Forts and Cannon of Oman.

[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).


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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.

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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.

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[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.

[fernando]

Yes, the term Sangh May might well be a corruption of Sang i Marjan, although we should take into account that, Pedro Teixeira, from whose book i took the term, has lived in Ormuz for a few years and was rather familiar with Persian history, as well as with the local language.
Amazing that he, being a Portuguese (of Jewish origins) wrote his work in Spanish and published it in Ambers (Antwerpen) in 1610.
BTW ... could May (or Mai) mean fish in Parsi ? .

Here attached an example of such type of construction in Portugal:
The Paderne castle, situated in the Portuguese southernmost province of Algarve (Al Gharb) is a 'Hisn' of the Almohad Berber period, 2nd. half XII century, built with military taipa (mud brick) which consisted of: kneading of local earth added with inerts and stabilized with aereal lime, having been compacted in form-work by fulling. Once exposed to prolongued carbonation, blocks (bricks) obtained with this method acquire the resistence of stone, in which they reached our days. The albarrã tower (al-barran) with a quadrangular plant, still keeps its over 9 meters height.
Despite the actual emptiness of the interior space, it once had inhabiting structures, being clear that, sheltered by te castle walls, the space was totaly urbanized with narrow roads but of ortogonal trace, provided with a sewage complex that conducted the waters to the exterior of the fortified site.
After the reconquist the local Christian population occupied the castle, adapting or altering, with distinct concepts, the initial model. Two cisterns are a witness of the principal moments of the castle occupation. the Islamic and the Christian. A church was also built inside, near the access door, in the XIII century, being the local parish until the XVI century.

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[Ibrahiim al Balooshi]

Mohi is indeed the Farsi word for fish...
I note the use of stone facings at Sohar and the use of bricks..see #43.

Icoman have a great website at http://www.klm-mra.be/icomam/downloads/issue07.pdf where a number of Forts are illustrated and details of cannon such as this one below with the Portuguese emblem and crown above. I note also at # 13 earlier ... The provenance is on the Icoman site.

The almost eaten away barrel is on the beach in front of the Fort at Hormuz.

[Ibrahiim al Balooshi]

A rather remarkable rendition of the Portuguese exploits around Hormuz and explaining a group of desertions by Officers who seemed to prefer piracy to defending the Fortress is set out at https://books.google.com.om/books?id...SPEARS&f=false which is well worth reading.

[fernando]

In 1635 Antonio Bocarro finished his atlas "Livro das Plantas de todas as fortalezas, cidades e povoaçoens do Estado da Índia Oriental" (Book of plants of all fortresses, cities and settlements of Oriental India, a survey ordered by Filipe IV of Spain (then Flipe III of Portugal).
Bocarro refers the dificulties he went through to achieve such work, to which he attributes determined imperfections. Among them the difficulty that, due to his position, prevented him from examining in deep detail each of the fortresses or serttlements he described. For such reason he was forced to require information that was coming in, which he filtered with all thoroughness, so that the King could give them full credit. However he could not guarantee the perfection that concerned the plants (drawings) that accompanied the texts, due to lack of proportion of the houses and fortressess, proliferation of vegetation symbols and specialy lack of scale and cardinal orientation, due to absence in India of personal familiar with such arts.
Although he had not named the author of the drawings, historians conclude that it was Pedro Barreto de Resende, as the very one assumed in a codice now in the Fench National Library.
As the Bocarro's work is the original manuscript i accessed in the Library of Evora, the texts are so unclear that read them would be a challenge for experts ... which is a pity, particularly the description of Sohar, in the context. But interestingly we can read in loose parts that he mentions the bugios, six pieces gross artillery, twent to thirty barrels of gun powder, the exterior square albarran tower, the four ramparts with bombards, and (i guess) the curtains and redouts for defense against sea progress.

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