Mark Varien's Trip to Oman

Mark Varien is writing daily posts about his trip to Oman, where he is participating in "The Technical Committee for the Study of Archaeological Matters in the Sultanate of Oman." His daily posts are available below. You may also participate in the discussion on Facebook!

October 22, 2009 at 1:12pm

Hi friends, this is Mark Varien.

I am so excited about my trip to Oman. I am one of the few Americans that is traveling to Oman to participate in the meeting of the Technical Committee for the Study of Archaeological Matters in the Sultanate of Oman. During the three-day meeting, I will be joined by archaeologists, preservationists, lawyers, and other professionals from Oman, Egypt, Germany, Japan, Iran, Italy, Tunisia, and Switzerland.

I will post updates on the activities that take place each day. Stay tuned!

October 24, 2009 at 9:56am

Hi Folks,

This trip to Oman has a funny story as to how it began.

I was on a business trip giving talks in Montana and Colorado. Every flight on that trip was delayed or canceled, and I had a lost bag at every opportunity. So I was getting into motels at 2:00 and reading email as I tried to wind down to sleep.

I got a very brief, cryptic email inviting me to the meeting in Oman. I was tired and assumed it was a hoax, so I sent it straight to the trash bin.

Three days later, when I was at a yoga conference in Estes Park, Colorado, I thought about it and retrieved the message (thank goodness I hadn't thrown out the trash!). I wrote the person and they wrote back, again a very brief and cryptic message. I never got an answer to how they got my name, but I did get the agenda for the meeting and it looked fabulous. So I said "sign me up."

But I have never actually talked to anyone in Oman, and I never really got anything but any brief messages.

When I arrived at the Albuquerque airport today and checked in, there was no reservation under my name. My first thought was "this is going to be so embarrassing to tell everyone who is following this trip on Facebook that I didn't go to Oman after all.

But someone came over to help, and it turned out the people in Oman had booked my flight under Dvarien, putting my middle initial in front of my last name.

So I am getting ready to board the flight in Albuquerque. Next update will be from the Houston airport!

Mark

October 24, 2009 at 1:00pm

Hi Friends:

So how do you get from Cortez, CO to Muscat, Oman?

Well for me, I opted out of flying out of Cortez or Durango because I would have had to traveled first to Denver and had a long layover before going to Houston.

Instead, I drove to Albuquerque. I just flew from Albuquerque to Houston, where I have a three-and-a-half hour layover (in the Presidents Club, thanks to the graciousness of my hosts in Oman!). Then I get on Emirates Airlines and fly direct to Dubai: leave at 6:50 pm on October 24th and arrive in Dubai, United Arab Emirates at 6:45 pm on October 25th. A 15 hour flight. Then a part of the trip that seems the least desireable: a layover in Dubai until my 2:55 am flight from Dubai to Muscat, just a one-hour flight arriving in Muscat at 3:55 am on October 26th. So a trip that began on the morning of 24th ends in the early, early morning hours of the 26th.

My committee meetings start with a reception on at 8:00 pm on the 26th.

Talk to you again soon,

Mark

October 25, 2009 at 8:11am

Folks,

Just landed in Dubai and only 8 minutes left on my computer battery and none of the outlets match my plug. There is an obstacle I didn't expect!

Take care everyone, I will post again when I get electricity.

Mark

October 25, 2009 at 9:32am

Saved by a very kind young man in the duty-free electronics shop who loaned me a power cord that fit my computer instead of charging me $33 for an adapter. Nice guy!

I have to admit that when I learned of this trip I had to do some research to make sure I knew exactly where Oman was located.

It is in Southwest Asia, on the very southeast tip of the Saudi Arabian Peninsula. Bounded by Saudi Arabia and Yemen to the west and United Arab Emirates, where I am now, on the north. Lots of coastline, including the Arabian sea and the Gulf of Oman.

The country is a sultanate and ruled by a hereditary sultan. Universal suffrage was instituted in 2003 and an elected advisory council was established that today includes three women ministers.

A desert, the average rainfall on the coast is 4 inches. Temperatures reach 129 degress F in the hot season from May to September. Current (8:00 pm) temp in Muscat, where I am headed, is 88 degrees. The biggest natural resource problem: scarce water.

Total population is 2.6 million, with about 1.8 million of them Omanis. About 50 percent of the population lives in Muscat and the coastal plain surrounding Muscat. Seventy-fiver percent are Ibahdi Muslims, 20 % are a mix of Sunni, Shi'i or other muslim sects, and 5% are Hindus, Buddhists, Zoroastrians, Sikhs, Baha:i, and Christian.

People speak Arabic and English as well as many local dialects related to Semitic languages, and Swahili and French are widely spoken because for a time in the 1700s Zanzibar, on the east coast of Tanzania, was under the control of the Sultanate of Oman.

Enough geography, but it is interesting, no?

A long layover--8 hours--in the Dubai airport, which is quite at 8:30 on a Saturday evening. Thank goodness for the showers in the Business Class lounge!

Take care everyone!

Mark

October 25, 2009 at 3:36pm

Hi Friends:

I have just boarded the plane leaving Dubai and heading to Muscat...this is the first time I have gotten an Internet connection on a plane! I am one of the first to board and have to confess I am sitting here drinking a mimosa. It is 2:30 am Oman time and 4:30 pm back Sunday home in Colorado. I've slept about 6 hours since leaving Albuquerque at 11:30 on Saturday.

I mentioned above that the Dubai airport was tranquil with few people at 6:30 pm when I arrived. Starting about midnight that all changed, and by 2:00 am the place was packed! Amazing!

People everywhere, dozens of languages being spoken, and every imaginable color of skin. Guys in dread locks, guys in traditional middle-eastern dress, women in burkas, women in skirts, but literally teaming with people from all over the world. This is so much fun!

It is a only 42-minute flight from Dubai to Muscat, so about as far as Farmington New Mexico to Albuquerque. I could have practically ridden my bike in the time that I had for my layover. This is huge frigging plane for a 42-minute flight.

Take care,

M

October 26, 2009 at 6:38am

The 42-minute airbus flight from Dubai to Oman was uneventful except that they served a meal! When you take away the time to get airborne and land, there was about 20 minutes to eat. First course: seaonsal salad; Main course: marinated shrimp kebab with green and red capsicum, grilled chicken with garlic coriander sauce, tart filled with zerach Iranian rice, marinated saffron chicken and sause, suateed diced lamb with pine nuts in taratour sauce fillled in a fried potato shell, and marinated grilled cherry tomato, shallot, mushroom and yellow pepper. The desert was an Arabic filo pastry filled with kashta cream, it was called "Shiibiyat kashta"

I had to eat fast.

I didn't realize it but there were six archaeologists from Morocco, one from Fez, and a British fellow who lives and works in Rome. There was a group of Omani who meet us on the tarmac. They took us to an ornate room where they served us Omani dates and coffee while they took care of our passports and gathered our luggage. Eventually they escorted us to a caravan of cars and drove us to the resort where the meeting is being held. The name of the resort is the Barr al Jissah Resort and Spa, google it and check it out.

I finally got to a bed about 7:00 am. I planned to take a short nap and go snorkeling, but it was 3:30 when I woke up, so I just went down to the beach for a swim.

Opening reception is at 8:00 tonight.

Mark

October 26, 2009 at 11:09am

I am just back from the reception, which was really lovely. I met people from all over the world, and it was fun to drop in on conversations in Arabic, French, German, Italian, and even Swahili (It turns out Oman used to control Zanzibar and had an important trade presence along the East Coast of Africa).

The Omanis are so kind and generous. The organization of the conference has been a little....obscure. No announcement of where the reception would be held, no announcement about the conference organization or even where it will be held, no introductions. I guess that will come tomorrow. Stay tuned.

BTW, the resort is beautiful, nestled into a cove with a beautiful beach that is completely surrounded by rocky mountains beginning just a short distance from the water's edge and rising up about 3,000 feet.

It will be interesting to see what the meeting is like. I think it is a big deal here in Oman, because I saw billboards announcing it as we drove through Oman in the early morning hours, and it is supposed to get started with a visit by the royal family.

OK, more tomorrow.

Mark

October 26, 2009 at 8:32pm

Yes, the Arab hospitality is amazing. Everyone is gracious and kind. Oman has the reputation, I am told, of being a place that has done a great deal to not lose it's traditional character despite all the modernization.

I got four hours of sleep last night as I try to adjust to new clock. The good thing about being up early was heading out to the beach before dawn. I wandered quite a ways, off the resort property, and down to a rocky point that sheltered a little cove. Found a level spot and did vinyasas for about an hour as the sun came up over the Indian ocean. Nice.

Muscat is 23 degress latitude. The same as Mazatlan, Mexico; Hong Kong, China, and Calucutta, India.

Off to the first day of the meeting!

M

October 27, 2009 at 11:05am

Hi Folks:

What a wonderful day at the conference, and what a surprise. I thought this was going to be conference with 30 or so archaeologists talking to one another, but it wasn't anything like that.

Instead, there are about 500 attendees, and the meeting is being televised on the Omani national station!

Most of those attending the conference are Omani's who are interested in their country's cultural heritage and how to preserve that heritage.

What is amazing is that this conference has been convened by the Sultan, the Omani head of state, who has directed his country to evaluate and reform the way it deals with the management of its heritage resources. That includes identifying how to best preserve the wealth of archaeological sites that are found throughout the country, and also determine how to make the understanding the country's past a bigger part of the education that students receive, and how to better develop archaeology as an economic resource through tourism.

Each of the sessions features two speakers who present papers, and three specialists who discuss those presentations.

After a reading from the Qu'ran, there was the official launch of a new Website on the nation's archaeological resources: www.omanarchaeology.com, which includes a database with information on some of the country's most important archaeological sites.

A session followed that summarized the state of archaeological knowledge in Oman. It is amazing. There is a treasure trove of Paleolithic sites that date to the time when modern humans first migrated out of Africa. These sites are critical to the debate between molecular archaeologists who use DNA evidence to argue that this migration was very late (about 80,000 years ago at most) versus archaeologists who analyze archaeological sites who argue that the migration had to be much earlier. Every archaeologist who studies this issue agrees that all humans alive today are descended from ancestors who lived in and migrated out of Africa at some point in the past. According to the molecular archaeologists, all homo sapiens who migrated out of Africa before about 80,000 years ago went extinct, while archaeologists who study the archaeological record argue that there this is not the case and that earlier migrants out of Africa are the ancestors of people who are alive today. The Paleolithic sites in Oman will be crucial in resolving this debate. This is amazing, because this was the research interest of my first archaeology professor, Norman Whalen at Southwest Texas State University, the person who first got me (and Ricky Lightfoot) interested in archaeology. Dr Whalen passed away a few years ago, but it was great to learn that his theories, which were disputed when he first introduced them to his peers, are now being taken seriously.

There is a lot more about Oman archaeology that is really important, including the change from hunting and gathering to farming and animal husbandry that happened, I think, about 4000 BC, at the oases that are scattered throughout the country. Millennia later, Oman was again pivotal in another important change: the development of a maritime culture that organized long-distance trade that connected the east African Coast to India.

So it was a great day where I learned a lot and made many new friends: Jeff who teaches at Oxford, Reto who is a researcher based in Switzerland, Mary Louise who teaches at Cambridge, and Luca who is an Italian living in Oman doing maritime archaeology.

But the biggest surprise of the day was when a young woman, Kimberly Williams, came up and introduced herself. She is an assistant professor at Temple University, who now does research in Oman. She was a High School Field School student at Crow Canyon in 1990 when she worked with Jim Kleidon at Mad Dog Tower! Amazing!

I am a discussant in a session tomorrow. Hopefully I will have something interesting to say.

Good night,

M

October 28, 2009

Hi Folks,

I had one of those wonderful days today that I will remember forever.

I was on the podium this morning as the discussant for two papers, case studies of cultural heritage management in Iran and Japan. That's a funny story because I haven't been able to get anyone here to tell me what they wanted me to do; it was as if they wanted to keep it a surprise until the last minute. So I actually put a power point together while the two speakers were presenting, and then I got up and gave a talk about Crow Canyon and how what we do differed from the centralized, national approaches in these two countries, not as a criticism of their programs but as a smaller scale solution to the problem of integrating research, education, and the involvement of indigenous people in archaeology. It was really well received; I was even interviewed for Oman TV afterwords.

The best part of the day was hanging with these new friends I made: Said Nasser Alsalmi (an Omani who got his PhD in Italy and who is the funniest person I have ever met and who is the cultural advisor to the Sultan), Jeff Rose who teaches at Oxford, and a group of Italians who live in Oman and who do archaeology here, all kinds of archaeology, but specializing in maritime archaeology. The Italians are working for an ex-pat American, Tom Vosmer, a really nice guy who is the maritime specialist. Together they found the remains of a 4th century BC boat that crashed and was recovered off the coast of Singapore. The Malaysian and Omani governments decided to fund the reconstruction of the boat, which has been a two-year project and a total labor of love for this group. It is almost done, and in February they are going to sail it to Singapore, a four-month voyage, because the Sultan is giving it as a present to the Malaysian people. After the meeting today they took me to the marina in the fishing village where they live to see the boat; we hung out for a couple of hours talking as the sun went down over the Gulf of Oman. I seriously think some of the Italians will show in Cortez someday.

Then tonight was the big banquet. Totally sumptuous and quite the presentation. We all entered the amphitheater where it was held on a candle-lit red carpet.  The entertainment was an Omani orchestra playing Middle Eastern music on a combination of middle eastern instruments and violins. Really special.

Tomorrow is a roundtable discussion with just the speakers to take what we presented during the last two days and craft those into a set of recommendations that will be presented to the Sultan.

The Middle East is way cool, and everyone who lives here says that Oman is the best place to be in the Middle East. I can't argue with that.

Too much fun!

Mark

October 28, 2009 at 9:08am

Hi Folks,

Today was the last day of the conference, and the meeting shrunk from hundreds to about 40 people who were part of a round-table discussion and the preparation of the draft report on recommendations to be delivered to the Sultan.

It was fascinating to be a part of this discussion. There was a real sense of opportunity and excitement being on the ground floor of (re)inventing the system for cultural heritage management in Oman. And it was interesting to be in a room with a group of people who had such different perspectives on the topic, including archaeologists who viewed it as an "on-the-ground" problem inherently tied to the sites themselves, to economists who emphasized the ties between cultural heritage and the larger national economy, to governmental officials who stressed the organizational and bureaucratic dimensions of managing resources, to lawyers who specialized in the legislation and international conventions that address the subject of cultural patrimony, to educators preoccupied with how to develop a national awareness of the importance of history.

So one of the primary dimensions of the debate was whether to start by defining the overall organizational-bureaucratic structure for the administration of cultural heritage (the governmental officials and lawyers favoring this approach) or whether to start by identifying the tasks that most urgently need to be accomplished, like conducting surveys to inventory sites, building chronologies so that those sites can be more accurately cataloged, and developing programs for training people so that they people who can do the specialized work.

We did create a draft of a document with recommendations that I would characterize as more general than specific. I think they will probably first try to revise existing laws making them more specific and revamp their existing bureaucracy to make it more efficient and to clarify who is responsible for what. Once that is accomplished they will take on more specific tasks. It is hard work, but the Omani professionals that I worked with seem to be up for challenge, excited about the opportunity, and ready to seize the moment.

I am so grateful to have been a small part of this process and to have experienced the generosity of the Omani people.

I leave for home at 1:00 am this morning. That begins 31 hours of travel and layovers. Nice that I have lots to think about on the way home.

Mark

October 29, 2009 6:08pm

Hi Friends:

I am sorry to leave Oman after seeing so little of the country, but very grateful for the experiences I have had here.

I did manage to get into the city and tour what remains of the oldest district. Lots of fun walking through the market, or souk, and standing by the gulf watching the ships come in and hearing them sing call to prayer from the mosque.

I was thinking about my previous posts and believe I made a mistake regarding the ancient, reconstructed Omani ship. I think I said it was a replica of a 4th-millennium BC ship, but it was actually a replica of a 9th-century AD ship.

Two of the guys who built this 9th century ship also built a 4th millennium BC boat. This earlier boat was from the earliest era of Omani seafaring, and it was built from reeds. They would take reeds and crush them and then fashion these into bundles and then weave the bundles together to build the boat. My friends, Tom and Lucca, sailed this reed boat into the Indian Ocean. On the second day of their voyage, during the night, it began to fill with water. They radioed their support vessel to come get them, but the rescuers took so long that by the time they mobilized the rescue boat Tom and Lucca's reed boat had sunk and they were adrift in a life raft. They said the rescue boat finally got under way, and they sped toward them at top speed, and my friends said they had the terrible thought that they had survived the sinking of their boat but that they were going to die by being rammed by the rescue boat. Well, that didn't happen and they lived to tell the tale.

Got up at 2:00 am to be driven to the airport for a 5:00 am flight. Joining me on the short trip from Muscat to Dubai are the team from Morocco and two of the Iranian archaeologists. I am hanging with the Iranians, and they are so nice and interesting. We are planning an archaeological tour of Iran, which of course has many of the world's greatest archaeological treasures. They are so interesting, and interested in me, wanting to know how I practice archaeology and what theoretical school I prescribe to, processual or post-processual. It is great fun to talk archaeology with peers from around the world.

Thirty-one hours of flights and layovers to get back to Albuquerque. I hate to leave Oman so soon, but will be glad to get back and get some sleep.

All the best,

Mark

October 31, 2009 at 9:55am

Salam, Hi Friends:

Well, after 33 hours, I am back in the States, gratefully resting in an Albuquerque hotel waiting for sleep to come. My system is a bit whacked by travel and time zones, but I employed a careful plan of strategically timed sleep and cocktails on the way home to reduce the jet lag. It remains to be seen how that works.

I've been reflecting on the trip during my travels home, and I realize how lucky I am to have had this experience. The Middle East is legendary among travelers, and now I have a sense why. It is so distinct, one of those rare parts of the world where culture and nature still come together to provide a truly unique sense of place. Not unlike the American Southwest, where I am fortunate enough to live.

In terms of the conference, I return being amazed at having been able to learn about the incredible history of Oman. Paleolithic sites that are 800,000-500,000 years old; sites that hold some of the most important secrets of the origins of modern humans.

Oman also holds some of the earliest evidence for maritime societies, and how this seafaring way of life extended and connected the ancient Omani world to Africa and India and points beyond. It is amazing to contemplate the spirit of adventure and the courage that emboldened those ancestral Omanis to set out in reed boats and explore a vast, uncertain, and potentially dangerous world. And it is amazing to contemplate the passion of Tom and Lucca and the rest of their crew, who have devoted years of their lives to understanding this epoch, and who, with equal courage and curiosity to those Omani sailors of millennia past, will soon set out in four-month voyage on a replica of a thousand-year-old boat to connect the past, present, and future.

And there are sites that tell the story of the emergence of the Neolithic and first era of domesticated food production and how that shaped the world we live in today. During this period, Ancestral Omanis, at least five-thousand years ago, began to construct large, dome-shaped tombs on the crest of the mountains that separate the sea from the inland deserts. They buried their dead in tombs like these for centuries, yet we understand almost nothing of this ritual. Kimberly Williams, the former Crow Canyon intern who is a new professor at Temple, will be one of the people to shed new light on this question as she excavates these tombs and analyzes the skeletal remains. Another is my new friend Manfred, a German adventurer, who has become the self-taught expert of tomb reconstruction. He has a two-year job with the Omani government to restore these tombs for public interpretation so that his knowledge will benefit thousands who visit these sites in the years to come.

Of course, the onset of the Islamic period changed Oman in ways that remain today, and it created a beautiful aesthetic that permeates all aspects of modern Omani life, from dress, to architecture, to music. The major intrusion on Islamic culture was the attempts by the Portuguese to control Oman and its riches. This colonial period, beginning in a major way in the 17th century, led to the construction of hilltop fortresses that watch over the Omani coast to this day. It's the castles and fortresses of this era that serve as the inspiration for modern Omani architecture. Unlike Dubai and other modern Middle East capitals, there are no skyscrapers in Muscat: instead this centuries-old architectural cannon, inspired by stone and mud-brick buildings with towers and turrets, still defines the built environment in Oman today. I suppose the closest thing we have is Santa Fe, although Oman seems even more genuine (not that there is anything wrong with Santa Fe!).

Omanis are clearly proud of their past, and they are keenly aware that modern development threatens this heritage. They are by no means afraid of the modern world—in fact they embrace it. This is largely due to the vision of Sultan, who took power after a period of civil unrest in the 1970s. Since then, he has promoted a national program to integrate Oman into the modern world. But now, with that modernity largely in place, the question turns to how Oman will preserve their traditions and their distinctive identity, and the Sultan and his administration is promoting that with equal vigor.

This, of course, was the subject of the conference I attended. Again, I reflect on my good fortune at being included in such a moment in Omani history. To be able to sit around a table with the highest Omani officials (the Sultan excluded) and discuss these issues was an honor. To witness their pride in their collective heritage and their desire to preserve it was inspiring.

One striking thing was how—despite the fact that this was a national endeavor—the development of a national heritage program was viewed in global terms. They want to preserve Omani history not only for themselves, but for humanity. For me this was similar to the Pueblo farmers that I work with, who, when they pray, pray not only for the benefit of themselves and their community, but also for all "five-fingered people."

This responsibility that Omanis feel to themselves and to humanity was reflected in the importance that they gave to international programs for cultural heritage management. In our discussions we repeatedly returned to UNESCO conventions for the treatment of cultural property and the ICOMOS principles on how to conduct ethical cultural heritage tourism. I have continued to think about this on my trip home, and I have come to appreciate how brave and open minded the Omanis are in this respect. After all, it is THEIR cultural heritage. And yet they are courageous and secure enough to look to international law to guide their actions, and to ask foreigners like me for our opinions. Rather than viewing this as a threat to their autonomy, they recognize that their cultural heritage not only is theirs, but it is also important to all human beings because all of us are linked by one human past. Seeing themselves as a part of a larger human community is both courageous and insightful, and it is a perspective that I don't always encounter in the United States where too often the focus is on a more narrow interest.

So they invited people like me to participate in their discussion of how to develop a national archaeology program. Amazing that they are willing to incorporate such a multiplicity of views as they formulate a national program on the preservation and interpretation of Omani cultural heritage. For this, the Omanis have my deep respect and gratitude.

I will treasure this trip forever. I can't believe I was lucky enough to have an opportunity to be a part of such a significant conference and, even more important to me personally, have a chance to meet such an incredible group of people. I know I may never meet many of these folks again, but I will never forget this trip and the relationships that were forged during his brief time we shared together. The subject was so important, and the interactions so genuine, I will carry the memories of those I met for the rest of my days. As they say throughout the Muslim world, "InshAllah" (God Willing), I will meet these new friends further down the road. The same is true for all of you: InshAllah, we will see each other soon.

All the best,

Mark

PS I will post some pictures when I get back to Cortez.