The Land of Frankincense

1 · POSITION

The Land of Frankincense in Dhofar, southern Oman, was inscribed by UNESCO in 2000 as a serial property of four parts: the frankincense trees of Wadi Dawkah, the caravan oasis of Shisr, and the ports of Khor Rori and Al-Baleed. The register holds it as an unusually complete pre-hotel system: a valuable product made the route, and the route required water, ports and stations. [1, 2]

2 · THE TREE

Wadi Dawkah is an outstanding stand of the frankincense tree, Boswellia sacra, where the resin is still harvested. Oman has become the world’s principal source of frankincense, although the largest frankincense forests are in Somalia. [1, 2]

3 · THE OASIS

Shisr, in the desert some 170 to 180 kilometres north of Salalah, was an agricultural oasis and caravan site and a very important station for water supply. Its remains were crucial to the medieval incense trade: before the resin could reach a port or a market, a caravan had to drink. [1, 2]

4 · THE PORTS

Khor Rori, 40 kilometres east of Salalah, was a trading port from the fourth century BC to the fifth century AD. Al-Baleed, a harbour on the Indian Ocean coast, flourished from the eighth century to the sixteenth. The register files each under its own code, and the road that carried the resin north as the Incense Route. [1]

5 · ⚑ CANDOUR

⚑ UNESCO gives Shisr’s distance from Salalah as both 170 and 180 kilometres. No date is given for Shisr or Wadi Dawkah. The listing was first inscribed as the Frankincense Trail and renamed in 2005. [1–2]