Page 242 - The Tigris Expedition

We Search for a Pyramid an d Find Makan
characteristics with a
it is Sumerian I cannot say, but it shares all its
Sumerian ziggurat!’ nlrcadv outside the
We wasted no time. By sunnse we were al dy ^ ^
police gates of the port, and with Paolo Costa g
harbour authority bus for transport we began our view * pc
the world where tourists are not admitted. From the super-moden
settlements in the outskirts of Muscat every fifty miles seeme o
take us an extra millennium back through the ages until we passe
the ancient town of Nizwa and reached the ageless mountain town
of Al Hamra, about 150 miles from Muscat. The Sultan s new road
had just barely reached there, but electricity and waterpipes not yet.
Nor was there any sign yet of transistor radios, pop-drinks or
plastic bags. And apart from the fact that all men under forty-five
had used the new road to move to Muscat for paid work, life in this
attractive town was hardly changed since the days of the ancient
Middle East civilisations. The setting was again as out of the Bible,
or rather, as out of the Koran.
From the mustard-coloured clusters of tall Arab mud-brick
houses perched on naked rock, barefooted women in colourful
costumes walked like queens, with pottery-vessels crowning their
heads, along the foot-paths to the old aqueducts in the shade of the
date-palm plantations. Their tinkling jewellery, like the silver dag­
gers in the belts of the men, looked like collectors’ items. Back from
the moist soil reserved for growing crops they re-entered the narrow
rock streets. Steep, and polished to a shine by hoofs and feet, these
much trodden passages climb from the evergreen palm gardens
between the sand-coloured houses seemingly into the blue sky. The
dark and cool arcades were crowded with robed men sitting or
standing, thinking or talking, as unconcerned about the clock as
were the calmly ruminating desert goats and little pack-donkeys
sharing the shade with them. Never have I seen so many men
resembling the popular image of‘Uncle Sam’, with mighty beard
and prominent nose. Never, except on the pre-Columbian stone
reliefs of the unidentified Olmecs who brought civilisation to the
aborigines in the Gulf of Mexico long before the arrival of the
Europeans. Something in the bearing and the tolerant expression of
some of these relaxed men made them look like old and learned
sages. Their indulgent comportment as we trampled about in their
arcades made us feel like school-boys playing in front of professors
assembled to ponder upon the mysteries of life. These men could
probably not write. But men just like them had first invented script,
i Heir ancestors had started the busy clock of civilisation ticking and

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