The latest on the Archaeology of southern Oman.

• Author: Zarins, Juris
• Position: Report

This volume (henceforth KR 2) is a description of archaeological work conducted at Khor Rori, Dhofar Governorate, Sultanate of Oman, from 2000 to 2004 by an Italian team from Pisa University (IMtO) headed by A. Avanzini, a South Arabian historian and epigraphist (pp. 609-41). Excavations were conducted at five areas of the colony. Architectural and stratigraphic details are followed here by a report of the ceramic finds (Sedov, Buffa, and Pavan). Coins are described for each area (Sedov), as are the small finds (Lombardi, Buffa, and Pavan). Carenti and Wilkens analyze the fauna. There is a small section on archaeopalynology (Lippi, Becattani, and Gonnelli), followed by a detailed archaeological survey of the immediate Sumhuram locale (Cremaschi and Perego). Rougeulle describes the Islamic settlement on the adjoining promontories protecting the lagoon entrance. More specialized technical studies of the KR site and area include a regional botanical study (Raffaelli, Tardelli, and Mosti), a discussion of the chemistry of frankincense (Ribechini, Raffaelli, and Colombini), an analysis of a pine resin specimen (Ribechini and Colombini), and technical aspects of mudbrick and mortar use at KR (Lippi, Pallecchi, Bellini, and Gonnelli). A small Dhofar survey (Dini, Tozzi) is a repetition of the earlier work described in KR 1, 325-63, and a final section describes the botanical work at Wadi Dawka Frankincense Park (Raffaelli, Tardelli, and Mosti). Two appendices include a list of C-14 dates and a concordance of excavated loci based on room, street, square, building, wall, and stratigraphical units. As such, most of the data described in the volume represents a continuation of the Khor Rori Report 1 of 2002 (KR 1), which one should have available for consultation when using KR 2.

Points of contention involving the excavation can be addressed as follows. At some point, in the early third century B.C., a colony ('m-s) of people from Shabwa in the Hadramawt was established on the Khor Rori lagoon. By the first century B.C. it was named Smhrm--perhaps after a Hadrami king (KR 1, 21-25) and known in the Periplus as Moskha Limen. The settlement was wholly isolated from its (home) territory and appears never to have grown larger in size (KR 2, 609). Primarily ceramic and coinage evidence has been used to date this earlier settlement, which apparently had no formal stone buildings. By the late first century B.C., a formal building complex (I) along the lines of typical South Arabic construction was constructed. Epigraphic South Arabian (ESA) inscriptional blocks from a later phase (II) detail the expedition and the nature of the colony (KR 1, 125-40; KR 2, 609-41). The nature of this colonization is discussed by Avanzini (KR 2, 613-15) in a fairly brief manner, but comparative studies of colonization of the Near East (Uruk IV, Old Assyrian) as well as the anthropology of colonization could perhaps have amplified the discussion (see Newton 2000, 2009: 18; Stein 2005; Algaze 1993).

The purpose of the initial colony was apparently to extract frankincense from the best producing area called Sakalan (SKHLN) (Dhofar) (Periplus, Sachalites) and send it westward to Qana and thence to Shabwa for use or redistribution. The presence of Indian RPWs and a few Indian inscribed sherds at KR (KR 2, 123, plt. 31/10; 223, plt. 4/8) coupled with the account in the Periplus (Casson 1989) suggests a strong link with the western Indian coast including Muziris/Pattanam. Thus, as Avanzini has pointed out, the trade was wider than originally thought by scholars and included much of the western Indian Ocean.

Little has been said about the term Sakalan, but the antiquity of the name could stretch back to the early Iron Age or earlier. Mentioned in a number of inscriptions at KR primarily between A.D. 100-250, the term continued to be used in reference to Dhofar in the A.D. 486 inscription of the Himyarites (see Bafiqih 1979; Robin 1986) as well as by Ibn Khordedebah in A.D. 870 (Sprenger 1864, 1875). The name is still used locally in a variety of ways today (Zarins 1997: 643-44).

Since the settlers and colonists came from Shabwa, as mentioned in the period II texts associated with a hierarchy of Hadrami military and civilian personnel, the persistent question is who lived in the land before, during, and after the demise of the colony? Avanzini discussed the problem in KR 1, 25-27 and adds a few comments in KR 2, 619-22. As to our current state of knowledge, the local people who inhabit the adjoining hills today (Jihbalis) are known to linguists as MSAL speakers (Lonnet 1991; Simeone-Senelle 1997; Johnstone 1981, 1987; Zarins 2001: 31-32) and have been identified as directly branching from older Semitic language groups by 1000 B.C. or earlier (Zohar 1992: 167 and fig. 1).

Regardless of ethnic or linguistic affiliation, a substantial Bronze Age population existed in the Khor Rori area (see Zarins 1997: 648, 2001: 74; Avanzini et al. 2001: fig. 46). Unfortunately, the expedition has not investigated much of this important component; only one tomb (KR 33) was sampled in 1996 by IMtO, and found to contain chlorite and agate bead grave goods typical of the southern Coast Bronze Age (Avanzini 1998), paralleled at the site of Aztah in the highlands (Yule 1999; Crassard and Hitgen 2007). Two C-14 dates from the lower levels at KR of 3250 [+ or -] 50 BP and 2970 [+ or -] 70 BP (KR 2, appendix 1) may belong to a late Bronze Age tradition in the area and be approximately contemporary to the nearby Bronze Age seashore settlements at Khor Jnaif (3650 [+ or -] 70 BP and 3760 [+ or -] 110 BP) (Zarins 2001: 67). However, the provenance of the material dated at KR is puzzling. It is not derived from deep soundings, but instead comes from city phases II and III (KR 2, 42), suggesting a mixed provenance or faulty dates.

The following Iron Age is represented by a shell midden under the Sumhuram colony itself. Typical Iron Age ceramics and lithics were found in 1995 (TA 95-230) and the two early Iron Age dates for KR (2490 [+ or -] 40 BP, 2480 [+ or -] 80 BP) may represent this early settlement. Forty-three C-14 dates from diverse levels at Sumhuram range from 2220-1630 BP (KR 2, Appendix 1) and represent the floruit of the classical period colony. However, it should be noted that contemporary Iron Age sites throughout the area are amply documented by dates and material culture (shell middens, the lunate lithic technique, and C-14 dates). At site Taqa 60, 5 km to the northwest of Sumhuram, Iron Age houses yielded two dates: the earlier at 2340 [+ or -] 100 BP (BA-83797) and the later at 1670 [+ or -] 60 BP (BA-83798) (Zarins 2001: 73, fig. 30). The excavations produced no material cultural remains such as coinage, ceramics, ESA inscriptions, or ESA incense burners linking the site to Sumhuram. Closer to Sumhuram itself, along the beach to the south, two shell middens were dated as contemporary (KR 10: 2295 [+ or -] 85 BP, GX-23095 and KR 8: 2135 [+ or -] 75 BP, GX-22951) (KR 1, 339).

The incense collection...