Forts and Cannon of Oman.

[Ibrahiim al Balooshi]

The superb pictures of the Far East environment again add great depth to this thread and I note the term Sang(stone) May(?) In the case of Hormuz it was called Sang i Marjan...or stone coral... I wonder if that was a corrupted phrase... It was certainly a longer lasting tougher fort material since in Oman and other regions the mudbrick had to be renewed as it washed out in the rain. Another material used in Portuguese emplacements was the even stronger mountain stone as in Muscats Forts.

In an attempt to save the mudbrick washing out later conservationists used slate or stone plaques along the top of the walls to deflect water...but originally no such protection was considered.

One strange addition to the Forts was a sort of shield placed in front of the Forts to give added protection; The walls also have a defence system which the Parsees call bugios, which are adobe shields placed on wooden stakes outside facing the base of the wall”.

The Portuguese style also seems to have employed a secondary wall often tri angular around the entire fort but in most cases today these walls have been removed and the material reused over the centuries on local houses! I traced the old vanished wall at Barkah and it was about one kilometer long on each of its 3 sides. This was also an Omani consideration and the much older Bahla fort includes a massive 12 Kilometre wall originally built by the Persians.