Ancient trade

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’.

Similarly, Sohar was described by Al-Himyari in Al-Raoud Al-Mi'taar (1948) as a commercial centre. As he said: "There was a commercial centre in Sohar from which every town got its needs and its goods reached India and China"13 . Historically, the Indian Ocean fed a number of overland routes and hosted a network of maritime routes which encompassed areas as distant as South and South-East Asia, through the Strait of Malacca, Sri Lanka, the southern and northern shores of India, the Arabian Gulf, going as far as Zanzibar, on to the Mediterranean. In this network, the ports of Oman hve always been historically at the centre of trade, facilitating movement of regular and luxury goods including rice and cotton, gold, silk, porcelain and horses. The port of Muscat served as an entrepôrt to large swathes of inland trade, moving goods from around the world to inland communities with less access to imported goods. While the Muscat port can be dated back to the third millennium BCE14 , there are travel accounts in the 9th and 10th centuries which locate Muscat as the last fresh water source for ships going from the Gulf to India, East Africa and further to East Asia.

Muscat finds mention in the works of Ibn Battuta who visited Muscat in 1330. Ahmad Bin Majid, the famous explorer and navigator who is said to have guided Vasco Da Gama across the Cape of Good Hope refers to Muscat as the “port unequalled in all the world” and that it was used to transport dates and horses, while selling cloth, oil and cereal15. Simultaneously, the ports of Sohar, Sur, Qalhat and Salalah also find historical mention as they have all developed at different points of history. Backer (2009) also says that “valuable merchandise such as gold, silks, precious stones, fine porcelain, and thoroughbred Arabian horses as well as commodities such as rice and cotton was transported along these routes”16 .

Eventually, the western Indian-Oman-Zanzibar circuit became vital for trade in every conceivable article of use and luxury, including coffee, silks, vermillion, horses, ivory, porcelain and many other products17. The rise of Islam and the continuing trade between the Ottoman and Indian coasts are traced to cultural

13 Al-Hashimy. (2015). ‘Omani-Indian economic ties in the 19th and 20th centuries’. 14 Peterson, J. (2007). Historical Muscat: An illustrated guide and gazetteer, p. 5. 15 Peterson, p. 4. 16 Bhacker, M. R. (2009). ‘The cultural unity of the Gulf and the Indian Ocean: A Longue

Durée historical perspective’. 17 Nicolini, B. (2004). Makran, Oman, and Zanzibar: three-terminal cultural corridor in the western Indian Ocean, 1799-1856.