The Dutch East India Company's Place in the History of the Emirates

We went to stay with friends over the summer - they had lived here in the Emirates but returned to Holland, being Dutch as they is. Andre and Sonja live in Brouwershaven, in Zeeland. It's a funny little place, at one time an important mercantile (and, as the name attests, brewing) centre but now a sleepy, pleasant sort of small town with a marina and assorted leisure facilities and camp sites. Because it was once a bustling port, it has a church sized out of all proportion to the town's current scale, a huge cathedral-like construction. And inside it, on the floor, I found this gravestone from the 1700s, carved with a Dutch East India Company (VOC) ship.

In our time wandering around the Netherlands, I kept coming up against references to the Company and Holland's colonial past. I found brass cannon inscribed in Arabic and maps of the Gulf drawn by early Dutch cartographers. In Amsterdam we spent a happy hour or so wandering around a reconstructed VOC ship. It seemed as if everywhere I went, there was a reminder of the VOC and its links with the Gulf - and the story of how European powers smashed the great Arab monopoly of eastern trade that forms such an important part of the Emirates' past.

While it's most closely associated these days with South Africa and Indonesia, the VOC was actually very much involved in commerce with India and the Arabian Gulf - the VOC comes from the company's Dutch name, Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie. Dutch is an insane language that I confess to finding as unpronounceable as I am shamed at how the Dutch all speak impeccable English.

In the late 1500s, the Dutch went to war against Spain and its ally Portugal. This triggered a series of Dutch moves against Portugal's very successful eastern trade network over the next century and saw Portugal's trading stations throughout the east fall into Dutch hands. Although the focus of Dutch expansionism was the 'Far East', the VOC nevertheless established 'factories' in the Gulf, particularly at Gombroon (Bandar Abbas), Bandar Kong and, further up the Gulf, Kharg Island.

You'll see a lot of references to these 'factories' - established at various times by the Portuguese, French, Dutch and English. They're not manufacturing plants, but trading posts. And each successive eastwards wave of European expansion (or, if you prefer, Empire) would see all sorts of skulduggery practiced in order to suppress rival influence and trade - from the co-option and coercion of local leaders and populaces to outright warfare against colonial rivals and locals alike.

Having weakened the Portuguese stranglehold on the great Arab trade networks of (and monopoly of trade with) the east, the Dutch then went to war with the British in the late 1600s. The result was a flourishing of the British East India Company at Dutch expense - much as the VOC had flourished at Portuguese expense. Over the next century, the Dutch would see their influence and trading links with the East wane as the sun rose over the British Empire.

Which is why, as we enter the late 1700s, it was the Brits in the Gulf and their government in Bombay who found themselves arrayed against the local maritime force - the fearsome Huwala and Qawasim. Which is, as they say, another story...

Visit the Mleiha Archaeological Centre

The stunning Mleiha Archaeological Centre - the only such centre in the Emirates, sadly...

I was rabbiting on about the amazing archaeological site of Faya-1 and the emergence of anatomically modern humankind (Homo Sapiens, as you ask) from Africa to populate the world yesterday and so I thought it appropriate to tell you how and why you can go there and take the kids, granny, your visiting parents or the school with you. You could do it today, actually - just bundle 'em all in the car and nip out there for a wander around and a funky lunch at the glorious café there!

Faya-1 is part of the remarkable spread of human history you'll find preserved and, uniquely, celebrated at the Mleiha Archaeological Centre in Sharjah. It's a bit of a schlep - about an hour's drive from Dubai, but it's brilliantly worthwhile - nowhere else in the Arabian Gulf will you see such a spread of human history in such a small area. And the Mleiha Archaeological Centre is, while glorious in its own small way, sadly just as unique.

The settlement, city, site of Mleiha is as central to the human history of the Emirates as it is central to the whole country. It's the motherlode, pure and simple.

Not only do we have the finds at Faya-1 to date the emergence of humans from Africa to populate the world, but we have a gloriously preserved 4,500 year-old Umm Al Nar tomb on display at the Centre. Here you'll also find evidence of human occupation - and inhumation - at Jebel Buhais, just down the road. Jebel Buhais, a huge necropolis, stretches from the Neolithic to the Iron Age in its scope - although, oddly, lacks any evidence of Umm Al Nar occupation. It's an enormously important site which has been yielding new clues about the history of the Emirates since 1974, when an Iraqi team first started exploring the area. Buhais stands as the earliest radiometrically dated inland burial site in the Emirates. Beat that!

Mleiha not only contains a museum and a guide to the many sites spread around the area - from Faya-1 and Buhais through to the Iron Age and Pre-Islamic forts and settlements of Mleiha, but it has a funky café (beetroot hummus in Mleiha? Check! Super coffee and hipster cakes? Check!) and offers a series of adventures from dune buggy tours through to nighttime desert barbecues and camping experiences. Opened in 2016, master-planned by Shurooq - Sharjah's development authority , the place has been nominated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site - and quite rightly so, too.

Nearby, you'll find the achingly contemporary, chiq and just generally cool Al Faya Lodge, which offers reasonably priced and totes chilled (See this? Huh? Down with the kids or WHAT?) overnight accommodation. Or you can simply plan to trek out to Mleiha and do lunch there before heading to the east coast of the Emirates and the many beach hotels therein - just in time for check-in.

I reckon you'll want to read up on it first, so you can answer the kids' questions. What you'll need is a dramatic, accessible and fun human history of the Emirates that tells the story as the amazing epic that it truly is.*

2/2/2020. You'll just have to wait... ;)

*NO, that WASN'T a book plug! It WASN'T! It was a responsibly sourced reference to a future resource. That's all! Now, move on, people...

Out of Africa: the Emergence of Anatomically Modern Humans

The site at Faya-1

It's a little appreciated fact, but on the edge of the desert interior of Sharjah lies a site which marks the beginning of the human history of the Emirates - Faya-1. It is here that archaeologists found, at the bottom of a number of well defined strata, evidence of the passage of humans through the area between 130,000 and 125,000 years ago - the emergence of anatomically modern humans from Africa. This is where I have started the story of Children of the Seven Sands because, well, it's the start of everything.

We now know, from a combination of two emerging threads of evidence, that this passage was part of a wider dispersal - humanity left its home in Africa through a northern route (via Egypt, Suez and the Levant) and a southern route (via Djibouti, Aden and the Gulf). Those two threads are woven from our ever-richer understanding of archaeology and our exploration of DNA research to unravel the mysteries of who we are and where we came from.

Last week, one particularly controversial piece of DNA research dropped, which traces Homo Sapiens Sapiens (that's us, folks) to an enormous primordial lake in modern-day Botswana some 200,000 years ago. It's controversial because other researchers postulate an earlier origin for humanity and argue the study was based on a limited study of the mitochondrial genome. While the data is considered useful as part of the wider picture, some academics reckon it's wrong to view the Botswana study's evidence presented in a standalone fashion. That viewpoint was even expressed by researchers at the German University of Tübingen, the university whose archaeologists found Faya-1 in the first place.

What we do know - and today widely accept - is that climactic change drove the movement of those people to populate the continent of Africa before, some 70,000 years later, they started to travel further afield via the land bridge of Egypt and that of the Bab Al Mandab Straits between Africa and Yemen which, at that time, would have been a shallow and narrow crossing. Global sea levels back then were much lower thanks to glaciation, see?

Another view of Faya-1. You wonder how they knew to dig here...

Our early adventurers would have travelled along the east coast of what is now Yemen and Oman before, presumably, finding their way through the Hajar Mountains to the west coast through one of the three crossings - there are basically three great wadis that intersect the mountain range - Wadi Jizi, Wadi Hatta and Wadi Ham.

At Jebel Faya, just south of the Sharjah town of Mleiha, our early explorers found a natural formation that provided shelter as well as a source of precious water, collected in aquifers which wash up against the rocky outcrop of Faya, which divides the gravelly plain below the mountains from the deep desert beyond to the sea.

You can visit Faya-1 today and stand up on a platform to contemplate this lonely, strange place where our distant ancestors - and those of all humankind - paused to knap their flint tools. You'll find it well marked when you visit the Mleiha Archaeological Centre and you can read the story of Faya-1 - and the remarkable slice of our common history that is buried at the foot of Jebel Faya - at the Centre.

Something for the Weekend? Al Ain Nights

Restored Hafit culture tombs on the foothills of Jebel Hafit

Al Ain has many things to recommend it as a weekend getaway - not least of which is its UNESCO World Heritage listed oasis, which provides a lovely walk around shaded date groves latticed with aflaj irrigation channels. There are forts and museums to visit (Al Jahili and Muwaiji Forts, the Palace Museum and the Al Ain National Museum to name just a few) as well as ancient ruins (the Hilli Archaeological Park, Bidaa bint Saud) and, of course,the great rocky outcrop of Jebel Hafit.

Jebel Hafit offers a 13Km uphill run if you fancy it - or if you're sane, you can drive up to the top and look out over the forbidding expanse of the Rub Al Khali. On the way up, you'll pass the Mercure Hotel, which usually offers a reasonable room rate and perfectly pleasant, if lacking in frills, stay. Many of the rooms have amazing views, of course. Down in the foothills on the one side you'll find the 'Green Mubazzara', a resort with en suite lake and fountain, offering chalets and hot springs. Nestled away here you'll also find a tiny old dam (the 'Mubazzara Historical Dam', according to the wee brown sign) built here by Sheikh Zayed during his time as Wali of Al Ain, when he restored much of the broken down irrigation infrastructure of the area.

On the other side of Jebel Hafit, if you follow this here pin, you'll find some odd-looking monuments that wouldn't look out of place in a Star Wars movie. These are restored Hafit Era tombs, a culture so named after this very area. The Hafit people lived, and died, in southeastern Arabia from 3,200 - 2,600 BCE and were, for many reasons, important in our story of the human development of the area.

Star Wars, anyone?

With so much to do around here, you'd be forgiven for wanting to make the journey out and stay overnight and quite right you'd be, too. There are a number of hotels here apart from the heady heights of the Mercure - although the 'big name' chains have sadly abandoned Al Ain. The Hilton Al Ain as was is now the Radisson Blu and the Intercontinental is now the Danat Al Ain. The last time we stayed at the latter (and I mean the last time) there was an almighty punch up in the pub, which had filled up with a bunch of brunchers who were clearly already boiling. Our simple dinner was punctuated with the smashing of glass, flying of fists and spilling of blood. Quite charming, my dear!!!

If you're staying in Al Ain, don't bother looking around for fine dining or anything like it these days - you're looking at hotel buffets and pub grub in the main - and smoky pubs, they are, too! The sole light in the Al Ain dining out gloom is Trader Vic's at the Al Ain Rotana - also, sadly, smoky.

Don't let that put you off - but do be prepared to eat badly and expensively unless you're up for Trader Vic's, in which case you'll eat perfectly well but expensively. Or room service, which might be a lovely idea if you can sit out on your balcony at the Mercure and enjoy the cool winter evening with a little something you thought to bring yourself!

If anyone has any better Al Ain dining ideas, please do drop a comment...

It's the Fort That Counts: the Human History of the United Arab Emirates in 20 Forts

Fujairah Fort

The human history of the Emirates is all around you, often hidden away in the most surprising places. The Emirates is dotted with forts, for instance - many are museums, some are just forts for forts' sake. You find them lurking around pretty much every corner - and they're there precisely because people around here used to be, well, fighty.

They weren't just recently fighty, either. Our archaeological analysis of Umm Al Nar era remains (we're talking 2,600-2,000 BCE, here) shows a number of fortified towers were constructed by that people, often guarding precious water resources. There are Iron Age forts to be found as well - and even the Portuguese left a smattering of fortification behind.

Today's more obvious forts are mostly a product of C19th and C20th construction, although sometimes built on much older foundations. Quite a few of these forts are now museums - note they aren't open on Fridays, when you'd expect 'em to be - but they all open on Saturdays. All feature ethnographic displays of varying degrees of impressiveness - often, the more eclectic assemblages are the most fun.

So why not take a trip out to take a look at a few - especially now the weather's nice and cool? It's worth getting out and about and taking a few in when you can - we're talking weekend excursions with cooler bags full of sandwiches and chilled home made lemonade in thermos flasks. Don't forget the Cheese and Onion Walkers for that authentic 'day trip car smell'.

You can usually mix it up with something outdoorsy, kayaking or hiking, a swim on a remote beach or a lazy overnight in a hotel - some of which are surprisingly affordable even during the 'high' winter season. Camping, of course, is even more affordable and there are a million places you can happily pitch a tent, taking some time out to explore the desert and more remote inland towns of the Emirates.

So here you go - the UAE in 20 Forts. All the links below open to Google Maps pins...

Dubai Museum, for instance, is located in the Al Fahidi Fort (which dates back to the late 1700s), while Sharjah's Al Hisn Sharjah is a faithful reconstruction of the building almost completely demolished by Sheikh Khalid bin Mohammad Al Qasimi in the late 1960s. Ajman and Umm Al Quwain museums are both located in the town forts, formerly the Ruler's house - Ajman Fort was occupied by the Ruler, the big, white-bearded figure of Sheikh Rashid Al Nuaimi, until 1967. I'd argue it's the most charming museum in the Emirates today.

Umm Al Quwain's Al Ali Fort, home to the UAQ National Museum

Umm Al Quwain National Museum is not only an impressive building (don't miss the UAQ Wall while you're down there, which used to completely protect the town on its isthmus) but houses some very impressive artefacts from the enormously important site of Ed-Dur, a major Iron Age and Pre-Islamic metropolis, itself linked to the inland town of Mleiha. Going inland from UAQ, you can also visit the Falaj Al Mualla Fort, or tootle out a wee bit into the sands and find the three Murabbaa - watchtowers - that guard the Wadi which feeds Falaj Al Mualla's rich agricultural resources. Look out here also for the Sharea, or baths, just opposite the fort.

Ras Al Khaimah National Museum tells the story of the town, but also of the lost city of Julphar (contrary to popular belief, not actually 'old' RAK, but to the north of the town. RAK started life as a southern suburb of Julphar) and the maritime mercantile culture which the town sprang from - including displays of early C8th Thai and Chinese porcelain brought here by the Arab traders who sailed the seven seas of the east, between Julphar and Beijing. Of course, as I mentioned the other day, there is also Sheba's Palace and Al Dhayah Fort...

The C15th mosque and tower at Bidya.

Heading over to the east coast, you can visit the 'oldest mosque in the Emirates' and the tower at Bidya (or the Portuguese Fort here) - don't forget the old fort at Masafi - or the newly restored Governor's House there. Further down the east coast from Bidya, you'll find Fujairah Fort but the National Museum of Fujairah is not actually in the fort, it's across from it - and jolly good fun it is, too - one of the most wacky and varied collections you'll find in a museum. Fujairah is a great destination for Fort Fans and also offers Al Bithnah Fort, Al Hayl Fort, Sakamkam Fort and Awhala Fort.

Take a trip out to Al Ain and you'll find the impressive Al Muaiji Fort, birthplace of Sheikh Khalifa and former home of Sheikh Zayed when he was Wali of Al Ain. It's been lovingly restored and has a pretty slick visitor centre. Al Jahili Fort in Al Ain is also worth a visit, sitting in a pleasant public park. If you want to explore further back, pop up to the Hili Archaeological Park and take a wander around the glorious Umm Al Nar era tomb there.

Last but not least, Abu Dhabi's Qasr Al Hosn was closed for renovations last time we went, so no guarantees here, but I'd reckon they've likely done a stellar job on it.

This is, by the way, not a list of every fort in the Emirates by any means. But it's as good a starting point as any if you want to start fort spotting!!!