Lecture on rock inscriptions and writings in Dhofar Governorate

Salalah: The General Directorate of Heritage and Tourism in Dhofar Governorate organized today a cultural lecture at Al-Baleed Archaeological Park, entitled “Rock Inscriptions in Dhofar Governorate”, presented by Dr. Mounir Arabish of the French Research Institute for the Studies of Inscriptions and Writings in the Arabian Peninsula.

Ali bin Salem Al-Ma’ashani, Assistant Director of the Heritage Department at the General Directorate of Heritage and Tourism in Dhofar Governorate, delivered a speech in which he said that the ministry paid attention to the rock inscriptions and inscriptions in the Sultanate of Oman, including in the Dhofar Governorate, by listing and documenting them, trying to interpret them and collecting related sources.

He pointed out that the ministry contracted with several specialized universities and institutions to study these rock inscriptions and writings, including a project to discover inscriptions in Dhofar in 1992, a project to study population centers on the shores of the Arabian Sea from 2016 to 2019, and a project to organize and survey rock writings in the mountains of Dhofar Governorate under the supervision of Professor Mounir Arabish, Director of the French Research Center for the Arabian Peninsula.

The lecture dealt with several axes, including preliminary surveys from the project of surveying rock inscriptions and writings in the mountains of Dhofar Governorate, as well as the role of the Sultanate of Oman in the Bronze Age and trade with Mesopotamia, and the emergence of Arab kingdoms in the first millennium BC with the invention and spread of alphabets. The lecture also reviewed the ancient writings in eastern Arabia, the role of the Kingdom of Oman in the third century BC and the frankincense trade, in addition to discussing the writings of Dhofar: the alphabet, language and its history.