Forts and Cannon of Oman.

[fernando]

It is only natural that Albuquerque realized what he would find in Ormuz. Besides Marco Polo having twice been there, Fray Lourenço de Portugal reached Ormuz before the Venetian.
The idea that it was na old man from Sohar that enlightened Albuquerque on how to get to Ormuz, risks imprecision. According to period chronicles and his own narration, he followed the coast from Sohar to Orfaçam (Khor Fakkan) where an old man was brought to him whom, for his deep surprise, showed a rare knowledge, having read the history of Alexander, who had once conquered that village. This old man was one of the three local governors. He drew from his chest a book, written in parsi, binded with crimson velvet and gave it (?) to Albuquerque, who deeply appreciated the gift and found it a good prognosis for his determination to conquer Ormuz. In exchange, Albuquerque ordered to give this old man a scarlet dress and other things from Portugal, which made him pleased. This same old man, after being questioned, gave him large information about the things of Ormuz, as also told him several old things about that Kingdom, as he was very old and knowledged. But he was no pilot and taught him no route to navigate to Ormuz.
Sailing from there they went beyond the cape of Macinde, (Ra's Musandam), and one afternoon they sighted two desertic islands, when a Moor pilot that Albuquerque brought from Orfação to guide them to Ormuz, adviced him to reduce the sails, as that same night they would arrive in Ormuz. But Albuquerque decided not to follow his advice as he preferred the suggestion from the pilots he had brought from Melinde to keep full sail. Only at midnight he shot four times the signal cannon, which meant for the fleet to slow down. It was dawn when they sighted land, and Albuquerque asked the pilots is this was the island of Ormuz; but they were not certain of that as, because of the dusk, they were not sure whether it was Ormuz, Lara (Larak), or Queixome (Qeshm), as all three were in a triangular position.
As the waters became more and more shallow, the pilots told him this was sign they were arriving in the right place, and then Albuquerque told the captains to be prepared with their artillery as, when going around the island, they might face a surprise. It was when they rounded the island and the city was at sight that, the captains were dazzled by its greatness, several people in horse arriving at the beach, and a large number of ships in the harbor, well equipped with crews and artillery; and so impressed they were that they went past Albuquerque’s ship and told him to take care on what he was attempting, because that city was not like the others they had destroyed, as there were large crowds ashore and the ships were several and well equipped, and that probably there was more than what they were seeing, as for many days the city knew they would arrive and might have other not visible resources. But Albuquerque didn´t listen to their arguments and ordered them to start with exercises for battle readiness.

[Ibrahiim al Balooshi]

Once upon a time....Fanciful stories abound and tradition dictates the marvelous and fanciful tales from the sea...great monsters lunge across the sea charts swallowing ships and seamen alike... Hardened sailors with tales of mermaids perhaps enhanced by over indulgence in grog ...The average daily intake of beer alone in the English Navy was 7 pints per man per day.. When Sohar was sacked and burned the defenders either ran away or died there and then ..."It is said that" ...an old man was spared as he knew the way to Hormuz".. The alternative is just as fanciful though it may well be true...and has been "embellished like a sea shanty" to make it believable..
What appears today as a crumpled ruined old shell was in those days a thriving fortified factory or store feeding Persia and Iraq and linked through trade across the entire region...or at least it was before the arrival of the foreign battle fleets...Under siege over the years decline started as the defenders moved equipment out leaving only essential personnel and provisions .... Whereas rumour suggested that Hormuz was the Jewel in the Crown which it may have been strategically it was far from dripping with gold, diamonds, slaves, spices, and silver moreover it was fast descending into a cannon ball riddled hell hole..In the end it was perhaps a tactic on behalf of the Portuguese to advertise the benefits of Hormuz since the imagined wealth of the Fortified Island would be good for morale and personal gain in booty ~ for the winner takes all.

[Ibrahiim al Balooshi]

Regarding Sohar it is perhaps worth a note ~ From Eduardo Kol de Carvalho; I Quote"When Afonso de Albuquerque captured Sohar on 16th September 1507 it was, in the words of Brás de Albuquerque, “very large and beautiful with fine houses”. It had a square fortress with six towers and two other large towers by the fortress’s gate. The wall was quite high and reasonably thick. This fort was situated by a wide cove, although the port was “had many reefs, with ships anchored at six fathoms; from there to land was half a league”. That observer was so impressed by the fort’s size that he thought at least 1,000 men were needed to defend it. He also noted the houses of the local ruler, which stood out for their beauty, and others exclusively meant for the garrison. Indeed, Sohar was the only fortified city on the Omani coast at the time of Afonso de Albuquerque’s campaign, as it was then the chief city on the entire coast. This place had long played an important role in settlement of that coast, as the region had numerous palm groves that ensured a sufficient food supply for local residents; the sands enabled easy access to the sea, where fish abounded. In the 10th century Sohar was already considered one of the Indian Ocean’s main ports; it was then occupied by the Seljuk Turks, who seized it from the Azd, a Yemeni tribe who introduced Islam in Oman, expelling the former Persian colonisers. António Bocarro mentions the discovery of Roman coins from the time of Emperor Tiberius, attesting to the city’s regional importance. But the Portuguese occupation resulted in Muscat becoming the main strategic port on this coast, thus sealing forever the decline of Sohar’s primacy".Unquote.

Another description by the same author goes on to talk about the Fort; Quote. Fortress
Sohar [Soar, Suhar], Persian Gulf | Red Sea, Oman
Military Architecture.

As it was built on a plain close to extensive sands, Sohar was not suitable for use as the main port for the large-draught Portuguese ships – the largest operating at that time. The sands gave no shelter from the winds, nor did they favour the easy movement of men and goods. But the city was still important. This is proven by the Portuguese crown’s concern about its preservation and fortification, as indicated in the Livro das Plantas de Todas as Fortalezas, Cidades e Povoações do Estado da Índia Oriental by Pedro de Barreto de Resende/António Bocarro, who inform us that “the Fortress of Sohar is situated on the forecoast of Arabia, at 24.5 degrees north”. The fortress had the shape of a perfect square with four corner bastions equipped with “traverses” and bombards. To defend each other, each wall quarter shall measure 70 paces, not counting the size of the bastions, which are also square, each the size of a house spanning 10 paces; the wall is made of fired adobe and clay, making it very strong”. Inside the fort were several fresh-water wells and the garrison quarters; one of the bastions was used as a warehouse located “along one of the walls. It is entered through the door on the right which is used to collect food for the soldiers. 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 fortress had six artillery pieces installed in the bastions and a square outwork whose dimensions corresponded to the fortress and bastions.

(Some clarity as to timings and who had control of the fort at the time because inside a church was built. The latter could hold between 50 and 60 people and was overseen by an Augustinian friar.)

Proof of this fort’s importance is that it was recaptured from the Persians during a 1623 campaign waged by the captain-general of the Red Sea, Rui Freire de Andrade, as mentioned in the Comentários by Rui Freire, though according to António Bocarro, this occurred in 1616, using a fleet comprising one galley and five fustas led by Francisco Rolim, who arrived from Muscat with help from the Strait fleet’s captain, Vasco da Gama, and five ships under his command. Whether by Francisco Rolim in 1616 or Rui Freire de Andrade in 1623, the recapture of the fortress followed the Persian takeover in 1602 after the fall of the fort at Bahrain, captured by Shah Abbas I of the Safavid dynasty, which seriously affected custom house revenues in Hormuz and Muscat. Satellite imagery now shows the following situation: the fortress has disappeared; the outwork built by the Portuguese and depicted by Barreto de Resende/Bocarro is a rectangle whose smaller side is parallel to the beach, not the contrary; the cuirass extending to the shore has also disappeared. Another tower on the east side has been added to the five original round towers, while at the angle of a slight wall inflexion near the central tower on the wall’s west side a quadrangular donjon-style tower stands. The satellite imagery also enables identification of vestiges of the back part of the inner fortress. Images from the Ministry of National Heritage and Culture of the sultanate of Oman show that the wall near the donjon was outfitted with buttresses during consolidation work after 1982. Like the Qurayat Fort, the one at Sohar is totally whitewashed. The surrounding area has also changed in the two last decades; the nearby quarter of “huts”, certainly resembling what was there at the time of Albuquerque or Gomes de Andrade, has disappeared. But the intensely green area of palm groves depicted by Barreto de Resende/Bocarro is still there. The fort’s main gate, set back in the wall facing the sea, has maintained the same structure, i.e. adjoining a building. The fortress measures approximately 75 x 135 x 80 x 132 metres, clockwise from the wall fronting the sea. In 1643 Sohar definitively fell into enemy hands when it was conquered by Imam Nasir ibn Murshid; on that occasion its Augustinian church was naturally lost as well. This fort located on the Batinah coast was restored in 1985.
Eduardo Kol de Carvalho''. Unquote.

Please note the interesting remarks about the Fort having been totally whitewashed and that was just recently removed see earlier posts...It is also interesting that this Fort was the first place from which cannon were fired in Oman though it is unclear who by or who at !!

For an Ethnographic flavour of the Ships including Fustas and Caravel etc and even a look at clothes worn by Portuguese at the time...see below..

[fernando]

The description of Sohar in Orientalist Eduardo Kol de Carvalho's work is an extract of the XXVI chapter that preceds the one narrating Albuquerque's departure from Sohar along the coast to Orfação, which comes resumed in post #94. The actual author of the written work, Bras de Albuquerque (1501-1581), 'natural' son of Afonso de Albuquerque, has compiled the letters his father sent the King and himself and wrote his 'Comentarios'.
His description of Sohar is rather detailed; that the people in the place would be more than six thousand, plus some fifty on horse, most of those covered with steel, from which fell a sort of iron scales, in a manner of roofs covered by tiles, which are so strong that a crossbow bolt couldn't trespass them, an the horses foreheads were protected in the same manner. The saddles were Turkic, of high cantle, and the stirrups were also of Turkic fashion. The major part are archers, some carry lances and Turkic maces. ... the land is of large porpotions, with tillages of wheat, corn, barley and there is great cattle stocks and horse breeding ... etc. etc.
En passant, Bras de Albuquerque made part of the escort that conveyed Infanta Beatriz (King Dom Manuel's daughter) to Italy for her wedding with Carlos III de Saboia, in which fleet sailed the nau Santa Catarina de Monte Sinai, precisely the one shown in post #83.

Hereunder ...

First: Muscat inhabitants bathing.

Second; Persian people from the Kingdom of Ormuz.

... watercolours in a Portuguese Codice kept in the Casanatense Library, composed of a set of 75 illustrations produced in the XVI century, probably the earliest known; work of a Portuguese unidentified author who has travelled to the Orient,
(As demonstrated by Georg Otto Schurhammer)

... and a portrait of Afonso de Albuquerque included in Bras de Albuquerque's first edition of his Comentarios do Grande Afonso de Albuquerque (1576).


.

[Ibrahiim al Balooshi]

Originally Posted by fernando

The description of Sohar in Orientalist Eduardo Kol de Carvalho's work is an extract of the XXVI chapter that preceds the one narrating Albuquerque's departure from Sohar along the coast to Orfação, which comes resumed in post #94. The actual author of the written work, Bras de Albuquerque (1501-1581), 'natural' son of Afonso de Albuquerque, has compiled the letters his father sent the King and himself and wrote his 'Comentarios'.
His description of Sohar is rather detailed; that the people in the place would be more than six thousand, plus some fifty on horse, most of those covered with steel, from which fell a sort of iron scales, in a manner of roofs covered by tiles, which are so strong that a crossbow bolt couldn't trespass them, an the horses foreheads were protected in the same manner. The saddles were Turkic, of high cantle, and the stirrups were also of Turkic fashion. The major part are archers, some carry lances and Turkic maces. ... the land is of large porpotions, with tillages of wheat, corn, barley and there is great cattle stocks and horse breeding ... etc. etc.
En passant, Bras de Albuquerque made part of the escort that conveyed Infanta Beatriz (King Dom Manuel's daughter) to Italy for her wedding with Carlos III de Saboia, in which fleet sailed the nau Santa Catarina de Monte Sinai, precisely the one shown in post #83.

Hereunder ...

First: Muscat inhabitants bathing.

Second; Persian people from the Kingdom of Ormuz.

... watercolours in a Portuguese Codice kept in the Casanatense Library, composed of a set of 75 illustrations produced in the XVI century, probably the earliest known; work of a Portuguese unidentified author who has travelled to the Orient,
(As demonstrated by Georg Otto Schurhammer)

... and a portrait of Afonso de Albuquerque included in Bras de Albuquerque's first edition of his Comentarios do Grande Afonso de Albuquerque (1576).


.

Sohar was indeed a major port at the time and indeed it was a thriving enterprise for horses... This commodity was very much sought after and the Portuguese commanded much of the trade after taking Sohar...and also tied up that business on the Malibar coast and particularly at Goa...

The pictures of the bathers at Muscat and the Hormuz artwork are remarkable giving a vivid idea of the people and their dress / animals and weapons. Pictures of the time are a real bonus as to the Ethnographic flavour in those early days.

I recall studying the magnificent ship; nau Santa Catarina de Monte Sinai and how they appeared almost black in appearance which was because of the treatment they were given to preserve the timbers..so they were actually that colour.

Interestingly I note on Fort construction from http://www.palgraveconnect.com/pc/do.../9780230618459

Quote "More substantial buildings on the coast were constructed of coral rock (Arabic farush or hasa; Persian sang-i marjan). The mining of this coral from shallow water on the Arab side was a dangerous occupation that took place mainly in the summer months. The reason that much of the great fortress that the Portuguese built on Hormuz in the sixteenth century survives is that it was built of locally mined coral, whereas most other historic forts in Iran were built of mud and are crumbling today". Unquote.

PLEASE SEE https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese_India_Armadas ....This is a most fascinating account of how Portuguese ships were manned for Indian Ocean operations and how booty was shared depending on rank.

[fernando]

It is interesting that Pedro Teixeira mentions the use of coral in the building of the Ormuz fortress (for one). Apparently João de Barros and Gaspar Correia don't mention such method, although tey were keen to describe the solution used for the raising of the fortress walls. I would like to read the words Teixeira used in his work, but this is a 647 page work and i don't know where about is such paragraph ... up to now *.
Interesting also is the allusion of 'black' as a colour of Portuguese naus. In fact the wood treatment was based on pitch and when they arrived in Japan, sailing from Goa with merchandise for trade, the locals called them Black Ships, which soon were depicted in screens of the period, having served as furnishings in whealthy households. Produced by artists of Kanö school of Kyoto, these images reveal the fascination with which Japanese artists regarded the foreigners (Southern Barbarians), whose hats and pantaloons, as well as their prominent European noses,where the focus of intense scrunity. Images of this Namban art were also used to decorate domestic objects.

*
Found it. What Pedro Teixeira actually says is:
... much stone is quarried from under sea, which the inhabitants use in building, because it is very light. Thery call it Sangh May, which means fish stone. But the wonder about it that it grows again as fast as quarried. The same is found in the Sea of Malaca, where the Portuguese use it, less as building stone than make lime, which they report to be very good.
Resuming, it's all about the same as the chronicles previously quoted.

.

[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.