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THE SECOND FALL

Written and photographed by PINAKI CHAKRAVARTY

“If there wasn’t enough water for everyone, we’d pour it into the sand instead”

SINKING ATLANTIS
The fall of civilisation
Ubar might be touted as the best thing to emerge out of the sand, but the truth is that Oman’s Atlantis rediscovered is pure heartbreak. The ruins of this ancient city lie crumbling, unprotected and exposed, and the one-room shanty that serves as their museum is best omitted from tourist brochures.

It is estimated that Ubar reached full glory sometime between 3000BC and the first century AD when it grew fabulously rich off the Frankincense Highway that ran through it. According to legend, the heavens, unhappy with its consequent decline into materialism and immorality, struck it down. Ironically, Ubar’s rise did bring about its downfall, for as the city grew and consumed more water, its natural underground reservoir sank and finally caved in. Thousands of years later, satellite imagery led to its excavation, and you will find its ruins next door to the newly constructed housing for the Bedu at what we now call Shisr.

According to Bakheet bin Abdullah bin Salim Massan, the reservoir was rediscovered by desert foxes digging in the sand. The Bedu followed suit, but Wilfred Thesiger, passing through, apparently said he couldn’t join in because he was too tall and found it difficult. Now you have concrete steps and pipes leading down, and military divers have even – allegedly – explored its furthest depths.

ALL OR NOTHING
Between riches and disaster

Shisr is little more than a handful of government-built villas and a wali’s office to serve the Bedu who have camped for generations in this general area, in the open desert just out of the massive dunes that rise up into the Rub al Khali. These days its bare streets are abuzz with talk of relocation that is usually inevitably followed by multi-million rial tourism projects. Bakheet’s majlis fills up quickly with three generations of family who aren’t quite sure where they will end up in a few years – and who’d rather talk of the past.

“It was in 1971 that we gave up our nomadic life along the edges of the Empty Quarter and settled down at Shisr, although we still had only tents then. The government built us these houses in 1989, and we had to pay a rent of RO25 for each villa. His Majesty the Sultan visited us in 1992 – he abolished the rent and said that from then on the houses would be ours.

“In the old days, we used to camp here and in the Rub al Khali, following the water so our camels could graze well. Those were tough days, and we would have to survive with only what we could carry on our animals. Our water skin would be passed from one person to the next, each sipping on it. The very young and very old would get preference, but otherwise everybody would have equal rights. If there wasn’t enough water for everyone, we’d pour it into the sand instead. Either everyone got water or no one drank.

“When things got so bad that we didn’t have any food left, we would insert a stick down a camel’s throat, forcing him to vomit whatever he had in his stomach. We could survive on this half-eaten mass. Not well, but enough to make it through the worst bit.”

PIT STOP
Desert dead ends

The worst is certainly behind, even if all you can see is dust, sand and neglect. Shisr and Ubar are drummed up as worthy of a whole day package by tour operators in Salalah but in reality the spot is just a pit stop on your way into the edges of the Empty Quarter. That dirt road continues northwest and will eventually take you to Hashman, itself a block of government housing and a wali’s compound. If you set off from Salalah early you will reach Hashman in the afternoon, and another 90km will lead you to the end of the road, to Burkana, where a bit of oil exploration has taken place in the past. Ahead are the massive, nearly impassable dunes that lead into Saudi Arabia, and to the west, the village of Mitan, where the Mahri are on the verge of abandoning their wood cabins called sandakas and moving into government-provided concrete accommodation.

The Ramlat Hashman is a vast, mostly flat desert on the edge of the Empty Quarter. If you are looking for nomadic Bedouin and romance go somewhere else. The Bedu of Hashman, like those of Shisr, will laugh if you ask to see their tent, and will invite you into air-conditioned villas where human voices mix with the frantic ring tones of cell phones. Think pickup trucks, tap water, foodstuff shops and streetlights.

Hashman, like Shisr, was never really a settlement in the past, just a general area where you would find a scattering of Bedu tents. Government wells ended the nomadic ways of the people, and infrastructure like roads, electricity, housing, schools and clinics cemented them to municipalities. Many get ‘shun al ishtamaiyah,’ a social benefit allowance from the government in addition to the free services it provides. Most live on this, while others who are luckier might get jobs with the army or the wali’s office. There really isn’t much more to get excited about, except for the faint glimmering of the future and the tourists and development it might bring to an ancient people who have known the best, and worst, of days.