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SEARCHING FOR ANCIENT ARABIA

Table of Contents

Searching for Ancient Arabia (Introduction) 2

Robert Kluijver

A Selective History of Immortality and Al Khidr in Ancient Arabia 4

Liane Al Ghusain

The Politics of Preservation in Bahrain 8

Robert Kluijver

The Greengrocers of the Gulf (Searching for the Carmathians) 12

Rahel Aima

Dilmun Settlement in Saar, Bahrain, a Personal Reflection 16

Mehdi Sabet

Arabic dialects spoken in Bahrain 18

Ahmed Makia

Trip to Najran: reflections on Saudi cultural heritage policies 19

Robert Kluijver

The Endangered South Arabian Languages of Oman and Yemen 24

Guest contribution by Michael Colin Dunn

Archaeology, the past and the present in the UAE 27

Robert Kluijver

More on the Ancient Graves of Jebel Buhais 32

Amal Bssiss

Christians in the pre-Islamic Emirates: whence and where to? 34

Robert Kluijver

Sir Bani Yas Island and the Church of the East 34

Amal Bssiss

About the contributors & colophon 37


Searching for Ancient Arabia
R Kluijver
"Only a small proportion of the lore of the Arabs has
come down to you. Had it reached you in its entirety,
much scientific and literary knowledge would have been
yours"
This quote from Abu Amr ibn al-Ala, who passed away in AD
770/ AH 154, (cited by Ibn Sallam Al Jumahi in Tahaqaat Fuhuul
al-Shuaraa, Cairo, 1974) is one of the few recognitions by
Muslim authors of the value of ancient Arabias cultures.
Not only Muslim scholars, but also Western specialists of
Islamic Art, usually maintain that Islamic culture owes little to
the civilizations that thrived on the Arabian peninsula in the
millenia before the advent of Islam. It is true that the pre-
Islamic Arabian cultures had mostly exhausted themselves
before the birth of the Prophet Muhammad, the tail end of
their great legacy being smothered in the rivalry between
Rome and Parthia. But there was also continuity between the
pre-Islamic and Islamic periods on the Arabian peninsula: Islam
and Arab culture were integrated smoothly, in most cases, by
local cultures that were the inheritors of Dilmun, Saba, Kindah,
the Nabataeans etc.
Stone Altar from Marib (5th - 4th Century BC) and Bronze Statuette of
the warrior Madikarib, South Arabia (6th century BC). These and all
other photos and maps/diagrams on this page are reproduced from
the book Arabia and the Arabs from the Bronze Age to the Coming of
Islam by Robert Hoyland, 2001. See below for ordering information.
In fact, this dismissive attitude towards pre-Islamic Arabian
culture seems mostly to be the result of ignorance. Although
rapid progress is being made in our knowledge of ancient
Arabia, thanks to archaeology and increased research
supported by the GCC states, the amount of information about
these cultures is still scant. The contemporary researcher is
faced by beautiful but puzzling remnants of these civilizations.
The historical narrative of ancient Arabia is thus a largely
unexplored patchwork of stories, or fragments of stories. While
this may be problematic to the historian, it provides a fertile
ground for artists.
2
From left to right: limestone funerary statuette from Bahrain, 2nd-3rd
C AD / stone grave marker from Tayma region (NW Arabia) / Basalt
stele depicting the goddess Allat fitted out like the Greek goddess
Athena, from Kharaba in the Hawran, 2nd C AD
There is little information about pre-Islamic Arabia in most
school curricula, and thus most contemporary Arabians grow
up with little knowledge about the cultures that thrived on the
peninsula thousands of years ago. As a result there is not much
presence of ancient Arabia in contemporary Arabian culture.
This research proposes to turn the spotlight on this relatively
unknown part of Arabian history. It is primarily an artistic
research, but it seeks to embed itself within the academic
knowledge of this topic, which fortunately is quite abundant in
the Gulf states, particularly in the UAE. The research will be
fully hosted on a dedicated website, which will soon appear
online, and it will result in an online exhibition and a public
presentation in the UAE.
This research project is supported by a fellowship of the
Forming Intersections in Dialogue (FIND) programme hosted by
New York University Abu Dhabi. FIND is an innovative cultural
laboratory that forms intersections and dialogues between
artists, writers, scholars, designers, technologists and the UAE
landscape in both a historical and contemporary context.
Through the production of art, stories, scholarship, workshops,
and analogue and digital initiatives, FIND engages Emiratis,
UAE residents, and the world with reflections of the UAE
(extract from the FIND website).
Artistic scope of the research
There are many ways in which an artist could approach this
subject. One is by studying the material remnants of ancient
Arabian cultures: statues, rock art, architecture, ornaments
and archaeological objects and giving them a new expression in
contemporary art. A few interesting examples of this material
culture can be found on this page.
 3

The Barbar temple of Dilmun. Reconstruction by David Hopkins

There is thus no set approach to how artists could be inspired

by ancient Arabia; the purpose of this research project is to
(left:) Nabataean god-stone,1st C AD and (right:) head of a Lihyanite
open up this domain for artists, and start a public dialogue on
sandstone statue from Dedan.
the subject of possible parallels, or even continuity, between
Another is by studying immaterial culture: in the history of this the ages.
period an artist may find interesting parallels to contemporary
For preliminary reading I strongly suggest the book Arabia and
perspectives on Arabia. For example, ancient Arabia was at
the Arabs from the Bronze Age to the Coming of Islam by
once secluded - a territory unknown to outsiders - and well
Robert Hoyland, Routledge, 2001. All the images and quotes on
integrated into the trade networks linking India, Iran,
this page come from this book, and I am heavily indebted to
Mesopotamia, Egypt and the Mediterranean. Another parallel:
the author for my scant knowledge on the topic just enough
Arabia was famed and envied for its riches, which made foreign
to fire the imagination.
chroniclers fantasize about palaces lined with silver and gold.
It is available on Amazon, also on Kindle
There are many interesting myths about this era; one could be
inspired by accounts of winged snakes (as told by Herodotus)
that guarded the frankincense trees that provided so much
wealth to Arabia; or investigate the mythical mines of King
Solomon, which also financed part of the initial expansion of
Islam; or again, study the complicated relations between
Christians and Jews on both sides of the Red Sea, that led to
the massacre at Al Ukhdood (Najran).
Closer to the UAE are the mines of Magan, that provided the
classical world with copper since the bronze age - why not use
this copper in art? Or could something be done with the
abundant detritus produced by copper mining? The UAE itself
hosted some of the largest and wealthiest settlements of the
peninsula - how is that presented nowadays, in museums?
Then again, archaeologists have deduced building types from
uncovered vestiges. All this could also be fertile material for
artists.

A Selective History of Immortality and Al Khidr in
Ancient Arabia
Liane Al Ghussain
More and more it seems that anything you cant google is gold.
As a writer and fetishist of the cultural sidestream, into which
Im pulled by personal stories, creative analyses, and fountains
of kitsch, its an almost spiritual pursuit - bringing to light the
unknown, the unexamined. The question that continues to
haunt me is: what ideologies and beliefs are toppled whenever
a building is demolished?
Last week our Searching for Ancient Arabia team arrived in
Bahrain armed with bits of mysterious and often incomplete
information on our pet topics Al Khider shrines and fertility
rites, Sufi mysticism, pre-Islamic and pre-Arabic scripts, and the
eating habits/ruling MO of the Carmathians. With the generous
help of Al Riwaq gallery and NYU Abu Dhabi, we were able to
view historical sites and artifacts as well as have meetings with
Bahraini historians and anthropologists.
The author in front of the Bahrain Fort Museum. Bee sculpture
designed by Dina Mahmoud for Bokja.
Background
As someone who is first and foremost interested in storytelling,
the way our shared stories change over time is of particular
interest. Karen Armstrong, in A Short History of Myth explains
that myths and storytelling came about as a response to the
anxiety of hunting, with storytelling existing as a viable survival
technique in the Paleolithic period:
the hunter, the shaman and the neophyte all had to turn their
backs on the familiar, and endure fearsome trialsthe old
ideas that have nourished his community no longer speak to
him. So hefights monsters, climbs inaccessible mountains,
traverses dark forests and, in the process dies to his old self,
and gains a new insight or skillset, which he brings back to his
people.
4
These age-old initiations ring remarkably true for anyone who
has ever left home. Going to college in the US I definitely had
to kill parts of myself to survive, shedding my inhibited self-
expression and previously unexamined beliefs to make room
for new ones. The ruthlessness I took on as cut precious
sentences from my writing and ending draining relationships
are the kind of skills Ive brought back to the Middle East as a
teacher and cultural practitioner, where stagnated status quos
reign supreme and as a response, thankfully, all kinds of
education initiatives are attempting to breathe fresh life into
young artists and thinkers.
But given all weve learned and all weve had to overturn to
learn it, theres still a place for honoring the skins weve shed
and preserving the past so we can see how and why weve
come this far. And thats where the epic of Gilgamesh comes
in.
The Epic of Gilgamesh is a story of trying to return to old ways,
only to find theyre too far gone. The story takes place as
Mesopotamian civilization turned from an agrarian society into
an urban one, with the city of Uruk at its center (modern day
Iraq). At the time the spiritual landscape was changing so that
there was less room for old Sumerian gods and less trust in
their divine hand in determining peoples destinies with more
active belief in free will and the importance of building cities
that would last forever.
King Gilgamesh, who is a totally modern man for his time,[1]
has anxiety about dying and being forgotten, so he journeys to
modern day Bahrain to find the immortal Utnapashim and
receive his advice. Gilgamesh fails the first and only challenge
that Utnapashim sets for him which is to stay awake for 7
consecutive days. Thus we can characterize immortality with
vision the ability to keep ones eyes open.
Utnapashim is the only survivor of the Great Flood,[2] later cast
in the Abrahamic religions as Noah, and in the Quran as Al
Khider, the servant of Moses (and perhaps also in the
Alexander romance as the servant of Alexander the Great, and
he is even thought to be a stand-in for St.George).[3] Among
the alternative spellings of his name are: Khidr, Khodr, Khoder,
Khadr, Khader. The Wikipedia entry on Al Khider would also
have one believe that he is a figure linked to the mythologies of
a number of ancient cultures including those of Phoenicia,
Ireland, Greece, and India, appearing across cultures as a boat-
builder, mason, miller and presiding wise man. [4]

A found image of Al Khider.
In the Qurans Surat Al-Kahf (18) Al Khider is a guide who
remains one step ahead of Moses at all times, often knowing
how actions in the present, (such as making a hole in a ship),
will affect the outcome of the future (saving the ship and its
owner from being possessed by a greedy king). Al Khiders
prescience of what is to come, and his connection to water and
hence fertility has mythologized him all around the Arab and
Persian Gulf to this day.
The first demolished shrine of Al Khider on Failaka Island. Courtesy
Tareq and Jehan Al-Rajab.
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Cults of Infertility
A number of shrines dotted around the Gulf in Iraq, Iran,
Bahrain and Kuwait as well as in the Levant have been erected
in the name of Al Khider, although many have been
demolished. Women hoping for health and fertility arrive at
these sites with talismans, stitched flags, and bottles of
rosewater, which they sprinkle as they pray for children.[5]
Al Khiders legacy in Kuwait is a troubled one shrines built in
his name were demolished three times once in 1937 and two
more times in the seventies (the latter being in 1977) after a
fatwa was issued by Sheikh Al Jarrah claiming that the shrine
and the famed site of Al Khiders footprint on Failaka island
drew a kind of reverence that was tainted with polytheistic
blasphemy or sherek. Although it isnt mentioned in the fatwa,
polytheism had been central to Failaka island for thousands of
years, where there was a shrine dedicated to Artemis, the
Greek goddess of the hunt by followers of Alexander the Great.
The social attitudes towards the Al Khider shrine are perhaps
best modeled in Khalid Al-Farajs short story Muneera, where
the protagonists husband considers her a hollow
beauty[with] a brain stuffed with superstitions and delusions
due to her attachments to the Al Khider shrineand by the
answer given to me at an office of older men who gather at
souk el mubarakiya in Kuwait when I asked him how the shrine
functioned as a part of daily life. He described how attached
women would get to the site, spending all day picnicking there.
Who were these women? I asked. The old ones he replied,
making a gesture with his hand that went up into the air,
indicating ascension of age. The old ones, he repeated, and
the same hand began to spiral by his head in the universal
indication of craziness.
Families in front of the second demolished shrine of Al Khider on
Failaka Island. Courtesy Tareq and Jehan Al-Rajab.

But who is to judge what is a crazy pursuit of posterity? Why
shouldnt women with anxiety about childbirth and
motherhood gather and share experiences at the site where
stories about immortality reign supreme?
Living Forever In Bahrain
Having begun to grasp the reasons for the shrines annihilation
in Kuwait, my interest was piqued when Searching for Ancient
Arabia presented the opportunity to further study fertility rites
and Al Khider in Bahrain.
The subject of Al Khider was even harder to broach in Bahrain.
On our first day at Qalaat Bahrain, or Bahrain fort, I
encountered a small, colorful compound that was composed of
a few buildings covered in drawings, dedicated to Shia burials
and charitable donations. When I asked one of the caretakers
of the place about it, he said it was going to be torn down
soon. We got to talking and he told me about the Al Khider
mosque in Bahrain, located in a region called Askar trying to
go pray at that mosque after the government crackdown on
the Shia population could be extremely difficult, and perhaps
could have dangerous consequences.
6
Shiite funerary association next door to the Bahrain fort.
Talking to Ali Akbar Bushiri, historian and writer of the book
Dilmun Culture he informed me of the island of Chawchab
where an Al Khider shrine had once existed. Ali described the
site of Chawchab, which was constantly littered with eggshells
offered to Al Khider by hopeful mothers a ritualistic holdover
from sacrifices to the goddess Ishtar and the practice of
decorating eggs for Nowruz (the Persian New Year).[6]
Chawchab has been destructed at the expense of Bahrains
ongoing coastline expansion project, the rocky island being
covered by manmade beaches. Fertility rituals of all kinds
persist all over Bahrain, however.
We learned from Dalal Al Sherouqi, a food anthropologist and
eating heritage cookbook author, about a wide range of
contemporary Bahraini food lore, traditions and proverbs.[7]
Most compelling was a recipe for male virility called lukhma,
from the word for hit or sting, which is composed of
steamed sting ray and rice! Another nice tidbit of information
had to do with alfalfa sprouts or barseem, which are native
to Bahrain and grow in large quantities in the months of March
and April. According to AlSherouqi, when brides come to their
marriage home for the first time, the threshold of the home is
covered with alfalfa this is to signal wild, unfettered growth,
for as the proverb goes about barseem, the more you pick it,
the more it grows. Barseem is also thought to make the milk
of cows and goats creamier and the soil of the earth richer with
potassium. Hence the brides first steps over the barseem are
thought to bode fertility.
Found image of Alfalfa/Barseem.
Ali painted a picture of his wife, whom he called his very own
fertility goddess, after she had their first child and was being
bathed by midwives. He sat there on a chair in the doorway,
lovingly taking notes as they washed and oiled her. Afterwards,
dates stuffed with ghee were placed in the north, south, east
and west corners of the house to attract sweetness and
prosperity for people from Persia, which is where a lot of
Bahrainis today originally came from, the combination of sugar
and oil is tantamount, he explained.
What was often exciting was to find the overlap and
commonalities in all of our topics some patterns emerged in
regards what is most likely to contribute a subject being
obscured by the hegemony of history and the master
 7

narratives of the Arab world. The recent conflicts in Bahrain conscientiously honor the spiritual impulses of our ancient
played a role in our process of discovery and more often than civilizations in our daily lives?
not in our persisting ignorance about the minutiae of our
chosen research topics. It often seemed like information about
Al Khider, the Carmathians, and pre-Islamic scripts was
advertently covered up or lost.
The censorship of Shia-related histories makes for a palimpsest
of artifacts and a confusing collage of claims interestingly this
makes my research journey take creative diversions. Sadly, it
makes for a tense daily living situation in Bahrain. Throughout
my time in Bahrain I remained grateful to people who spoke
freely about their knowledge, memories and opinions. The way
that populations deals with the demolition of their heritage is
exemplified by graffiti of the Pearl roundabout though it was
demolished only once, the protest site continues to be
reiterated all over Bahrain with cans of spray paint.

NB: The research for the blog post was collected orally as well
as from a number of texts including: Karen Armstrongs A Short
History of Myth, the Quran, Wikipedia, and The Epic of
Gilgamesh. Any comments or corrections will be received with
appreciation and gratitude.

A graffito in the area of AAli pictures the demolished Pearl
roundabout and claims we are returning.
Skepticism towards Paganism and wide dismissal of it as a
legitimately charged religious practice also makes
conversations about the history of sexuality and fertility to be
quite a trial. It seems a shame that almost nobody bats an
eyelash at scantily clad models on billboards, yet most people
sneer at the word goddess. Learning from the protestors in
Bahrain I continue to wonder: how can we consciously and
[1] having initiated his servant Enkidu into modernity by sending him a
prostitute, Gilgamesh then turns down Inanna (also known as Ishtar,
the ultimate sex goddess - rejecting a goddess had been previously
unheard of).
[2] In the text of Atrahasis, the Great Flood is sent by Enlil because the
laborers of the new city are disturbing his peace. This is an interesting
allegory for labor in the Gulf, and their callous treatment.
[3] Theres something to be said for how interchangeable the figure of
Al Khider seems to be across cultures perhaps this is the truest form
of immortality?
[4] Al Khider is a prominent figure in Sufi mysticism, functioning
according to Sufi scholar Henry Corbin as a person-archetype whose
teachings allow Sufists to each discover their own, individual spiritual
identity.
[5] See Khalid Al-Farrajs short story Muneera (1929).
[6] Eggs as emblems of fertility are also a part of Easter and pre-
Passover rituals
[7] The proverbs we learned from her translated to the likes of give
him the seed of peace, give it to him and send him to Manama

The Politics of Preservation in Bahrain
Robert Kluijver
Summary
Between 8 and 11 April I visited Bahrain with a group of artists
and researchers. The artists had been selected through a call
for proposals posted on this website (see here for English and
here for Arabic) and communicated through Facebook and e-
mail. Liane al Ghusain, Ahmad Makia and Rahel Aima were
selected on the basis of their projects (see next post for more
information). On the scholarly side I had invited Prof. Mehdi
Sabet from Zayed University in Dubai, while my research
assistant Amal Bssiss joined us on 10 April. We were kindly
hosted by Al Riwaq who provided us with apartments in the hip
neighborhood of Adliya and helped us set up meetings.
The objective of this trip was to research Ancient Arabia from
the perspective of contemporary cultural issues. Each artist
and scholar had his/her own research objectives.
I wish to express my gratitude towards Alexandra Stock,
Kanwal Hameed, Zain, Ahmed Buarsali, Saji and the other
helpful office staff working under the direction of Bayan Kanoo
at Al Riwaq. And also to the FIND team (Mo Ogrodnik, Alaa
Edris and others) of New York University Abu Dhabi, that
funded this trip as part of my research fellowship. Thanks also
to Frances Stafford, Dr. Akbar Bushiri and all the other people
we met during this trip, who provided us with invaluable
information alongside unforgettable hospitality.
View of the excavated Portuguese fort with the sea behind it, and the
palm groves between the two. One of the beautiful sceneries we
encountered during our research.
8
Several team members making their way through the burial mounds of
Aali under the scorching sun.
General Impressions
Pre-Islamic Arabia is certainly more present in Bahrain than in
other Gulf countries. About 5% of the surface of the island is
rd
covered by burial mounds from the Dilmun civilization, 3
millennia BC to the first centuries BC[1]. Besides the burial
mounds, there are quite a few archaeological sites on the
island, ranging from temples (Barbar) and forts (Portuguese
fort) to whole villages (Saar). Most of these are from the pre-
Islamic period. There are also shrines, ancient qanats
(underground water channels) and other archaeological
vestiges. Bahrains museums are full of artifacts found on these
sites. Bahrains cultural heritage is thus abundant and relatively
well preserved compared to that of neighbouring countries.
Contemporary culture, however, is barely cognizant of this
cultural heritage. Bahrain is mainly known in the region for its
relatively lax morals; residents of other GCC countries come
there to party. Not enjoying the natural wealth of its neighbors
oil supplies in Bahrain have nearly been depleted Bahrain
thrives through trade, tourism and financial services. That
requires a certain openness, and that is what the island stands
for culturally.
This openness can also be found in the contemporary art
sector. It is vibrant and more layered, being several decades
older than the art scenes in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the
Emirates. The Ministry of Culture supports quite a few
museums, festivals and artistic institutions, while the private
sector also plays an important role in supporting artistic and
other creative initiatives.
The relaxed, open and dynamic art scene stands in sharp
contrast with the social tensions on the island. The majority of
Bahrains population is indigenous and quite poor, and the
contrasts between rich and poor are growing. The social
tensions have a religious dimension, as the indigenous
population is mostly Shia while the ruling elites are mostly
Sunni. The Al Khalifa royal family is related to the royal families
of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, and has ruled the island since the
th
late 18 century when they arrived from present-day Qatar.

Their power has traditionally been buttressed by England, and
now by the USA.
As we noticed while driving through the northern half of the
island, there are daily clashes between the government and
the opposition. The protestors cut off roads and set up
blockades with burning tires, to which the government reacts
with tear gas, riot police and the cordoning off of entire
residential areas. This situation is strangely underreported by
the Bahraini and the international media, and it came to us as a
surprise. It is likely that only few in the partying crowd of
th
Saudis, Americans from the 8 fleet base in Jufair and Western
expats realize that there is daily fighting on the rest of the
island.
Some of the burial mounds have been integrated into the urban
landscape of Aali
Hypotheses about the role of cultural heritage in current
political discussions
The discussions I had with different Bahrainis led me to
formulate the following hypotheses about the relations
between ancient and contemporary culture, as seen through a
political prism:
1. The discussion of the Islands Islamic past, in particular the
th th
period of the Carmathians (Ismaili Shia rule, 10 -11
centuries AD, over Bahrain and much of the current
Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia) is highly controversial as
it implicitly raises questions about the legitimacy of the
current rulers, given the current political context. The pre-
Islamic past, by contrast, presents less problems.
2. This leads to a situation where much of history is rather
left blank, unwritten, then written by one of the two sides
(Sunni rulers[2] versus Shia indigenous population)[3], as
this would certainly exacerbate tensions. No history =
good history.
3. This in turns leads to disaffection with the whole subject of
history and cultural heritage, and to a focus on the surface,
on the here and now. Ancient history is acknowledged and
appreciated, but not in terms of a relation with present-
day Bahrain, as this relation would have to go through the
9
fraught period of Islamic history and the formation of the
current national polity. There is thus a severe disconnect
between the Islands present and its past.
4. The results of academic and scientific research of the
whole history of Bahrain would probably fortify the
cultural identity of the local population, which now suffers
from being undefined. For example the identification of
Bahrains Shia with those from Iran is clearly a fallacy. The
Arabs of the Northeastern peninsula (encompassing
Bahrain, Eastern Saudi Arabia and Bahrain) were Shia
before the Persians, and they have little interest in the
theories and agitation of post-revolutionary Shia Iran. Even
the old Persian community on Bahrain is nationalistic
rather than pro-Iranian. But since the cultural identity of
the Bahraini indigenous opposition is so unclear, such
allegations when made are difficult to dispel.
5. As a result of the above, historic research is mainly
performed by outsiders, and preferably on the pre-Islamic
period. The Bahraini cultural institutions tend to cherry-
pick those research results which most interest them (the
same can be said of, for example, Western museums, but
without conflict these choices are less extreme).
Strange stones at the Barbar temple site
The Carmathians: dont trust Wikipedia
Specific focus of my research was the Carmathian (or
Qarmatian) period. My interest had been sparked by a
Wikipedia article which described the Qarmatian regime as
being one based on reason, the abolishing of private property,
equal rights between all citizens (except the slaves) and
vegetarianism. Very little seemed to be known about these
people who, from the island of Bahrain (then called Awal) had
ruled over the neighboring coasts, and who were known for
their ferocious raids on Hajj caravans and their stealing of the
black stone from the Kaaba (they eventually sold it back to the
caliph for a ransom).
I shared this information from Wikipedia in my publication The
Gulf Art Guide and brought it to the attention of many people.
It now turns out that this information is incorrect on several
key points. As far as historical sources ascertain, the

Carmathians were not vegetarian, but were precisely known
for their eating of unclean meats such as dog-meat and pork.
And the view of their regime, even by their allies (such as the
Ismaili philosopher Nasir Khusraw), seems to have been rather
negative: cruelty, despotism, military adventurism. But I still
need to consult the original sources, specifically Nasir Khusraw,
or find an author who has read them carefully and interpreted
them without religious bias.
The mention of the Carmathians mostly drew blank stares from
the Bahrainis I spoke to (as if you would mention the Picts to a
Briton). The historian Ali Bushehri affirmed that the study of
this period was problematic, because it was one of Shia rule;
also for the lack of historical evidence about the Carmathians,
as they did not practice writing, and few contemporaries wrote
about them. In the Bahrain National Museum there is almost
nothing about this period. The Carmathians are only
mentioned twice, both in the phrase After the Carmathian
period.
I speculated whether the contemporary Shia Bahraini identity
could be culturally derived from the Carmathian period. Mr.
Bushehri didnt think so, as the Carmathians were Ismaili,
while the roots of Shia Baharni culture went further back in
time. There are also still about 600 Ismailis living in Bahrain, in
a closed community.
It appears Im on a dead-end track with the Carmathians, but I
remain as intrigued by them as before.
Bahrain, Love-Paradise
The influx of prostitutes to entertain wealthy visitors in Bahrain
may seem dystopic at first sight; considered more carefully,
however, this may be in line of a much longer tradition. In the
Gilgamesh, the island of Dilmun is already portrayed as a
paradise of sorts. The abundance of sweet ground water was
explained to us at length by a German hydrologist one evening.
Before the ground water was depleted by modern industrial
use, it appeared as if there was a sweet-water sea under the
salty one: whence the name of the island, two seas. Sweet
water springs in the shallow sea around Bahrain were used,
already in antiquity, for different kinds of rites.
Ancient seals depict the centrality of love in ancient Dilmun.
While the more obscene ones are hidden from public view, the
romantic seals, showing a man and a woman seated opposite
each other, drinking a nectar from a shared vessel through
straws, have become emblematic for the island. Sea-shells
suggesting a womans private parts, filled with kohl and other
beautifiers, were found next to buried women.
It also seems ancient religions practiced in Bahrain encouraged,
at least seasonally, free sexual practices probably in the guise
10
of fertility rites. This was of course common throughout the
Middle East; in the worship of the goddesses of love and of
fertility (the Mother-Goddess) temple maids were often
required to offer themselves to men. Needless to say, no trace
of this erotic past can be found in Bahrains museums and
public collections of antiquities, while the citys hotel lounges
seem to be full of its contemporary expression.
Concluding remarks
While my research on Ancient Arabia in Contemporary Culture
started out as an investigation of the historical fracture
between the great civilizations on the Arabian peninsula before
the advent of Islam and its destiny afterwards, I am finding
increasingly that other periods of history can be much more
problematic. While the UAE lends itself well to my research
topic, the minds of artists in Saudi Arabia are much more
preoccupied with registering the changes in the country
occurred over the last 100 years, while in Bahrain the periods
of strong Shia rule are most problematic.
The gaps in the presentations at the National Museum which,
nonetheless, is one of the best of its kind in the region show
how sensitive historic truths can be, and the convenient
solution of simply ignoring history, or serving it up as a dish for
tourists after a bit of censoring. But this solution ignites the
curiosity of artists and researchers like me. Besides those
mentioned above, there are many more crevices to explore
within Bahrains national narrative.
[1] Apparently this proportion used to be close to 10% - it has
decreased due to the razing of burial mounds to make place for
residences, roads and other infrastructure, but also due to the
constant increase of the islands surface through land reclamation
projects.
[2] The ruling elites however include independent historians,
intellectuals and creative minds, who would welcome such research -
whatever the political implications. On the other hand many common
people, both Sunni and quiescent or non-politicized Shia, may not
want the situation on the island to be further destabilized by the
realities of history.
[3] The division between Sunni rulers and Shia indigenous
population is anything but clear-cut. Not only are there many
fractures within each of these blocs, which causes them to align
differently according to the issue of contention; there have also
traditionally been many other communities living on the island, which
also have a say in collective affairs. Nevertheless, for the purpose of
the discussion, this simplification is, I believe, legitimate as long as
no simplistic conclusions are drawn as a result.
 11

Research team members from left to right: Rahel Aima, Liane Al

Ghusain, Mehdi Sabet and Ahmad Makia
 12

Black flags over the Shii village of Aali

The Greengrocers of the Gulf (Searching for the

Carmathians)
Rahel Aima

Last month, we travelled to Bahrain with FiND in search of

Ancient Arabia. More specifically I was looking for the
Carmathians. Promisingly referred to as those who took small
steps or those who write in small letters, they were a radical
messianic Ismaili group who ruled in southern Iraq and the
historic Al Ahsa, which covers Eastern Saudi Arabia and
modern-day Bahrain. They werent quite ancient, living some
two centuries after the Hijra, but their dissident history is just
as marginalised as that of the pre-Islamic Jahiliyya period.
Today, theyre grudgingly remembered for their revolts against
the Abbasid Caliphate, in which they sacked Mecca, stole the
Black Stone of the Kaaba, and desecrated the Well of Zamzam
with corpses. The preference seems to be to dismiss them as
loutish pirates, if they must be mentioned at all. Nominally
egalitarian despite owning slaves, they also attempted to
establish a theocratic utopian republic there in 899 CEa
contradiction which intrigues me. They were also, seemingly
impossibly for the time, vegetarian.
Or so my initial research promised. Ive long been fascinated by
horizontal movements in history, especially when they
intersect with mysticism, from the medieval Brethren of the
Free Spirit to Jordans sufi-anarchists. The Carmathians were
big proponents of collective ownership, which applied to both
land and slaves; the latter were considered the property not of
individuals, but the entire community. Similarly, anyone could
grind their grain free of charge at the state-maintained
mills.There was a robust welfare state which granted interest-
free loans to anyone in need, as well as to craftsmen newly-
arrived in Al Ahsa so that they could establish a new business
there. All repairs of private property were done by the state,
which also readily financed military and raiding expeditions.
Replace craftsmen with entrepreneurs, military raids with
higher education, and you begin to see some really interesting
parallels to the modern-day tax-free Gulf city.
Yet as a vegetarian myself, it was their purported culinary
habits which really drew me in. For thousands of years, human
settlement in Bahrain has been almost inextricably bound up
with seafaring. It could be extrapolated that the diet of the
Carmathians, like those before and after them, heavily relied
the fruits of the sea. Given the aridity of the Arabian Peninsula,
a robust agricultural culture would seem unfeasible several
centuries before the advent of modern artificial irrigation. That
leaves tradeand some say, piratingwhich would have been
a constant, but did they really survive entirely on imports?
We spent our first full day in Bahrain at the old Portuguese
fortand erstwhile capital of the ancient Dilmun civilisation of
Qalat al Bahrain, returning in the evening for a talk by Dr.
 13

Randolf Rausch. Though ostensibly billed as being about the

epic of Gilgamesh, in practice it was an expansive sweep
through the hydrogeological history of the peninsula. We
learned about the constellation of freshwater springs that
allowed the ancient civilisation of Dilmun to flourish, along
with an education in groundwater and karst aquifer systems.
Some of these springs were even found underwater; fishermen
were able to dive and collect this sweet water in goatskin
bags to replenish their potable water supply while out at sea.
Although today water table depletion means that these springs
have all but dried upa paltry 1% of the island is now
considered arablethe fertile northern part of the island was
historically able to support an astonishingly diverse range of
crops, including fruit (bananas, citrus fruit, peaches,
pomegranates, figs), almonds, various vegetables as well as the
staple crops of dates and alfalfa. So perhaps an entirely
vegetarian diet was possible after all.
Yet perhaps unsurprisingly for a period generally suppressed
and elided as unsavoury, information about the eating habits
of the Carmathians remained thin on the ground. I began
sifting through larger timescale with a view to puzzling out the
Carmathians eating habits by filling in the blanks. A visit to the
Bahrain National Museum was particularly useful in this regard.
Analysis of dental diseases in archaeological remains suggests
that from the Dilmun period onwards, standard fare consisted
of dates, fruits, vegetables, meat, and fish, with very little
consumption of grains. From a later change in dental diseases,
however, it can be inferred that the advent of Islam coincided
with a marked rise in grainbarley, millet and wheatexports
of which were particularly lucrative for the Carmathians.
There is unfortunately little recordin English, that isof
eating habits up until the arrival of the British, but Ibn Magid,
writing in the 15th century, does note that primary exports
included cereals, lemons, pomegranates, and date honey. The
production and consumption of the highly nutritious date
honey is something that the coastal gulf was especially known
for. Madbasas, which are structures for collecting the juice
honey of dates have been found at the Bahrain fort site at
both the Middle Dilmun (2000 BCE) and early Tylos (1st and
2nd centuries CE) levels. At this point, we could extrapolate
that the Carmathian diet included a range of fruits, vegetables,
and cereals, but their vegetarianism remains woefully
unverified.
 14

Qalat al Bahrain Top: Dental diseases at the Bahrain Museum. Bottom: Baqal (image
via Asoud Al Iraq)
The Carmatians were also ostensibly known as Al Baqaliyya,
which translates to The Greengrocers. The Arabic word baql
broadly connotes vegetables, and derives from the Quran. In
Bahrain, however, baql is used to refer specifically to a flat,
fleshy alium that resembles an engorged blade of grass thats
usually served in salads or with meats. I had a chance to
sample it at the Budaiyya farmers market; it tastes something
like a more aggressive chive.
I was to later find, however, that the Baqaliyya were a separate
subsect under the broader Carmathian umbrella. One source
suggests their name comes from one al-Baqli, a companion of
the heretic/revolutionary (depending on which way you look at
it) Abdullah ibn Muawiya. Al Baqli is quoted in Abu Faraj al
Isfahanis seminal Kitab al Aghani as having declared, mankind
is like the vegetable: when it dies it never comes back, yet is
identified as living during the Caliph Al Mansur of 754-75 CE,
well before the Carmathians. It is unknown whether this
elevation of the vegetable extended to their eating habits.
A less literary but more feasible explanation points to the dai
(Ismaili missionary) Abu Hattem Zotti, who banned the
consumption of certain vegetables as well as the slaughtering
of animals. His followers were called the Baqliya, a name which
came to apply to all the Carmathians of southern Iraqand a
millennias worth of historical fog later, possibly all
Carmathians.

Image via Archaeology, luxury and the exotic: the examples of Islamic
Gao (Mali) and Bahrain [PDF]

Upon reading Timothy Insolls book, The Land of Enki in the

Islamic Era: Pearls, Palms, and Religious Identity in Bahrain, I
was disabused of any notion of Qarmatian vegetarianism.
Archaeological remains from the period include dog,
donkey/pony, and cat bones, with butchery marks which point
to these animals being eaten. Pig bones were even found at Al
Khamis. Unlike the other animals, however, the type of bone
and its cut marks suggest that swine were imported as joints of
meat, as opposed to being reared and butchered on the island.

As it turns out the radical Ismailism of the Carmathians meant
that they did not follow Islamic dietary mores. Instead, as
reported by poet Nasir-i-Khusraw, who spent 9 months with
them in 1051 consumed the flesh of every animal, including
cats and dogs. More on their way of life and can be found in
Kenneth Rexroths Communalism:
"Within Bahrayn itself there was complete absolutist
communism. The citizens paid no tribute or tax; their welfare
was guaranteed from birth to death, in sickness or health. All
hard, menial, or unpleasant work was performed by the Negro
slaves, who seem at first to have been the defeated remnants
of the Zanj revolt who fled to their quasi-allies and voluntarily
chose slavery with the Carmathians rather than extermination
with the Sunnites. The orthodox accused the Carmathians of
community of women and all manner of orgies. As a matter of
fact they were strictly monogamous, a military caste something
like Platos guardians or the Teutonic Knights, who led a pure,
severely regulated life. The use of wine and all minor vices
were strictly forbidden. Women unveiled and circulated freely
in public and enjoyed considerable influence. The specific
ordinances of Islam, however, were not enforced, not even the
Friday meeting, the daily prayers, or the eating of food that
was taboo."
The Carmathians were also proponents of a millenarian,
mysticism; Rexroth adds that like the Sufis the Carmathians
dressed exclusively in white and placed great emphasis on
moral and physical purity. They had a close, if tempestuous
relationship with Fatamids of Egypt and the Levant, with
periods of co-conspiring against the Abbasid Sunni hegemony
regularly punctuated by warring. Although both proponents of
social change, the Fatamid might be seen as a reformist to the
Carmathian revolutionary; in more current language we might
term them social democrats and ultra-left respectively.
A carpet embedded into concrete in Aali
15
A later conversation with Raneem Baassiri pointed me towards
the Druze, who are Fatamid descendants. Traces of the
Carmathian doctrine can be found in their beliefs, which
include asceticism, reincarnation and vegetarianism.The Druze
and Carmathians are also believed to share influences, which
include Zoroastrianism, Manicheism and proto-Hindu Vedism.
Does this mean that there might be a Carmathian
vegetarianism after all, possibly in the Baqaliyya? Its worth
mentioning language barriers here, not in the least the Arabic
letter which resulted in several transliterations, including
Karmathian, Garmathian, Qarmatian, and Qaramati. Theres
also a tendency to refer to all early Ismailis as Qarmatians,
which further complicates the matter. All mentions of
vegetarianismand for that matter, most breathy
characterisations of their brand of communismthat I have
found have been in English, and I suspect they reflect a certain
linguistically-delineated ideological biasjust as anarchists like
to point to the Zapatistas or the Paris Commune, soviet
literature seems especially fond of the Carmathians. I do like
the idea of a people who are vegetarian only in one language
though, and how it reflects the myths we like to weave about
ourselves. As for me, perhaps I wasnt searching for Ancient
Arabia or even the Qarmatians at all.
 16

Dilmun Settlement in Saar, Bahrain, a Personal

Reflection
Dr. Mehdi Sabet

With the exception of a few, its a unfortunate and sad

scenario that the history of Middle East, especially the Arabian
peninsula civilization has been riddled with and overshadowed
by the 21st century of political chaos and social upheavals that
has truly disrupted the advancement of arts and science for
centuries.
With the scorching sun rising ever higher in the sky, in our
recent visit to the excavated village of Dilmun in Saar, a
formidable civilization dated long before the introduction of
Islam in the region, sited on the northwest part of the island of
Bahrain, I was utterly fascinated with a treasure trove of
architecture and planning standing in front of my naked eyes. I The physical positioning of the village in the lower part of
witnessed the evidence of the architecture and planning valley is perhaps an indication of community visual and noise
evidence that proposes a valuable understanding into the privacy, security, close to water shed for agriculture, and cooler
social and economic organization of Bahrain during the Bronze environment.
Age. This planning testimony offers certain level of intellectual The physical evidence of the houses, especial the pattern and
curiosity and assumptions as to how these people lived and form of spaces, size and complexity, orientation to sun, wall
structured their environment, interacted with each other and thickness and niches, construction materiality, access to the
guarded certain social values, and how the civil society main street, door opening and size give clear clues to the
behaved. importance or social hierarchy of the occupants. Perhaps, even
The site covers an area of about 2.5 hectares (~6 acres), and it the proximity of the houses to the Temple and Main Street
lies on the lee side of a north/south limestone ridge which signify certain level of social order and importance in the
once included an extensive cemetery[1]. Though, I do not community. The jigsaw positioning and the inter-connectivity
claim to be a historian or an archeologist, but an architect by of houses (no single freestanding house to signify uniqueness)
profession and ancient enthusiast at heart. The visit to the site, suggest certain degree of equality and community bonding of
despite the hot midday temperature, enticed me to walk about the occupants, economy of construction material, and physical
and put myself in the frame of mind as an ancient Dilmun-ian sustainability of the community. Other buildings in Saar include
resident in the ruins. I climbed up on top of the dirt mound on a water-well, a large kiln and two circular structures at the
the southeast corner to see the entire settlement. I was in total southeastern border of the settlement which may have been
awe to notice a clear logic of planning and siting of the storage facilities, or a sacred place of offering, postulate
buildings in relation to the sun orientation and in the context evidences of community based and a well organized
of social structure, clearly defining religious belief at the center infrastructure to provide service for the community.
of the village. I imagined myself walking on the shaded Main
Street, perhaps lined with palm tree, until I reached the cross
section of the Temple Street, center of village.
The archeological findings give rich glimpses of Dilmun society
as an enigmatic and cohesive civilization and an important
trade and knowledge center, a wealth that stretched between
Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley as early as 5,000 years ago.
Four thousand years ago the merchants of Bahrain (ancient
Dilmun) had contacts far and wide from the Indus to the
Euphrates, bartering and exchanging a wide range of
commodities. The economic success of these trading ventures
led to increased prosperity at home, where stone-built temples
and settlements were established in the well-watered northern
part of Bahrain by the start of the second millennium BC.[2]
 17

The built-in niches in the wall of a house across from the to the structure of a community building, social values, and
Temple, perhaps sign of priest wealth and prominence, to store infrastructure pattern, see plan[4].
objects of positions.

The site map clearly identifies axial planning concept to

position the Temple in the center of the community, and
concise pedestrian orientation.
[1] K.Kris Hirst, Saar (Bahrain), Early Dilmun Village in the Persian Gulf
[2] & [3] & [4] Antiquity Journal
The uniformity of wall thickness and door opening (almost in
http://antiquity.ac.uk/reviews/beech.html
every structure) implies knowledge of construction,
measurement, science and building sitting.
There is a remarkable degree of similarity in building form
and installation type at Saar. A striking feature of the
settlement as a whole is that the buildings were constructed in
rows, sharing communal walls: not a single building stands
alone in the settlement. Built of un-coursed locally available
rough limestone, the single-story buildings contain rooms with
ovens and hearths, plastered storage pits, benches and basins.
Most buildings seem to have performed a similar domestic
function. The micro stratigraphic evidence demonstrates very
distinctive characteristics within each room, changing within
the space of 1-2m. The remarkable recurrence and similarity of
the deposits within the two buildings studied suggests some
regularity[3].
There is much written information about the Temple. However,
it is important to note centrality and orientation in the context
of community signifies power of belief and authority of
government, a notion that has transcended to later eras of
civilization such as church in Christian community, and mosque
the center of Islamic community. This evidence denotes an
ancient neighborhood-planning concept, providing an insight

Arabic dialects spoken in Bahrain
Ahmad Makia
Arriving to Bahrain, its difficult to miss the provenance of the
term Gulf all over the island. In contrast to its neighboring
cities, such as Dubai, Doha, and Abu Dhabi who employ an
extensive city branding campaign, Bahrain seems much more
attached to a regional Gulf identity. You will notice an urban
landscape plastered with the word Gulfa term which is
being displaced from its geographical position, to a much more
localised and imagined Arabian landmass with all of its Pan-
Arab hangoverness, de-Persianification, and urgent programs
for globalisation.
My latest fascinationread, obsessionhas been the Arabic
language, and how it has been used as a tool for colonisation,
reinscriptions, and erasures. Ive been searching for lesser
known scripts and vernaculars which have been rubbed out
and neglected by history.
Some scripts Ive stumbled upon include: ancient Nabatean, or
Babylonian Aramaic scripts. It was brought to light by historian
Ibn Wahshiya when he translated the Kitab al-falah al nabatiya,
a dossier on Babylonian scientific and agricultural
advancements. The book also glorifies their civilization over the
barbaric conquering Arabs. It also included a story which
debunks the Adam and Eve myth by describing peoples before
them.
Another is the old pre-Islamic Kurda alphabet. Although the
alphabet hasnt been used since the 9th century, you will find
some anti-Arab dissenting voices on the internet who call for
reusing the alphabet as a way to reclaim Kurdish identity.
Today, the Kurdish Academy of Language has devised an
entirely new script known as Yekgirt (a modified Latin
alphabet made of 34 characters), meaning unified, in an
attempt to unify the language from its otherwise disparate
scripts usually written in Perso-Arabic, Latin, or Cyrillic.
Lastly, the Ajami script in West Africawhich is not a pre-
Islamic scriptreveals a history of anti-Arab resistance. Islamic
colonisation in the Maghreb and Sahel meant the religious
conversion of locals, the slave trade, and resource exploitation.
Holy men began to modify the Arabic script to adapt to local
languages, such as Hausa and Wolof. This resulted in the Ajami
script as a way to disseminate Islamic teachings. The
accessibility of Ajami in its surrounding context ended up
displacing Arabic as a teaching script. Ajami also signals to
community loyalties, where it began to refer to a more
Afrocentric Black identity.
In Bahrain, I was looking to uncover another language, script,
or dialect with a similar trajectory to those mentioned above.
Heres what I found:
Bahraini Arabs are descendants of the Al-Khalifa tribe, or
other Sunni tribes from mainland Arabia who inhabited the
island from the 18th century onwards. Baharna are the non-
Persian Shiite Arab group, who form most of Bahrains
18
population, and also claim to be the original Bahrainis. Shiite
Persian Bahrainis refer to themselves as Ajam.
The island during the 7th century and pre-Arab political
dominance, shows a checkered group of dialects influenced by
Akkadian, Semitic, and Aramaic culturesespecially spoken by
Gulf traders and seafarers. The dialect groups of Bahrain share
their linguistic history to that of the Gulf strip: a gradual and
steady arabicization of the area where other Semitic languages
were once spoken.
The major communal dialect differences of Bahrain correspond
to two major groups: Arab dialects and Baharna dialects. The
Arab Arabic comes from central Arabia; a dialect developed
from the Najdi accent. Baharna, on the other hand, is more
mixed in origin with early Akkadian traces and contemporary
phonetic borrowings from Persian and Hindi. Their differences
stem from their geographical origins, and more pointedly by
their religious differences. Baharna is also spoken in some parts
of Oman, Yemen, and the UAE.
The Najdi, or sometimes referred to as Anazi, is a dialect
usually associated with the ruling families of the Gulf, or more
formally known as Eastern Arabian, or Gulf Arabic. The Arab
Arabic is more dominant on a governance level, and over time
Baharna Arabic adopted and accommodated the dialect since it
is perceived to be more socially prestigious. Baharna dialect is
also claimed to be the original Bahraini, while the Arabic
speakers are newcomers. Functional words such as what are
typically different: the Arabic will say Shinu, while Baharna use
wes or weshnu. The dialect division and variations are
especially prominent in the lexicon attached to labor.
Baharnas unique words are tied to agriculture and farming,
while the new Arabic contains words specific to the pearling
industry.
Another indigenous dialect of Bahrain is Hwala or Holi. It is also
used to ethnically categorize a non-tribal group of traders who
had become Persianised through port contact with the south of
present day Iran in between the 15th and 17th century. They
later intermarried and assimilated into the Arab governing
structure and became Arabized, with the Hwala dialect slowly
dying out.
Although, other research shows that the Hola ethnic group are
non-Arabs who are of Persian or Afro-Persian descent, that
later migrated to the Gulf in the 19th and 20th centuries. The
term Holi is a corrupted term of the Persian word Koli,
meaning gypsy. It is also used very explicitly differentiate
between Shite Persian and Sunni Persian, with the former
being Ajam and the latter being Holi. The Holi group are also
marked by the Khodomoni Persian dialect that they speak.
Thats all for now. New languages that I attempt to start
looking at include the Harsusi language in Oman, Shirvani in
Azerbaijan and Dagestan, and also Arabic sign language.

Trip to Najran: reflections on Saudi cultural heritage
policies
Robert Kluijver
One of the premises of the Searching for Ancient Arabia
research project is the cultural diversity of the Arabian
Peninsula; one of the research hypotheses being that this
pluralismwell evident in ancient historywas smothered by
subsequent narratives and historical developments, but that it
could be a great asset for the future development of the Gulf
region, particularly in artistic and cultural terms.
I previously explored the role cultural heritage plays in Bahrain.
Now I would like to turn to the complex issue of cultural
heritage in Saudi Arabia. Later I will also examine the case of
the UAE.
Ancient Dam at Khaybar, 150 km north of Medina. Khaybar was a
wealthy Jewish settlement until the Jews were expelled by Caliph
Umar. The dams ensured agricultural prosperity. Photo by my father,
M. Kluijver.
Najran
My interest in Najran was awoken by an as yet unpublished
experimental artwork by the Saudi artist Abdulnasser Gharem.
It reminded me of a trip I had made in my childhood, when my
father was working in the country, to the region, and I resolved
to return there as soon as I had the opportunity. That was
provided to me by the fellowship I received for this research
from NYU Abu Dhabis FIND programme.
Najran is a dusty town in southern Saudi Arabia, a few
kilometers north of the Yemeni border. It is not a place many
foreigners go to; and of the visitors that do come, only few visit
19
the site of Al Ukhdood, a major city from the pre-Islamic period
that has been almost wholly excavated.
Main thoroughfare of Al Ukhdood, with monumental buildings on
either side and the mountains of Yemen in the background.
This is surprising: not only because of the quality of the site
(the excavated city is large at 220 by 235 meters, its
architecture is compellingly visible and there are fascinating
rock engravings on many of the stone blocks used in its
construction), but also because the city features prominently in
the Holy Quran, as a place of damnation where a massacre
took place a century before the Hegira[1].
The beautiful square cuts of the masonry at Al Ukhdood are proof of
an advanced culture, as are the well-executed inscriptions.
One could therefore expect detailed descriptions and analyses
online, and a steady inflow of Saudi and other Muslim tourists,
in the same way the biblical sites in Palestine attract Christian
tourists. But no! We were the only visitors for most of the day.
Even educated people from the nearby town admitted never
having been there before.
In fact, the site is officially closed, but a security guard speaking
on his phone in the shade of his pickup suggested with a
gesture that we should enter through a hole in the fence. The
site museum, which used to be unimpressive, is being
renovated into a big visitor center, so maybe the provincial
 20

government expects more visitors, but, just as likely, this is a

prestige project without a real audience in mind.
Descriptions of the site are hard to find online (see here for a
summary report with photographs by an American tourist, and
here for a more detailed but still insufficient description by a
local tour operator). As to me, I have neither the required
knowledge, nor the intention, to provide a detailed scientific
analysis of the site. What I can say, however, is that this is one
of the most impressive archaeological sites I have ever seen[2].
This makes one wonder why there is so little public interest in
cultural heritage in Saudi Arabia

Saudi attitudes towards cultural heritage

Saudi Arabian cultural heritage policies are quite contradictory.
On the one hand, there has been a rapid destruction of cultural
heritage, including many early Islamic monuments such as the
birthplace of the prophet Muhammad (replaced by public
toilets), and mosques and mausoleums built by or for the
companions of the prophet. The arguments given for this
destruction range from the practical (infrastructural works) to
the religious (preventing shirk or polytheism, assuming the
admiration of cultural heritage could detract believers from the
worship of the one God). For more information see this page of
related Saudi fatwas, or the opinions on this matter of Saudi
specialists such as Dr. Sami Angawi or Anwar Eshki, as compiled
in, for example, this comprehensive article on the destruction
of Islamic heritage in the Kingdom.
On the other hand, Saudi Arabia not only allows, but also at
times encourages archaeological exploration by foreign
scholars. It has lavishly funded the Roads of Arabia exhibition
about pre-Islamic Saudi history organized by the Louvre, as
well as the Hajj exhibition first hosted by the British Museum.
Both exhibitions traveled to other locations with Saudi support.
This encouraging attitude towards cultural heritage is not only
for foreign consumption; the collection of the National
Museum in Riyadh and its display are up to international
standards.
The ruling elites of the country can also be great lovers of their
country and its history. The photograph above depicts the Emir
of Hail touring my father around the provinces many sites
with rock engravings, back in the 1990s. The governors of
Makkah and Medina provinces both have recently stood up,
against further attacks on their citys cultural heritage.
As with other policies dealing with society and culture in Saudi This funerary monument, found near Hail, is about
Arabia, their dual, ambiguous nature does not seem to be a 6000 years old. Note the double-bladed sword.
temporary contradiction. It rather seems enshrined in the very Photo coutesy Roads of Arabia.
constitutional make-up of the Kingdom: the pact between the
Wahhabi clergy and the House of Al Saud, whereby the former
is allowed to rule society on the condition of explicit obedience
to the royal family, which manages the destiny of the country.

The ruling Emir of Hail, an archaeology buff, in the 1990s. Photo by
my father, Marinus Kluijver
Indeed, the National Museum of Riyadh offers a beautiful
example of this contradiction. When leaving the pre-Islamic
galleries on the ground floor, the visitor must pass through a
sound and light display in a small corridor, where he/she learns
that all the magnificent cultural artifacts, architectural
grandeur and scientific explanations that he/she has just seen
are nothing else than evidence of the ignorance (jahiliyya)
which characterized the pre-Islamic period. After this ordeal,
the visitor emerges in a great hall basking in light. On one side
is a monumental entrance that can be used to circumvent the
ground floor displays, in front of which an endless escalator
leads to the spacious first floor, dedicated to the Islamic history
of the country. One surmises that members of the clergy and
their followers use this entrance to avoid being confronted
with the polytheistic past of the Kingdom.
21
The preservation of cultural heritage has become the responsibility of
a few wealthy educated Saudis. The architect Dr. Sami Angawi built his
house in Jeddah incorporating many different Saudi crafts and building
traditions.
Contemporary Historic Dissonances
The most interesting part of my visit to Najran was the road
trip from Abha. I spent some days enjoying the hospitality of
Ibrahim Abumsmar, a contemporary artist, working with him
on his next solo. His family hails from Rijal al Alma, a village
hanging off a cliff in the magnificent green escarpment
bordering Abha towards the Red Sea[3], and he has spent most
of his life in Abha.
Ibrahim and his friend, the artist Abdelkarim Qassem, proved
knowledgeable guides about the Asir, the province of which
Abha is the capital. This region historically enjoyed
considerable autonomy, and was as close to Yemen as to other
neighboring regions until the Saudis took over, after a brief
war, and annexed the province into the Kingdom in 1934,
barely 80 years ago. It is one of the few areas on the Arabian
Peninsula that catches enough rain for subsistence agriculture,
and it has a sedentary society as a result.

Ibrahim Abumsmar guiding through the ruins of what was purportedly
the first public school in the Asir, built in the 1950s.
As we drove south-east through this mountainous region,
Ibrahim and Abdelkarim pointed out the many changes that
had occurred in the province and its society over the past
years. Since the 1980s, in particular, change planned by the
central government has been rapid. This not only affects the
landscapes (rapid urbanization, destruction of traditional
habitats) but also the people living in it. Old men still
remember the days that Christian and Jewish merchants would
come to the local markets. They have been replaced by shops
staffed by South Asians, selling Chinese and other global
produce. Crops cherished by the Asiris are no longer planted,
and the small holdings set on rain-fed terraces along the
mountainsides have been replaced by larger, industrialized
farms in the flat (and dry) lands that guzzle up groundwater at
an alarming rate.
Example of a traditional Asiri house, now abandoned in favor of more
contemporary but not necessarily more comfortable - lifestyles.
But besides these changes that inevitably seem to accompany
modernity, there has also been a conscious effort to align Asiri
society with what one might call Nejdi[4] values: a stricter
observance of social propriety rules and more fundamentalist
religious practices. Thirty years ago, people in the villages used
to dance together at the harvest - men and women, old and
young together. Now young men will not show their wifes face
to their own brothers, and mothers will not let their sons
22
pronounce their names in public. Local society seems to have
assimilated these new values very easily. In turn local artists
and intellectuals wonder what has happened to their culture,
and where it is going.
Obviously, the Saudi government also has a strong incentive to
shield its Southwestern provinces from the unrest that has
plagued Yemen over the past decade. In 2009, a six-month war
took place between the Saudi Army and Houthi rebels from
northern Yemen, who used to traverse the porous border
easily (it has now become difficult). The artist Abdelkarim
Qassem portrays a gripping moment from this war in his video
Evacuation. But local culture also suffers as a result. The Zaydi
faith that inspires the Houthi rebels is shared by a majority of
the population in Najran[5]. Although the tribal loyalty of the
main tribe of Najran (the Yam) to the Al Saud remains
unquestioned since the 1930s, their protests against religious
persecution have been met with violence. (Human Rights
Watch published a report on the issue in 2008). Similarly, many
Asiris resent being cut off from their Yemeni neighbors, with
whom they used to entertain close commercial and cultural
relations.
It thus dawned on me that the dynamics between Ancient
Arabia and contemporary culture, which this research focuses
on, are still at play in the contemporary period as
recollections of how the country used to be fifty years ago and
now. This makes the role of artists in expressing and
negotiating cultural change all the more pressing. Asiri artists,
such as Ahmed Mater and those mentioned above, take this
role seriously, infusing the contemporary art world in Saudi
Arabia with much of its vibrancy. One wonders what may
happen when artists and intellectuals reach back to the potent
symbols and rich cultures of Ancient Arabia to develop a vision
of a society with a strong potential rooted in Arabian cultural
diversity.
Emara Castle in Najran, built in 1944 (and photographed by Thesiger
in 1947) is a rare example of preserved traditional architecture.
I would like to thank the artists that have awoken my interest
in Saudi cultural heritage, first and foremost Ahmed Mater
with whom I have enjoyed many long discussions about this
subject, and the artists mentioned in the text above. I also
thank Athr gallery in Jeddah for facilitating my trip to Abha.
 23

[1] Surah 85 (Al Buruj, known as The Constellations in English):

Perish the People of the Trench / With its fire and its faggots / As they
sat above it / Witnessing what they did to the faithful / All they held
against them was their belief in God (). Translation by Tarif Khalidi,
Penguin Books 2008. While this passage may also refer to other
historic events, the most commonly accepted explanation is that it
refers to the massacre of Christians by Jewish converts in Al Ukhdood
near Najran.
[2] A selection of Wikipedia pages providing interesting backgrounds:
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_community_of_Najran
-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Saudi_Arabia
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Najran
[3] Rijal al Alma is also the native village of the contemporary artists
Ahmed Mater and Abdelkarim Qassem. This group, with their friends,
has played an important part in the genesis of the contemporary
Saudi art movement.
[4] From the Nejd, the central desert region from which the Al Saud
family hails, and whose capital is Riyadh.
[5] This faith is often branded as Ismailism by foreign experts, but the
local population rejects this association. They recognize their faith as a
branch of Shiism, but unrelated to that practiced in Iran or elsewhere.

Table made by R Kluijver after downloading & installing

the free Qataban (TTF) font, and with the help of Unicode
tables and scriptsource.org
 24

The Endangered South Arabian Languages of Oman and

Yemen
Article reproduced with the permission of Michael Collins Dunn.
The original article was published here on May 14, 2014

In March, the irregular Exploring Omans Linguistic Treasures

blog had a post, "The Harsusi Language in Oman: Another
Treasure Slipping Away?" This is as good a reason as any to do
a major post on the surviving pockets of Modern South Arabian
languages, spoken in Oman and Yemen and in some Gulf
diasporas of their peoples.

I realize the vast majority of my readers have never heard of

Harsusi, or probably of Hobyot or Bathari either, but they are
real, living, if endangered languages of Oman (with Hobyot
extending into Yemen). Along with the Soqotri and the much
healthier and widely spoken Mehri (or Mahri) and Shehri (or
Shahri or Jebali/Jibbali/Jibali) in Oman, these are the surviving
Modern South Arabian languages, . They are quite distinct from
Arabic, and are usually classed as part of the Southern Semitic
subgroup of Afro-Asiatic, while Arabic is more closely related to Wikipedia
Northwest Semitic. Even if youve never heard of these six
languages, this post will not only make sure you hear of them,
but will give you a chance to actually hear three of them.

A seventh language may deserve inclusion. Razihi, spoken in

the Jabal Razih in the extreme north of Yemen, is
sometimesclassified as the only direct survivor of Old South
Arabian, rather than as Modern South Arabian. UNESCO lists it
as an endangered language, but others consider it an Arabic
variant; Ethnologue doesnt list it.

The Modern South Arabian languages have many affinities with

the Ethiopic languages, including Classical Geez and Amharic,
but they are also distinct. Though it was long assumed the
Modern South Arabian languages were descended from Old
South Arabian, some linguists say they are distinct even there;
Im not qualified to judge. But one tiny surviving language in
Yemen,

Lets start with some maps from Wikipedia and the language
reference site Ethnologue.com:

Ethnologue
Endangered languages are a key issue in the 21st century. This
may be, for example, the fatal century for Native North
American languages. Of 3000 or more languages spoken when
Columbus landed, only about 175-200 survived at the turn of
the 21st century, mostly in Canada, Alaska, and Hawaii. In the
lower 48 US states, the scene is bleak, except for Navajo,
Cherokee, and Cree. In 1997 it was estimated that 55
languages in North America had between one and six native
speakers. That was 17 years ago, and many of those are likely
now extinct.
Linguists around the world are racing to record endangered
languages before the last native speaker dies. Today we usually
know even their names. Ned Maddrel, the last native speaker
of Manx, died December 27, 1974. Wikipedia lists close to a
dozen languages that have only one living native speaker.
And UNESCO says that one half of some 6000 languages in the
world today will be extinct by the end of the century.
When any language dies, a part of its culture is lost; not
everything translates. When a written language dies, it doesnt
die forever; there are still web pages published in Latin, and we
have learned to read Ancient Egyptian, Sumerian, Akkadian,
Ugaritic and even Linear B Mycenean Greek again, awakening
long silenced voices. Even Mayan is now re-emerging. There
are efforts to revive Manx and Cornish, and many on the Isle of
Man and in Cornwall are learning them, but they are not native
speakers and it will never be their first language.
The Middle East, of course has seen what is as far as I know the
only example of a language that once had no native speakers
not just revive but become a language which is the only
language of many: Hebrew. But its a unique case: it was
always the liturgical language of Jews everywhere, and Israel
was created from immigrants whose first languages were as
different as Yiddish, Ladino, Arabic and many others. Israeli
Hebrew is not just an exception; so far its the only exception.
Some languages that once seemed moribund like Irish, Welsh,
Scots Gaelic, Provencal etc. have had a new lease on life, while
25
others that once were endangered by a dominant language
have strongly rebounded (notably Catalan and at least up to
now, Ukrainian). In the Middle East, Amazigh (Berber) has
been one of the big winners in the Libyan and Tunisian
revolutions; if Arab Spring has withered, Berber Spring
survives. Kurdish has always held on, and Aramaic continues to
survive. But (with asterisks on Amazigh) those are all written
languages.
But when an unwritten language dies, its words are gone
forever, except what anthropologists or explorers may have
written down. All of the Modern South Arabian languages
(unlike Old South Arabian), lacked a writing system, though
Arabic, English transliteration systems, and the International
Phonetic Alphabet have been used to record them. This is a
disadvantage.
Though the largest of the surviving South Arabian languages,
Mehri, has over 100,000 speakers, all of them are endangered.
As with Native American and other minority indigenous
languages, as rural, mountain, or nomadic peoples move to the
cities, or as central governments provide schooling, there is
great pressure to adopt the dominant language to succeed.
The younger generation are likely to prefer Arabic, and literacy
is only possible in Arabic. All the languages are already heavily
influenced by Arabic vocabulary.
Before providing some comments and examples of the six
Modern South Arabian languages, here are some resources
dealing with them as a group:
Miranda Morris at the British-Yemeni Society:The Pre-Literate,
Non-Arabic Languages of Oman and Yemen
From CNRS: Marie-Claude Simeone-Senelle, Les Langues
Sudarabiques Modernes,des Langues Semitiques
Menacees? In French.
Susan Al Shahri, "The Language Crisis," A blogpost by a blogger
from Dhofar. Though her name suggests an affiliation with the
tribal group speaking Shahri/Jibali, she admits that Although I
have lived in Dhofar my entire life, I have never had the
privilege of hearing Hobyot or Batthari being spoken.
From SOAS Endangered Languages Archive: Links to"The
documentation and ethnolinguistic analysis of Modern South
Arabian" pages for five of the six languages, though these are
pages describing the holdings rather than linking to them.
Except for Soqotri, separated by sea from the others, there is
reportedly some mutual comprehensibility among these
languages.
For the individual languages themselves languages themselves,
many of the published grammars and such are published by E.J.
Brill or other high-end publishers and are only found in
specialist libraries. Leaving aside the uncertain case of Razihi,
mentioned above, here are brief descriptions for he other six,
along with estimates of the number of speakers from 1)
UNESCO, 2) Ethnologue, the language reference work by the
Summer Institute of Linguistics (a Christian missionary
endeavor), 3) the SOAS Endangered Languages Archive cited
 26

earlier, and 4) Wikipedia. I also include related links, and
videos where I found them. I am taking the languages
alphabetically.
Bathari
One of the most endangered is Bathari, spoken by a few
hundred fishermen along the Bay of Khuriya Muria on the
coast of Oman. UNESCO estimates 300 speakers, Ethnologue
200, and Wikipedia about 200. SOAS gives no estimate.
Bathari numerals.
Harsusi
Spoken in the Jiddat al-Harasis area of Central Oman. Estimates
of speakers vary dramatically: UNESCO says 3000 in 1996,
3500-4000 today, both based on fieldwork by Dawn Chatty;
Ethnologue says 600; SOAS says between 600-1000; Wikipedia
says 1000-2000.
Some further reading on Harsusi:
The Linguistic Treasures of Oman blogpost cited at the
beginning: "The Harsusi Language in Oman: Another Treasure
Slipping Away?"
Lameen Souag at Jabal al-Lughat:"Destroying Harsusi."
A post about numbers in Harsusi. Clearly all but a few of those
from 1-10 differ significantly from Arabic; 11 upwards resemble
Arabic.
Hobyot (or Hobyt)
Hobyot is spoken on either side of the Yemen-Oman border. It
may have fewer than 100 speakers today. UNESCO puts it at
400; Ethnologue says 100 in Oman, not citing Yemeni figures;
SOAS says under 1000; Wikipedia says 100 in Oman.
The two videos below show general scenes of Oman (not just
Dhofar, but the background audio is recordings of Jibbali
speakers, including a recitation of numbers.
Mehri
Mehri, or Mahri, is by far the most widely spoken of the
surviving South Arabian languages, and by dar the most
studied. Though unwritten histoeically, t has a rich poetic
tradition (see songs below). It is spoke on the coast and inland
in the Mahra Province of eastern Yemen and in Dhofar in
Oman. UNESCO puts its speakers at 100,000; Ethnologue at
115,200, of whom 50,000 are in Yemen and th rest in
Oman; SOAS estimates 180,000; and Wikipedia gives 120,000.
Lameen Souag has noted in "Why They Thought Berbers Came
From Yemen" a tradition in Arabic that Berber and Mehri were
linked due to some common features not shared by Arabic.
Though both part of the Afro-Asiatic family of languages, Mehri
belongs to the Semitic group, not the Berber.
Soqotri
Last alphabetically but no means least is Soqotri. It is spoken
on the Yemeni island of Soqotra in the Yemeni island of
Soqotra, and while is second only to Mehri in number of
speakers, being hundredsiles from the others and insular, there
is said to be no mutual comprehensibility with the other
languages.
UNESCO mentions 50,000 speakers; Ethnologue reports 64,000
overall, 57,000 in Yemen; and Wikipedia 64,500. SOAS does not
appear to have an entry for it.
You can listen to Mehri songs here and to Soqotri poems here.

Jibbali/Jibali/Jebali or Shehri/Shahri
The two sets of names are respectively from the Arabic and
Shehri words meaning of the mountain.The second largest of
the Omsni South Arabian languages, Jibbali or Shehri is spoken
in several areas off Dhofar, including the capital Salalah, and on
the Khuria Muria islands. UNESCO, Ethnologue,
and Wikipediaall put the number of speakers at 25,000, based
on the 1993 (21 years ago!) Omani census, while SOAS puts it
at 30,000, and the previously cited blogger Susan Al Shahri, a
Dhofari whose name is the same as the language, says
Contrary to what our ever-so-useful Wikipedia says, general
consensus seems to be that Shahri (Jebbali) is spoken by
approximately 50,000 or more Dhofaris from mountain tribes
as well as a large number of individuals from town tribes.
Mahri is also spoken by a decent percentage of the Bedouin
population of Dhofar.
Other materials on Jibaali/Shehri: Lameen Souag, "Plural-
Breaking in the Mountains of Oman."
 27

Archaeology, the past and the present in the UAE
Robert Kluijver
As part of this research project I visited three archaeological
sites in Eastern Sharjah Emirate, exemplary for the range of
different approaches that can be taken towards cultural
heritage: Jebel Buhais, Mleiha and Thuqeibah. I also visited the
Sharjah archaeological museum and spoke to a few
archaeologists working in the emirate. Taken together these
encounters sketch the range of cultural heritage policies in the
emirate of Sharjah.
I also visited the site of Hili near Al Ain, and the Al Ain museum,
and tried to find the cemetery at Dibba with the graves of,
according to legend, ten thousand local Muslims who refused
to submit to the authority of the first caliph, Abu Bakr. These
experiences were all enriching in their own way, opening new
perspectives on my research project Searching for Ancient
Arabia and raising further questions.
BC to 300 AD), when this area encompassing the eastern half
of the UAE and the northern half of Oman was called Magan.
Magan is the name given by the Sumerians to ancient Oman,
which supplied them in copper and was also an important
trading post with the Indus Valley civilizations and ancient
Yemen. The name stayed in use until the Achaemenid period,
the Persians having an acute strategic and commercial interest
in this region just across the Hormuz straits. One can read the
fascinating book by the archaeologist D.T. Potts on Ancient
Magan here.
Jebel Buhais
Jebel Buhais is known as a mass burial site that was used as
early as 5000 BC, but became more frequently used in the late
Bronze Age (2500 to 1300 BC), when the population of the area
grew as a result of agricultural improvements and trade with
Mesopotamia and ancient Persia. Some tombs held the
remains of as many as 1000 people. The tombs, their shape
and disposition, the way people are buried and what they are
buried with are all sources of abundant information for
researchers interested in the cultures which succeeded each
other in this area. Many of these findings are excellently
presented in the Sharjah Museum of Archaeology, and
described in papers and articles that can be found in the
Emirates universities.

Map of the sites I visited in the Emirate of Sharjah.

Eastern Sharjah Emirate

The first three sites lie along the western foothills of the Hajjar
Mountains, as they extend from Oman along the Indian Ocean
coastline to the peninsula of Musandam. The mountains still
catch some rainfall, irrigating the plains to the west (along the
eastern coast the mountains drop into the ocean, leaving little
space for cultivation). In the past the rainfall, and thus the
amount of rain-fed plains, was much higher (in the centuries
before the arrival of Islam this area was densely populated;
there were even lakes near Mleiha). It was thus a logical place
for human settlement, and this is where most of the
archaeological findings of the past decades in the Emirates
have taken place.
This was evident from a large wall map in the Sharjah
Archaeological Museum. Much of the collection on display in
that museum comes from this area, providing evidence of
advanced cultures in urban settings during the Iron Age (1300

Marker on the site of Jebel Buhais indicating location of an
archaeological find.
To the visitor, however, the site reveals very little. Although it
is well indicated with a big sign along the road, all the digs have
been recovered with earth and stones. Only a small sign with a
number provides clues to the archaeologists, but there is no
information for visitors.
We wandered for a while over this mountainous outcrop
overlooking the plains of Eastern Sharjah (see a short
illustrated description of the site by my research assistant
here). It must have been always dry, and therefore a good
place to stock the remains of human beings of the
settlements around it, being neither fit for cultivation or for
habitation. The sun was beating down on us and we started
using our imagination to discern traces of the past in an
otherwise unremarkable landscape. We found for example that
the mountain was still used to dispose of animal carcasses, and
here and there the disposition of stones in circular patterns
seemed to indicate groups of ancient graves.
Bones from recently killed animals litter the Jebel Buhais site.
After climbing to the top of the ridge of the low mountain, thus
gaining a view of the other slope of it, we decided to return to
the car, uncertain of what we had actually gained from this
rather strenuous visit.
Mleiha
28
rd nd
M(i)leiha was a wealthy city from the 3 century BC to the 2
century AD, living from metallurgy (the copper mines of
Magan, situated in the nearby mountains, were famous in
antiquity), agriculture and trade. Amphora from ancient
Greece, pottery, weapons and other items from the Middle
East and the Eastern Mediterranean were found here. Only
part of the big city has been excavated, each dig delivering
many interesting results.
The fort of Mleiha as seen from the side of the highway
Of note are the fort, which stands next to the E55 highway, and
of which the lower walls have been restored, clearly indicating
the layout to visitors; the burial sites (in which camels and
horses used to be interred too), and a large round stone
funeral monument from the Umm al Nar period (end of the
third millennium BC); but there have been many other
prospective digs with promising results by local, French,
Belgian and Australian archaeological teams. It is expected that
over the years Mleiha will lead to many more discoveries about
the period preceding the advent of Islam.
The Umm al Nar tomb of Mleiha, within the visitors park.
This is probably why the Emirates government has decided to
create a major visitors center and touristic experience.
Currently theres a rather shabby playground and an empty
heritage village (Qaryat-al Turathiyya) built around the
Bronze Age tomb, set inside a large green park which,
presumably because of its rather off-center location, does not
seem to attract many visitors. The other Mleiha site ready for

visitors is the fort, covered by an immense roof to protect it
from the elements. The intention is to open many more of
areas sites to visitors, building structures to accommodate,
entertain and instruct them in line with the latest ideas about
eco-tourism, sustainable development and community
involvement in cultural heritage preservation (read more about
it here).
Mleiha is thus the exact opposite of Jebel Buhais. Here nothing
is left to the imagination, information is readily available and
the visitors experience is carefully channeled. The
archaeological remains are neatly reconstructed to child-safety
standards. This could be interesting if there was more to see;
hopefully the other archaeological excavations, when open to
visitors, will make it a more rewarding experience than it is
now.
Al Thuqeibah
Named after a very small agricultural settlement located along
the dry riverbed entering Al Madam, this was the most difficult
site to find. It is currently being excavated by a Spanish
archaeological mission when we were there, however, only
Pakistanis were working, the archaeologists coming to dig
during field season (in the winter) only.
Irrigation channels carved out of the soft-rock ground at Al Thuqeibah.
The excavation team was uncovering gardens and small fields
hewn out of the rocky ground, that were irrigated by a falaj
29
bringing fresh water from the nearby mountains. As the
Spanish-speaking Pakistani overseer Ayub pointed out to us,
the soil and the water irrigating it were retained by rims
around them. But instead of building the retaining walls on top
of the earth, as is usual, here it seemed the earth had been dug
out, revealing beautiful patterns that showed exactly where
the trees and wet fields were located; in this way they could be
precisely irrigated from the falaj, the water spreading through
the connected patches of soil downhill.
The excavations at Al Thuqeibah have just started, including
some well-preserved houses. They indicate that in agricultural
terms, too, local society was more developed than previously
imagined. For visitors like us, this is the most rewarding kind of
site. A lot is left to the imagination, but the excavations reveal
sufficient details and are aesthetically rich enough to excite
that imagination. The presence of an excavation team willing
to talk about its work adds a lot to the experience.
Jebel Buhais, Mleiha and Al Thuqeibah thus exemplify the
three stages of archaeological site development a visitor can
experience: underdevelopment, overdevelopment and in
development. One could also take them to symbolize the
different levels of commitment to archaeology in the Emirate
of Sharjah, between neglect, superficial touristic development
and true research. Of course this is not only true of Sharjah, as
the visitor could probably find this range in any countrys
cultural heritage policies.
Dibba
We drove along the Indian ocean coast from Fujairah through
Khor Fakkan to Dibba, on the border of the Omani exclave of
Musandam. We wanted to find the cemetery where, according
to the legend, ten thousand apostates were buried. Indeed,
after the death of the Prophet Muhammad part of the
population rebelled against caliph Abu Bakr, who promptly
sent troops to quell the rebellion. According to the most
commonly followed historic account (by early Muslim historian
Al Tabari), ten thousand locals perished in the confrontation.
This historic episode shines a rare light on what was a more
tumultuous acceptance of political Islam in the Arabian
peninsula than is usually thought. The main narrative of this
process is simple: before the death of the prophet the whole
Arabian peninsula had embraced Islam, and thats it. Mention
is sometimes made of the Kharijites and the Zaydis as
breakaway factions of mainstream Sunni orthodoxy on the
peninsula; they survive today in Oman (the Ibadis) and Yemen
(Zaydis). But in fact caliph Abu Bakr had to fight wars against
those who didnt accept his rule in all parts of the Arabian
peninsula (the so-called Ridda Wars) during the first years of
his caliphate.
What connected all these revolts was a rejection of the
principle of succession by designation. The Ibadis and Zaydis
still believe that their religious leader must be chosen by the
believers in the community and prove himself worthy of the
function. This strokes with the traditional mechanism to select
 30

a leader among Arab tribes dynastic succession never sat well

th
with them until the 18 century. This must obviously have
happened with the people of Dibba: when the prophet
Muhammad died they saw no reason to blindly accept his
successor Abu Bakr. They paid for it dearly. If indeed 10.000
people died, this cannot be the result of the battlefield, but
must imply a wholesale massacre of the local population,
which, archaeological evidence ascertains, was much more
important during the time of the Prophet than in later
centuries.
When visiting Dibba we had no mobile internet coverage, so
we relied on local inhabitants to guide us to the cemetery; later
it turned out we had visited (and abundantly photographed)
the wrong one (a picture of the presumably correct cemetery
can be found here). Curiously, despite the historic significance
of the event and the rather large landmark it left, few local
people seemed aware of its location probably the result of a
history suppressed because deemed shameful.

Hili Archaeological Park

The Bronze Age settlement (ca 2000 BC) of Hili lies just outside
Al Ain. It is a UNESCO world heritage site, composed of a large
circular stone collective tomb, typical of the Umm al Nar period
(similar to the one in Mleiha), the foundations of several
buildings - including what appears to have been a defensive
fortress - and a falaj (underground water channel). A
pleasurable green park has been built around the stone tomb
and the foundations of two other bronze age buildings, but
most of the site is outside that park, off-limits to casual visitors,
straddling the Omani border.
Even more so than the facilities built around Mleiha, Hili
archaeological park leaves little to the visitors imagination. As I
was strolling among the many tourists visiting the park, I was
struck by how this presentation of the past is more
representative of the current epoch than the past itself (this
opinion was shared by the way, by several other visitors). I
started photographing details of the current tourist
infrastructure as if I were performing some kind of future
archaeology, imagining that these facilities will be excavated in
2000 years and taken as exemplary of the level of development
of Al Ain, its economy, the beliefs of the people etc in 2000 AD.
Collage of contemporary culture for future archaeology at Hili Park.
Based on my findings a future archaeologist could conclude
that the area was luxuriantly green and that the population of
Hili was mostly white, generally so obese they needed to be
motorized, and that they worshipped ancient stone structures.
This reminded me of a conversation I had with Ruth Impey
about the dating techniques used by archaeologists. She a
specialist in Julfar pottery, which was produced for many
consecutive centuries in Ras al Khaimah Emirate, and widely
exported throughout the region; the stylistic differences in the
found pottery from Julfar is often used to date an
archaeological site. These stylistic differences can be quite
minimal, like a curved lip of a jar versus a straight one
indicating a difference of two centuries.
Ruth is a potter herself, and has embarked on a project (also
supported by FIND) to revive Julfar pottery production,
although the last local potters, who knew how to assemble the
clay and what to fire the kilns with, died a generation ago. She
admitted that the dating technique based on Julfar pottery is
not foolproof, as it assumes that all potters will adopt the same
stylistic differences more or less simultaneously, and that none
of them will produce pottery in a retro style practiced by his
ancestors.
This is probably why I feel uncomfortable with the definite
presentation at archaeological sites such as Hili or Mleiha:
because they assume that all the information collected through
uncertain archaeological methods is correct, while it is quite
likely that in the future, new information will invalidate many
of these assumptions. Archaeologists and scholars themselves
are usually not so adamant about the accuracy of their
interpretations; it is when their findings are translated into
 31

easily digestible educational tools or visitors guides that museums in the UAE leading to many possible links between
assumptions are converted into affirmations. the past and the present, while the National Museum of Al Ain
seemingly forecloses such multiple interpretations.
My visits made clear that the person wanting to understand
Archaeological presentations in the museums of Al Ain and
the UAEs ancient past is confronted with incomplete and often
Sharjah
contradictory impressions, between lack of interest and
The translation of uncertain and often contradictory findings by enthusiastic claiming of a cultural heritage dissociated from
archaeologists into a historic narrative takes place most clearly contemporary culture. In my following report I will try to find
in the museum. There is a big difference, in this regard, out why.
between the Al Ain National Museum , where many of the
findings of Hili are presented, and the Sharjah Archaeology
Museum.
An obvious difference is in the presentation: Al Ain is a
somewhat stuffy museum with linear displays, with often
missing or insufficient information about the pieces presented.
The Sharjah museum, in contrast, gives a contemporary, multi-
media and less linear display and offers quite a lot of
information about the displayed artifacts. A new national
museum is being planned for Al Ain which will certainly
conform to the latest practice in museum displays and to the
subtleties of current national discourses in the UAE.

Photograph of Abu Dhabi around the 1950s; please supply the name of
the photographer if known (this photograph was on display in Al Ain
National Museum without information)

Diplomatic gifts to the UAE from other Arab countries displayed at the
Al Ain National Museum.
A more subtle difference is the objective of the museum:
where the National Museum of Al Ain seeks to present a
national narrative, including ethnographic artifacts and
photographs of the pre-oil period (fig 9), the museum in
Sharjah seems geared towards the display of archaeological
findings. In the first case, contradictions can be problematic
(because they weaken the narrative), while in the second case,
they can easily be justified (as elements of multiple storylines
which are still being developed).
As source of artistic inspiration, the Archaeological Museum of
Sharjah is thus much richer and definitely one of the better

More on the Ancient Graves of Jebel Buhais
Amal Bssiss
The Jebel Buhais mountain range is surrounded by small
farming settlements to the East of the emirate of
Sharjah. Excavations of the area began in the 1990s and would
prove to be one of the most significant discoveries made in
Southeastern Arabia. The area is home to a vast number of
burial sites dating to 7000 years ago and the archeological
expeditions carried out in the past 2 decades have helped shed
light on the cartography and customs of the ancient
inhabitants of the UAE.
Image courtesy of The Necropolis of Jebel Buhais by Dr. S. A. Jasim
Taking the E55 road towards Dhaid, Jebel buhais is easily
accessible to anyone willing to explore it. Most burial sites that
have been previously excavated have been covered again to
ensure preservation, demarcating the spots with numbered
placards. With most sites consisting of a small rock mound or a
natural cave enclosure inside the mountain the site itself
doesnt yield much visual testament compared to for example
32
the Hili tombs. It is still however an interesting site to visit for
anyone who has acquainted themselves with the history of the
nomadic peoples that inhabited the area for thousands of
years.
The site has been used for burial form the Late Bronze Age
though to the Iron Age, and many of the graves were re-used
on different occasions. The BHS18 is one of the largest burials
in Jebel Buhais, with over a 1000 individuals buried there,
some up to 7000 years old. The graves also yielded some
24,000 pieces of jewellery and other ornamental objects, now
on display at the Sharjah Archaeological Museum. Some camel
remains were also discovered, contributing to the study of
camel domestication in the region.
Photographs of the landscapes of Jebel Buhais.
 33

In stark contrast to a museum experience, where one is served

a carefully woven context of historical progression, visiting an
archaeological site such as this, devoid of any visible structures,
demands that we reconstruct the topology of a possible human
settlement though the use of ones imaginative and logical
faculties. Trekking about, taking in the geographical and
environmental identity of the space and trying to visualise it
through the eyes of earlier inhabitants is a necessary task that
while archaeologists partake in regularly. An untrained
enthusiast can do the same and experience first hand how
much of what we know and read about history had come from
the exercise of ones imagination.

Bibliography:
1. The Necropolis of Jebel Buhais by Sabah Abboud Jasim
There is some speculation by historians that Jebel buhais was 2. The Archaeology of Jebel Buhais Edited by Hans-Peter Uerpmann,
used for burial by the neighbouring Mleiha and Thuqaibah Margarethe Uerpmann and Sabah Abboud Jasim
settlements during the Iron Age Period. One of the most
visually impressive burials are the U-shaped and Cloverleaf-
shaped graves, dating to the 2nd millennium BC. The striking
chambers differ from the rest of the burials in the Buhais area
due to their ingenious shape and structure.

Images courtesy of The Necropolis of Jebel Buhais by Sabah Abboud

Jasim
 34

Christians in the pre-Islamic Emirates: where did they Sir Bani Yas Island and the Church of the East
come from, where did they go? Amal Bssiss
Robert Kluijver. Notes made while reading Peter Hellyers paper The island of Sir Bani Yas is situated off the coast of the emirate
Nestorian Christianity in Pre-Islamic UAE and Southeastern of Abu Dhabi. The natural island spans 87 square km and is
Arabia in the Journal of Social Affairs, Winter 2001. home to one of the largest natural reserves in the Arabian
It would appear that the Christian communities found on UAE Peninsula.
islands such as Sir Bani Yas and other islands in the Gulf The late ruler of Abu Dhabi, and founding father of the United
(Hellyer includes the island of Marawah, where a strucure was Arab Emirates Sheikh Zayed used the island as his personal
originally believed to be a church, but where subsequent retreat before it was cultivated into a tourist destination. In
research after Hellyer wrote his paper brought evidence that 1994, during an agricultural terracing operation, the remains of
the stone structure was from the Stone Age - 5000BC - and a Christian monastery dating back to around 600 AD, were
thus the oldest house found in the UAE) was largely imported: discovered. Alongside similar sites found in Saudi Arabia, the
because they did not live like the non-Christian population. The Bani Yas monastery is of great historical significance as
monastic life in stone buildings, in particular, was unique to evidence of Christian presence in pre-Islamic East Arabia.
these Christian communities which also lived in islands off the
coast of Qatar, the Eastern province of Saudi Arabia and
Kuwait.
Given the presence in southern Iran of Christian communities,
and the persecution by the Sassanian authorities to which they
were submitted after its enemy the Roman Empire turned
Christian in 312 AD (the waves of repression lasted from 339 to
380 and from 420 to 438, according to D.T. Potts in The
Arabian Gulf in Antiquity) and given the late arrival of
th th
Christians in the Gulf (in the 4 -5 centuries AD) Hellyer
surmises they may have come from Iran. They would have
enjoyed some protection by the Beni Lakhm tribe (the
Lakhmids) among whom there were many Christians.
This could explain how they survived on these desert islands:
mostly through the pearl trade. Local fishers would know how
to find the pearls, and presumably the Christians, through their
religious networks, made an income selling them. This would
be substantiated by the visit of the Catholicos (patriarch)
Ezekiel (569-581) to the monastic communities on the islands
along the Arabian Gulf coast, as he also made a report to the
Sassanian Emperor Khusraw I on the pearl fisheries there.
With the fall of the Sassanian Empire and the conversion to Remains of the monastery
Islam of the Bani Lakhm and other tribes in Southeastern
Arabia, the Christian communities of the Gulf lost their
protection, and presumably found it more difficult to survive Robert Kluijver and I visited the site as part of a heritage tour
and trade. organized by the Anantara resort situated on the island.
Although I was initially planning for a more make-your-own-
It is unclear where the Christians went when they left the way kind of visit, the scorching June heat made the appeal of
th
islands along the UAE coast at the end of the 7 century. There a guided tour a more attractive option.
are no traces of violence, and the churches and monasteries
seem to have crumbled, not been destroyed. There are less The remains of the monastery can be found about a kilometer
archaeological traces of human settlement on these islands in from the coastline, surrounded by dry scrubland and low lying
the early Islamic period than from the pre-Islamic period, so it mountains. Looking at what is left of the original structure,
would appear settled life had either disappeared or assumed consisting only of the outline of its foundation, its difficult to
forms that leave no archaeological evidence (nomadic life). imagine the building in its original state.

Given the flourishing of the Nestorian church in Central Asia
(Sogdiana, around Samarkand) from the first missionary visit in
630 onwards, it appears likely that these Christian communities
migrated there, as a new promised land where there were
ample opportunities to settle and trade.
Mark Beech, an archaeologist who had worked on the site
pointed out at one of his lectures that the primary indicators of
the spaces original religious purpose were the embossed tiles
found to bear the cross. Unfortunately, we were not able to
see these on the site as they are currently stored in Abu Dhabi,

where they await being displayed at the upcoming Zayed
National Museum.
Tile found at the Bani Yas monastery & Nestorian cross of the Yuan
Dynasty, China
After some poking around, and with the assistance of the
provided floor plan, it becomes a little easier to navigate the
structure that once housed up to 60 monks on this remote
island. Yet as with any site where physical evidence or written
sources are scarce, speculation becomes a necessary exercise
for archaeologists with disagreements regarding what purpose
some of the rooms bore. The exercise of imagination when
trying to envision life at sites such as these is as crucial as
dusting off ancient stones with a brush.
The monastery was continuously inhabited for about 200
years, coinciding with the arrival of Islam, which having spread
very early on to this region didnt seem to hinder the monks
existence. Similar Christian outposts found in Qatar and
present day Saudi Arabia had an even longer span of duty,
pointing to the degree of tolerance by the growing Muslim
population.
I stood in each room, divided by faint outlines and tried to raise
the walls up once more. What would the rooms feel like from
the inside? How would sharing this space inform the daily lives
of the monks? What were the rituals that these early
Nestorians upheld?
Studies have indicated that the monks lived on a diet of mainly
fish and basic crops, much of it imported from Persia. There
35
are traces of an irrigation channel coming from a nearby source
(that has dried up, like all sources on the island). Alternatively
the monks may have had water delivered from the nearby
Delma island which is more fortunate with its water supply.
If the aim of this religious outpost, which most likely belonged
to the Nestorian Church was to seek a degree of asceticism
then the place would provide just that. Although the island is
now home to numerous species of trees, these were planted in
the past 20 years and are artificially irrigated with water from a
desalination plant on the coast, reportedly using 8 million
gallons of water per day.
The Nestorian church, also known as the Church of the East,
was formed after a schism with the Western Roman and Greek
Orthodox Churches on the grounds of a theological
disagreement regarding the dual nature of Christ.
Today, the church has been fragmented into many offshoots,
the Coptic, Maronite and Assyrian churches being just a few. In
the time of the Bani Yas Monastery, the Eastern Church was far
superior in terms of its geographical reach to the church of the
West. Sometimes also referred to as the Persian church, its
influence stretched from Mesopotamia to the Malabar coast of
India and into China.
While Christians were still being persecuted in Rome, the
Eastern counterparts began to find refuge and relative religious
freedom in Upper Mesopotamia and Parthia. The latter, with
its liberal approach to religious difference (the state sanctioned
religion was Zoroastrianism) welcomed the influx of Christians
fleeing Romes outlying provinces.
Inside an Armenian church in present day Isfahan, Iran
With the conversion of Rome (Byzantium) to Christianity and
the ascension of the Sassanid dynasty in rival Persia the
Nestorians faced some tension within the Persian empire as
evidence of purging on religious grounds attests. Many
Christians were accused of spying for Rome and persecution
escaladed during the reign of Shapur the Second and his
successor Ardashir. However, since trade was one of the
preferred activities taken up by Christian communities the
influence of the Eastern Church spread far and wide, reaching
China by means of Silk trade. With the ascension of Yazgird to
the Sassanid throne in 399, the conditions for Christians began

to ease as he sought to improve relations with Rome. Many
members of the Persian elite had begun converting to
Christianity and the religion began to bear a stronger political
presence.
Catholic monks debating with priests of the Eastern Church
The final division from Rome and adoption of Nestorian
doctrine by the Church of the East occurred in 451 at the
council of Chalcedon thus solidifying its independence from the
West. Remains of outposts of small churches and monasteries
can be found across the Persian gulf, with one of the earliest
found on the Island of Kharg (present day Iran) dating back to
the third century.
36
According to tradition, an old Nestorian monk Bahira was the one who
foretold about Muhammads future prophethood upon meeting him as
an adolescent
The pearling trade would have been one of the draws for
seafarers and merchants to visit the island. It may have also
been on a pilgrimage route. Only a single burial was discovered
on the grounds of the monastery, which may have belonged to
a local holy man. The gravesite may have attracted pilgrims on
their way from India to the Mediterranean, as sacred ground to
receive blessings for an arduous journey ahead.
The bare scenery and the contemplative silence of the island
would have provided bedrock for Nestorian mystics seeking
solitude while maintaining a link to the rest of civilization
through trade. Keeping the aridity of such an existence in mind
the small monastery structure becomes more and more
impressive once you take into account the hardship this small
community would have to endure to survive.
The blank canvas that this scenery provides is an invitation for
artistic visualization to take over. What could it really be, this
seemingly random religious outpost? One can imagine this as
an outpost of mystic wisdom, protected by mythical creatures
and forces of nature. A cleverly masked spy enclave in a place
no one would suspect? A concealed treasure in a place where
no one would think to look? As arid as the place presents itself
to be it is fertile ground for the imagination to run wild. With
local contemporary artists being increasingly keen to explore
lost histories of their countries it is possible that the story of
the Bani Yas monastery might even find its way into a
screenplay.
Bibliography
Baum, Wilhelm; Winkler, Dietmar The Church of the East: A
Concise History, London: Routledge
King ,G.R.D, Abu Dhabi Islands Archaeological Survey, Trident Press

Contributors
- Rahel Aima, writer and editor of The State, Dubai
- Amal Bssiss, researcher, Dubai
- Michael Collins Dunn, Editor of the Middle East Journal,
London
- Liane Al Ghussain, curator, artist and writer, Kuwait.
- Ahmad Makia, writer and editor of The State, Dubai
- Robert Kluijver, curator and lecturer in international
relations, the Netherlands and Paris, and initiator of this
research/ editor of this publication.
- Dr. Mehdi Sabet, Associate Professor at the College of Arts
and Creative Enterprises, Zayed University, Dubai.
37
All articles, with the exception of the guest contribution by
Michael Collins Dunn, were originally published between
March and June 2014 on the website Searching for Ancient
Arabia.
This research, the travels, and the current publication have all
been supported with a fellowship granted to Robert Kluijver
by the Forming Intersections in Dialogue program of New York
University Abu Dhabi.
All materials published here are the joint copyright of FIND
and the author, and are shared with the public domain under
the Creative Commons license Attribution Non Commercial
Share Alike.