the things we do know

I feel as if heaven lay close upon the earth and I between them both, breathing through the eye of a needle
Lawrence Durrell, Justine

One could go on and on, and there are as many stories about the tribes and their origins as there are sub-tribes in Dhofar. But what is striking is the sheer weight of all this history and culture, of ancient languages, gravestones, cave paintings and clues. Dhofar, in whatever form it had come from and however it had been composed, with all its tribes and their lineage and property division, had gone through a golden age. The things we do know about it attest to this: the fabulous port of Khor Rori isn’t fiction, you can walk over its stones and gaze over its harbour. This was what the Greeks, the Romans and the Portuguese would later call the most important port in Arabia, with hundreds of ships loading and unloading their cargo here. Horses, perfume, precious stones and, above all, frankincense passed through here.

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