OMAN-INDIA TIES, ACROSS SEA AND SPACE

In another discovery, pieces of pottery dating back to the Harappan civilization were found at Ras Al Hadd in Oman. The shards of pottery that were found date back to the 3rd millennium BCE. Archeologists also found tools and stone stoves that were used for cooking, in addition to collections of beads used to craft necklaces and other jewellery. Conducted by the Ministry of Heritage and Culture in collaboration with a joint Italian-American excavation team from the University of Bologna in Italy, archaeologists were able to unearth many pieces of pottery that showed them how people lived during that era. These archaeological discoveries at this site demonstrate the depth of commercial and cultural relations between the inhabitants of the civilization of Majan and the Indus Valley in the third millennium BCE.10 The ancient links between Oman and India are not restricted to the Harappan civilization of western India. rcheological evidence also points to the ancient city of Pattanam (500 BCE) in Kerala, trading with ancient Rome, Yemen, the Middle East and even the Nabatian civilization of the Arabian Peninsula.

According to K Rajan of Pondicherry University, the Tamil-Brahmi script on a pottery shard near the Khor Rori, the ancient port of Sumhuram in Dhofar near Salalah “confirms Sumhuram’s link with the ancient frankincense route and its cultural links with the frankincense-based kingdoms in southern Arabia”11.

Ancient trade While the mercantile presence of Indians in Oman is often seen as a recent phenomenon dating back to the early 1970s, this presence only reinforces the continuity of ancient links between these two regions across the Arabian Sea. Historical studies of trade trace the early spice route through India to Egypt and conclude that “it clearly reveals extensive trade ties between India and Egypt as Roman and Indian ships sailed to coasts all along Oman, Yemen and to the Red Sea – and the Horn of Africa”12. There is also evidence of markets being regularly held in places like Daba, Sohar and Dama as they were considered to be important commercial centres. Ibn Habyaib in Al-Muhbar (1942) considered Dama port as one of the two “Arab ports to which merchants from Sindh, India, China and people from East and West used to come for trading".

10 Bhacker, M. R. (2009). ‘The cultural unity of the Gulf and the Indian Ocean: A longue duree historical perspective’. (pp. 163-171).

11 Subramanian, T. S. (2012, October 28). ‘Potsherd with Tamil-Brahmi script found in Oman’. The Hindu.

12 Pasha, A.K. (2003). ‘South India and Gulf: Trade and Diplomacy during the late Eighteenth Century’.

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