out-of-place coconut grove and to the beach. Something drew me along and suddenly I found myself by an old cemetery. Cemeteries have always been fascinating places for me. Many ancient places that we visit as tourists are actually either cemeteries or tombs of notable people (like the Taj Mahal). Additionally, Saudi Arabia really had no cemeteries per se due to their unique interpretation of Islamic Law that forbade marking a grave. I have never forgotten visiting my friend Nabil's ancestral house high in the Hejaz Mountains and having him say, "Matthew, don't walk there, my grandmother is buried somewhere under there". Simply coming across this old Muslim graveyard in Salalah seemed an oddity after staying in Saudi for so long. The tombstones were fascinating.
I saw something interesting in the distance from the graveyard and pushed farther out of town. I had found "Al Baleed"
Al Baleed was the modern name for ancient Zafar, a hub of the Frankincense trade. Slowly being excavated, it was already under UNESCO World Heritage protection. At its height, Zafar was one of the largest port cities in the region - a Singapore of its day - positioned to trade with India, the Arabian Peninsula, and Africa. Great world travelers such as Marco Polo, Ibn Battuta [see: Ibn Battutais Tomb], and Zheng He all stopped there. Even Ptolemy had located the place on one of his ancient maps. Additionally, inland from Zafar was Wadi Dawka, a place where the Frankincense tree flourished. Frankincense was the gold of its day and literally "built" the city; now, Zafar was just a mass of rubble. Modern Salalah was the living grandchild of Zafar (at its peak from the 8th-16th centuries). Between the Al Baleed site and modern Salalah was the first-born, the "old city" of Salalah, actually the premodern city. As I noted above, "old Salalah" was in poor shape and falling down, and, according the Italian archeologist, slated for total demolition. Previously, rather than build over things, the ancient Omanis just kept pushing the city up the coast. Unfortunately, that no longer seemed the case.
All that history was fascinating for me, but my memory of the place had nothing to do with the history. I was wandering around the ruins and came on a dig. I walked in and they assumed I wanted to meet the dig director (why else would some white guy be wandering around?). Suddenly, I was having a conversation with an engaging Italian woman from the University of Pisa who was the lead archeologist on a certain part of the dig. She explained a few things briefly to me (she was quite kind) and then went back to work barking orders at the Omani work crew. THAT is my memory - a woman boss, not dressed very culturally appropriately (it was HOT) ordering around a bunch of Arab men. I think that might have been the highlight of my trip to Salalah! I am sure when they went home at the end of the day, they never told their wives that their boss was a woman!