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Reinventing the Abaya
There is a big divide between what is Western and what is Arabic. My abayas bridge this gap
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Win, Lose
Exploring Yitti, Banana Beach, Khayran, Wadi Zekt and Sifah “It could, if you close your eyes long enough, almost be like old times
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Chasing the Sun |
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Tony Walsh, 01 Jun 2009 |
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Here, standing astride the magical latitude on a small outcrop of this area’s ubiquitous siltstone pencil cleavage, I am overlooking a school and health centre.
The school, Wadi Bani Auf Elementary, is almost 20 years old and seems to be set in such a remote area that I expect only a few students there. Yet inside, I find Class Four sitting enthusiastically at their desks as they welcome me in unison, ‘As salaam alaikum’.
At the end of my visit, I leave hoping that the teacher, Ahmed al Balooshi from distant Sohar, will now have a few budding geographers keen to learn about their school’s remarkable wadi and special latitude.
As Wadi Bani Auf rises towards the escarpments of the northern face of Jebel Shams, the Tropic of Cancer moves away well north of Oman’s highest peak and then with seeming purpose runs through the axis of Jebel Misht.
The impressive southern face of Jebel Misht rises to peak at over 2,000m and is an extraordinary cliff some 900m high before hitting the talus slopes below. Jebel Misht is one of Oman’s ‘exotics’, an outcrop of rock that is unrelated to the rocks surrounding it and clearly Jebel Misht is a stand-out among the exotics.
It is up its western slopes that I scramble to gain a dramatic view over the region surrounding the Tropic of Cancer. Far below the ruins of one of Oman’s acclaimed archaeological sites, the Tower Tombs at Wadi al Ain, can just be seen before a date oasis.
These tombs are part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site that inclu- des Bat. Sitting on a low hill, they face out a valley meandering towards the location of the midday sun in winter, and throughout their history people arriving at them from the natural wadi route must have been astounded at the extraordinary backdrop that Jebel Misht gives them.
These extraordinary towers have survived for some 4,500 years so it is up to present-day visitors to ensure that they last another 4,500. As the sun begins its descent through the afternoon on June 21, it will cross the village of Bat. Wandering on the Tropic at Bat, I stumble over Kasr al Khafji’s lower walls.
Like the tombs at Al Ain, this substantial tower is a Bronze Age monument and is also part of the same UNESCO site. When new, some 4,500 years ago, it must have been a substantial building perhaps topped with mud or wooden walls. In the mid-1970s, a Danish team conducted a series of excavations that firmly placed Bat on the archaeological map of the world.
Recently a team from the University of Pennsylvania has excavated part of Kasr al Khafji. The tower with its nine rooms and a well was constructed out of massive limestone blocks; clearly the community intended the tower to be strong and permanent.
Like Oman’s prosperity today, the wealth that built these towers at Bat and the tombs at Al Ain was also a commodity – in Bat’s case, copper. Vast quantities of the metal were excavated and refined in Oman’s northern mountains and exported to far-off Mesopotamia My final dash was to the western edge of Oman, at its border with the UAE.
Passing the foundation of Oman’s modern wealth, oil wells, my route took me through substantial sand-dune fields. These are the eastern fringes of the sea of sand that is world’s largest sand desert, the Rub al Khali, the golden sands of which provided a glorious setting to the completion of my exploration of Oman’s Tropic of Cancer. At 7.07pm, as the sun drops into the folds of the desert on June 21, a traveller who has followed the sun would have extended their day by fourteen minutes.
From the start, some 364km due east at Quriyat, they would have been treated to insights into Oman’s historic past and modern renaissance and enjoyed the warm hospitality and dramatic scenery found in few other places along the Tropic of Cancer.
My thanks to Nawaf Juma Rashid al Baloushi and Ibrahim al Busafi.
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Reader Comments
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Posted by
Brian,
Al Ain
on
22 Jun 2009
I know the area well, unaware of how significant it is at this time of year. A nice read. Thanks very much.
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