Photography by Khalid Abdul Nabi al Balushi

We are standing in the midst of a seemingly endless field of rubble. Walking across it requires that one pay attention to balancing one’s feet on fist-sized, or bigger, broken boulders. Potsherds intersperse the rubble, one of the few indications that a bustling port city once flourished here. Bibi Maryam’s tomb, one of the most photographed historical sights in Oman, and the water cistern next to it are the only recognisable remnants of Qalhat.

For centuries the second important city of the Hormuz kingdom and a very important entrepôt in the Indian Ocean trade, Qalhat was visited by Al Idrisî in the middle of the 12th century, by Marco Polo – who referred to it as Calatu – in the 13th century and by Ibn Battuta, that intrepid explorer of the medieval Islamic world, in the 14th century. Making sense of the rubble that is now Qalhat and restoring it to some of its former glory is the challenge facing Ayoub al Busaidi, the man who is overseeing the actual archaeological excavations by the Omani team at Qalhat.

Located in the wilayat of Sur, Qalhat is a fairly popular tourist spot, though access to the site is now restricted to just a distant look at the Bibi Maryam’s tomb. The Department of Excavations and Archaeological Studies of the Ministry of Heritage and Culture, in cooperation with archaeological teams from France and Iran, has been working on the site from 2008. All of this has resulted in substantial progress, with the mapping of streets and the location of the Grand Mosque pinpointed.

The Omani team will be working at the site until the summer heat drives them away till the next archaeological season, which in Oman is from October to March. Ayoub explains that he is presently focusing on two tasks – one is to clear the roads that the international team has been able to map, the second is the excavation of the perimeter wall of the town.

It is only right that any tour of the site begins with Bibi Maryam’s tomb. Biubwa Ali al Sabri, director, Department of Excavations and Archaeological Studies of the Ministry of Heritage and Culture, explained that the tomb is believed to have been built by Bahauddin Ayez, king of Hormuz, in honour of his wife Bibi Maryam. Bahauddin was the son of the founder of the Hormuz kingdom and retired to his family home in Qalhat, where he died around 1312ad (712ah). The architectural style of the tomb draws from the Samanid Mausoleum in Bukhara, Uzbekistan, which was built in 907 AD.

The tomb is an example of the links that bound the Hormuz kingdom and Qalhat, as a similar architectural form is visible in the monuments of the period between the 12th and 14th century in Iran and Central Asia. “Bibi Maryam’s tomb is often mistaken for a mosque by the local people, it definitely is not. It is a grave; a lot of people leave offerings here as they believe their prayers will be answered,” says Ayoub.

The city wall is believed to be 800m long, out of which Ayoub and his team have cleared around 272m till date. Seven towers have been discovered along the wall. One of these, a circular tower, still has some steps on the inside. The funerary area includes three small mausoleums that have been partially restored or shored up against further damage. A number of graves have also been cleared. All these are believed to be Islamic graves dating from around 9th century ad.

Ayoub explains that Qalhat was essentially built using three kinds of rocks – coral rocks that clearly show their undersea origin, rounded rocks from wadi beds and the darker-hued rocks from the mountains – all easily distinguishable. “If the site were affected by natural weathering factors it would have happened gradually and the impact would differ from one building to another. The buildings at Qalhat all collapsed in one time or in the same period,” says Biubwa, attributing Qalhat’s demise to an earthquake.

The remnants of the Grand Mosque, which has been mentioned in a number of historical records, was unearthed by the French team near the sea. While both Marco Polo and Ibn Battuta praise the prosperity and the quality of the buildings in Qalhat, the ceramic work in the Grand Mosque merited special mention in the latter’s Rihla.

Believed to have been built in the 13th century, this shrine was an impressive construction – 27m long, 25m deep and built on a basement 5m high. The main façade on the beach was about 12m high and the mosque was certainly one of the most remarkable shrines of the Islamic world of the time, due to its stuccos and glazed tile work. Many of these tiles were imported from the famed Kashan in Iran, which produced some of the best ceramic tiles in large scale from the 12th to the 14th century.

Another discovery that created a lot of interest was that of a hotel (or khan) by the Iranian team, believed to be the remains of the earliest hotel in Oman. “A lighthouse that is collapsed now has been discovered on the top of the building. Also remains of verses from the Qur’an on the subject of travelling and hospitality indicate this was a hotel,” said Biubwa.

Yet another important, recent development was the topographical mapping of the site, which was made possible by the use of aerial kite photography. This shows that while the inner part of the city has many streets and lanes, small squares and terraces, meandering around blocks of buildings, the peripheral quarters of the city – built at the end of the 13th or the beginning of the 14th century when Qalhat became the second capital of the Hormuz kingdom – was definitely a planned development. This part of the town had large rectangular dwellings aligned along straight streets or organised around small squares, with funerary areas set aside.

“It is expected that in future excavations we can discover the port warehouse buildings, the internal streets or passages of the city and the large spaces between the houses that were used as workshop areas, for daily activities or as gathering places,” says Biubwa. She further explained that the ministry had arranged for many archaeological sites in Oman to be photographed using this technology and that this has provided definitive and clear images, which is useful for planning of further excavations all over Oman.