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Notes to Chapter Two
Bahrain, but came from what was apparently the inhospitable wastes of
the Ruba’-al-Khali, the terrible ‘Empty House’ desert of South Arabia.
Continuing his investigations, Colonel Cox was able to contribute a
mass of information concerning Bainunah, Dhafrah Proper, Qufa, LTwah,
and other parts of Trucial 'Oman, which went far to fill in a good deal of
the white space on the map of Arabia . . Hunter F.F., "Reminiscences
of the Map of Arabia and the Persian Gulf" in Geographical Journal, vol.
54, 1919, pp. 355-63 (pp. 357f).
13 Unless indicated otherwise the geographical term Dhafrah is used here
as in the Gazetteer (see Chapter Two, footnote 17) for the entire area
between the Rub 'al Khali and the coast of the Gulf and between the
Sabkhah Matti in the west and Khatam in the east; its five subdivisions
are Dhafrah Proper, Bainunah, Taff, Qufa, and Lfwa.
14. The information about the geographical features of Liwa led to
speculations that there might be more such habitable areas within the
Rub ’al Khali beyond a belt of several hundred miles of impassable
dunes.

CHAPTER TWO
1 Longrigg, Stephen, "The Liquid Gold of Arabia", in Journal of the Royal
Central Asian Society, vol. 36, 1949, pp. 20-23 (p. 21).
2 Bibby, Geoffrey Looking for Dilmun London 1970. He sums up the
archaeological investigations which had taken place in the Gulf
countries up to that date, and projects a number of not undisputed
theories on the interpretation of the finds. Descriptions of the yearly
digs are in KUML, the Journal of the Danish Archaeological Society in
Aarhus, in the years 1956 and after. See also Archaeology in the United
Arab Emirates, a booklet published in 1979 by the Ministry of
Information, with an introduction by Serge Cleuziou, Director of the
French Archaeological Mission in the UAE.
3 See Thomas, Bertram S., "Orbar: the Atlantis of the Sands of Rub 'al
Khali", in Journal of the RCAS, vol. 20, 1933, pp. 259-65.
4 See also Thomas, Bertram S., "Anthropological Observations in
Southern Arabia", in Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, vol.
62, 1932, pp. 83-103 (p. 84): . . it may connote that a very early
civilisation existed in this region. Indeed caravan tracks of great
antiquity were pointed out to me in lat. 18°30,1 long. 52° on the very edge
of the sands and leading on a bearing of 325° into what is now a
drought-stricken waste of sands."
5 Wellstead describes the oasis of Manah, south-west of the Jabal al
Akhdar, as having extensive cultivation in open fields in 1835;
Wellstead, J.R., “Narrative of a Journey into the Interior of Oman in
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