Forts and Cannon of Oman.

[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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[fernando]

As we read chronicles, we find that piracy or corso was a well spread activity in those days, to the extent that it was considered by Kings as legitimate; it would be natural that some Portuguese did not resist such sport.
Piracy or robbery abounded in the Persian Gulf by the time. Actually one of the Portuguese daily occupations was escorting lower defence boats or guard the coast against Noutaques. According to Gaspar Correia these Noutaques go in very light terradas of sail and rowing and the rowers themselves are archers, who carry bow and arrows in their backs; and rowing, when reaching their target, they drop the oars and stand up with the bows, with which they shoot two or three arrows at a time, one between each finger, with three sided heads which, once reaching the spot, the shafts drop off, and they are rather dextrous and accurate in their aiming.
Head Captain Martinho Afonso de Sousa also mentioned that their boats were equiped with falconets and arquebuses. Father Manuel de Almeida confirmed that their boats are very fast and narrates an episode in which the Noutaques captured a Portuguese boat near Muscate, having demanded for a ransom. The Portuguese Captain delivered the ransom and the captives were rescued; but when the Captain and others chased them, their boats were so fast that managed to escape.
Attached an illustration of Noutaques in the Codice Casanatence.

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