February 2023 | BIPS Research Grant

British-Omani Fulayj Fort Project (2016-2023)

The Fulayj Fort Project focuses on the archaeological remains at the site of Fulayj: a small, regularly planned, heavily defended, stone-built fortification constructed sometime between the early 5th to mid-6th century AD and its subsequently reoccupation during the first decades following the Islamic conquest of Oman in the 7th century (Figs 1-2). Fulayj represents the first securely attested Sasanian period occupation in Oman and the first anywhere facing directly onto the Indian Ocean. We interpret the structure as a unique archaeological embodiment of the historically attested Persian occupation of the Batinah under the authority of the Sasanian Empire, and the subsequent overthrow and ejection of that population that occurred following the Arab/Islamic conquest in Oman. As such, the site of Fulayj has great importance not only for the history of eastern Arabia, but also across the Greater Persian domain.

Fig 1 Fulayj fort aerial view

Fig 2 Fulayj fort excavations in 2023

A fourth and final season of excavation took place over a six-week period from the 10th of January to the 20th of February 2023. It involved the work of an international team with a maximum of ten participants, including specialists from the UK, Oman, Canada, Greece and the Republic of Georgia. We were pleased to host one trainee from the Omani Ministry of Heritage and Tourism regional office of the North Batinah Governate (Fig. 3). Excavation focused on the eastern side of the fort near to the fort entranceway (Fig. 4) with work in the north-east corner extending our understanding of a series of mudbrick rooms associated with the secondary occupation of the fort in the early Islamic period. Further excavations were opened in the south-east corner, and on the fort exterior across the south-east corner tower. Funding from BIPS allowed for the provision of eighteen new AMS C14 dates from key contexts associated with the third season in 2022 and the final season in 2023. The dating is crucial to the historical interpretation of these new parts of the excavation and their integration into the existing understanding of the site occupation sequence and chronology.

Fig 3 Fulayj fort fieldwork activity and trainees

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Institutional organisation of the project

Directors:

• Dr Seth Priestman (Durham University),
• Prof. Nasser al-Jahwari (Sultan Qaboos University,
• Dr Eve MacDonald (Cardiff University),
• Prof. Derek Kennet (Durham University)

Team:

•  Digital archaeologist: Davit Naskidashvili (Tbilisi State University)
• Trench supervisor: Rosalind MacDonald (independent)
• Trench supervisor: Ariadni Ilioglou (independent)
• Student trainee: Waleed Al-Mamari (Ministry of Heritage & Tourism)
• Student trainee: Ricky Menzies (Cardiff University)
• Student trainee: Tatia Mamalashvili (Tbilisi State University)
• Student trainee: Aleko Zavradashvili (Tbilisi State University)

Institutional partners:

• Durham University (UK),
• Sultan Qaboos University (Oman),
• Cardiff University (UK),
• British Museum (UK),
• Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle (France),
• University of Sydney (Australia),
• Tbilisi State University (Republic of Georgia)

Funding bodies:

• British Institute of Persian Studies,
• Anglo-Omani Society,
• European Research Council,
• Society of Antiquaries

British-Omani Research Collaboration

The Fulayj Fort Project has been developed as a research collaboration between Durham University and Sultan Qaboos University (SQU) operating under the authorisation of the Ministry of Heritage and Tourism (MHT). The project is co-directed by Dr Seth Priestman, Prof. Nasser al-Jahwari, Dr Eve MacDonald and Prof. Derek Kennet. Further international partners are involved with the finds studies, palaeobotanical, palaeofaunal, and paleoenvironmental analysis are listed above. Four seasons of excavation have been completed in 2015, 2016, 2022 and 2023. The first two season of the project were supported by the European Research Council Persia and its Neighbours Project. Financial support for the 2022 and 2023 seasons was provided by research grants from the British Institute of Persian Studies, the Anglo-Omani Society, the Society of Antiquaries Beatrice de Cardi Award. A key aim of the project is to integrate the provision of skills training and knowledge sharing alongside high-quality archaeological research within an historic context (Fig. 3).

Fulayj Fort

Fulayj fort is located on the Batinah coastal plain of Oman, 30km to the south-east of the famous medieval port of Sohar, which acted as a key centre of Indian Ocean maritime trade during the Early Islamic period. Throughout its Late Antique and Islamic history, Sohar and its hinterlands regularly came under the influence and often direct control of Persian political influence. The location of Batinah coast was highly strategic providing access and control to the Persian Gulf and a natural springboard for long-distance maritime trade with East Africa, India and regions further to the east. The site of Fulayj is a small, square, regularly planned, and heavily defended, stone-built fortification with projecting corner and entrance franking towers (Fig. 4). It bears all the hallmarks of a professional military construction marking it out from any contemporary existing building tradition within the region. Its size, at 30 x 30m, is too limited to have housed a significant military detachment. It may therefore have formed part of a wider defensive system designed to control the economically important coastal Batinah and Sohar hinterland in the 5th to 6th century AD when a large Persian population settled in the region under the military protection of the Sasanian Empire. Forts like Fulayj could have been used as base camps supporting a limited sized, mobile force. This is envisioned as a series of cavalry units, able to return, where needed, to strongly protected defensive installations able to shield the fertile coastal strip along the Batinah from small-scale incursions by mobile agropastoral communities located within the interior.

Fig 4 Fulayj fort gateway and entrance flanking towers

Previous excavation at Fulayj in 2015 and 2016, demonstrated that the fort was built in the late pre-Islamic period (al-Jahwari et al. 2018). It is likely associated with the historically attested control of the Batinah region under the authority of the Sasanian Empire. At this time, a Persian population was actively settled along the coast (Munt 2017). The fort’s strategic location, 15km from the coast on the bank of a wadi that leads into the mountains indicates it was placed to enact control over the landscape. The space was later reoccupied and transformed into, what appears to be, a domestic unit during the first century of Islamic governance, when Oman came under the direct rule of a rapidly expanding Arab/Islamic empire (Kennedy 2007). These events set in a motion a process that overturned the Late Antique world order and established a framework which endures, in many respects, to this day.

2023 Excavation Season

The fourth season of the joint British-Omani excavations at Fulayj took place over a six-week period from the 10th of January to the 20th of February 2023. Three new trenches were opened along the eastern side of the fort, two covering part of the interior (Trenches F3 and Q) and one exposing the southeast corner tower (Trench R, Fig. 5). In addition, part of an excavation opened in the extreme north-east corner of the fort interior in 2022, but left incomplete due to time constraints, was re-opened and excavated to the bottom of the sequence (Trench F2). The two trenches F2 and F3, which together cover an area of 6 x 11m extending from the north wall of the fort back to the fort entranceway, reveal a series of three adjoining mudbrick rooms built against the eastern wall of the fort. The stratigraphic sequence clearly indicates that these were a secondary addition. Absolute dating evidence demonstrated that the rooms were constructed and used during the 7th century in the period immediately following the Islamic conquest of Oman. Below the mudbrick rooms, we have further confirmation that the site of the fort was occupied before the stone-built construction. Following the construction of the fort, activity directly associated with the military establishment appears to have been minimal and ephemeral.

Fig 5 Southeast corner tower looking north

Finds Recovery and Sampling

We continued to deploy intensive recovery techniques as we have done throughout the project. The overall density of finds from Fulayj is low and the period of occupation is very poorly attested throughout Oman. Therefore, the finds sequence from Fulayj remains particularly important for defining this period of activity within the region and perhaps improving our recognition of contemporaneous activity elsewhere. All finds recovered in situ, including pottery sherds, glass, metal, etc, where given a 3D location using a total station theodolite system. This enables full distributions of artefactual materials to be reconstructed within the deposit matrix (Fig. 6). In addition, and in order to maximise recovery, all deposits were sieved through 3mm mesh from the topsoil to the lowermost layers. Sieving ensures complete recovery of pottery, glass and other environmental finds, namely animal bone, marine invertebrates and terrestrial snail shell. The finds and environmental evidence are currently undergoing specialist study in advance of final publication.

Fig 6 Fulayj fort plan of structures and finds in the northeast corner from 2022

A further aspect of the study, and a specific focus of the project, was the application of intensive archaeobotanical sampling. This focuses on carbonised plant remains preserved within the excavated soil deposits. The main objective of the archaeobotanical study was to determine how the inhabitants of the fort obtained, utilised, and managed various plant resources required in the provision of food and fuel as part of their subsistence needs. Furthermore, the technique offers the potential of detecting significant evidence for long-distance exchange, either directly in the form of traded food commodities, or via the translocation of plant species from one region to another. Well preserved archaeobotanical remains were recovered from throughout the sequence. Soil samples were processed via a bulk flotation method capable of processing sufficient material in volume. The relatively low density of domestic activity within the fort necessitated the use of specialised equipment to extract small quantities of remains from sizable volumes of deposits.

Preliminary analysis of archaeobotanical remains from Fulayj provides the earliest known evidence for the presence of sorghum (Sorghum bicolor ssp. bicolor) in Arabia, brought from India in the 7th century (Dabrowski et al. 2021). This is an important drought resistant cereal crop with a high calorific value. Today, it is the fifth most prevalent cereal crop in the world after rice, wheat, maize, and barley. Full identification and analysis of the archaeobotanical assemblage will now be undertaken by Dr Vladimir Dabrowski at the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle in Paris. The results will form a core component of the final publication and report.

Project Results

The six-week excavation season completed in January-February 2023 produced significant new information that enriches our understanding of Fulayj and advances our general aims concerning the investigation of the site. A number of broad outlines concerning the main history of the fort had been established in the first three seasons of excavation in 2015, 2016 and 2022 (Priestman 2019; Priestman et al. 2023a; Priestman et al. 2023b). Secondary occupation detected in the form of the inner face of a perpendicular mudbrick wall abutting the fort wall were uncovered within a 1 x 4m sondage opened in 2016. This area has now been exposed over a 96m² area, within which is revealing the wall’s full thickness, a range of three complete rooms within the northeast corner of the fort. Furthermore, and importantly, it has been possible to identify a relatively substantial and rich occupation containing typical late Sasanian period finds that pre-dates the construction of the fort. It is possible that an ephemeral occupation, perhaps with some defensive funtion was erected in an earlier phase in the Sasanian period before the stone footed fort was constructed.  This allows us to extend the phase of direct Sasanian interaction with the site to before the construction of a permanent encampment. Fulayj continues to represent one of the most significant contexts currently known for a detailed archaeological analysis of the interaction between late Sasanian period Persian occupation and early phases of Arab expansion connected with the process of Islamisation in Eastern Arabia. The work of four seasons of investigation is currently being processed, analysed, and prepared for final publication.

New Dating Results

Support for the Fulayj project from BIPS was specifically aimed at the provision of AMS C14 dating for samples from contexts across the 2022 and 2023 seasons of excavations. The hope was to help validate and refine key aspects of the evidence specifically related to the chronology of the Sasanian foundation and its transitional phasing into the early Islamic period. The past two seasons of excavations have produced a more nuanced understanding of the occupation sequence and increased the quantity of material evidence from the first phases of Sasanian period activity. The new C14 sampling provides a much broader and more accurate range of dates for the pre-construction occupation of the fort (Phase 2a). This is important to our understanding of the processes of occupation over the 4th and 5th century. The material markers, ceramic and glass especially, from this phase had not been dated in the early seasons. Results from four samples from this phase reveal dates that potentially begin as early as the 3rd century AD, but more likely range through 4th and 5th century, a time of major military investment and territorial consolidation across the Sasanian Empire (Sauer, et al. 2013; Sauer, et al. 2020; Sauer, et al. 2022). The new dating evidence has also refined our understanding of subsequent architectural development within the fort (Phases 2b-4). The final stage of the chronometric analysis involves the phased analysis of all dating from the site and the application of Bayesian statistics to further constrain the dating model. The support from BIPS has substantially improved our understanding of the site chronology. The results will now be incorporated into the presentation and write up of the final site monograph.

Sources

Dabrowski, V., Bouchaud, C., Tengberg, M., Zazzo, A. & Priestman, S. 2021: ‘Archaeobotanical analysis of food and fuel procurement from Fulayj fort (Oman, 5th-8th c. CE) including the earliest secure evidence for sorghum in Eastern Arabia’, Journal of Arid Environments, 00: 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaridenv.2021.104512

al-Jahwari, N., Kennet, D. Priestman, S. & Sauer, E. 2018: ‘Fulayj: a late Sasanian fort on the Arabian coast’, Antiquity, 92(363): 724–41. https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2018.64

Kennedy, H. 2007: The Great Arab Conquests. How the spread of Islam changed the world we live in. Weidenfeld & Nicolson: London.

Priestman, S.M.N. 2019: ‘The archaeology of early Islam in Oman: recent discoveries from Fulayj on the Batinah’, The Anglo-Omani Society Review 2019: 40–43.

Priestman, S., al-Jahwari, N., MacDonald, E., Kennet, D., Alzeidi, K., Andrews, M., Dabrowski, V., Kenkadze, V., MacDonald, R., Mamalashvili, T., Al-Maqbali, I., Naskidashvili, D. & Rossi, D. 2023a: ‘Fulayj: a Sasanian to early Islamic fort in the Sohar hinterland’, Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies, 52: 291–304.

Priestman, S., al-Jahwari, N., MacDonald, E. & Kennet, D. 2023b: ‘Anglo-Omani Excavations at Fulayj Fort’, The British Omani Society Review 2023: 95–98.

Munt, H. 2017: ‘Oman and late Sasanian imperialism’, Arabian Archaeology & Epigraphy, 28(2): 264–284. https://doi.org/10.1111/aae.12102

Sauer, E.W., Omrani Rekavandi, H., Wilkinson, T.J. et al. 2013: Persia’s Imperial Power in Late Antiquity. The Great Wall of Gorgān and frontier landscapes of Sasanian Iran. British Institute of Persian Studies Archaeological Monographs Series II. Oxbow: Oxford.

Sauer, E.W., Chologauri, L., Gabunia, A. et al. 2020: Dariali: the ‘Caspian Gates’ in the Caucasus from Antiquity to the Age of the Huns and the Middle Ages. The joint Georgian-British Dariali Gorge excavations and surveys 2013-2016. British Institute of Persian Studies Monograph Series VI. Oxbow: Oxford/Philadelphia.

Sauer, E.W., Nokandeh, J., Omrani Rekavandi, H. et al. 2022: Ancient Arms Race. Antiquity’s largest fortresses and Sasanian military networks of northern Iran. British Institute of Persian Studies Archaeological Monographs Series VII. Oxbow: Oxford.

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Eve MacDonald is Senior Lecturer in Ancient History at Cardiff University.