Khor Rori

1 · POSITION

Khor Rori, the ancient Sumhuram, is a fortified port on the Dhofar coast forty kilometres east of Salalah, a centre of the frankincense trade and a trading post for merchants of the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean. It is one of the four sites of the Land of Frankincense inscribed by UNESCO in 2000. The register holds it as a port that received more than cargo. [1, 2]

2 · A KING’S TOWN

Inscriptions at its monumental gate give the town’s name as Sumhuram. It is credited to a king of Hadramawt, and grew into the place where the resin of the interior met the ships of the ocean. [2]

3 · SILT

The harbour silted, trade moved elsewhere, and the town was abandoned; the frankincense trade passed to the later port of Al-Baleed, which the register holds under its own code. [2, 3]

4 · WHAT A PORT RECEIVES

The register reads a port of this kind as receiving sailors, brokers, interpreters and envoys as well as goods, and needing food, storage and a place to negotiate for all of them; the fortified town on the inlet is the evidence of that need. [1]

5 · ⚑ CANDOUR

⚑ The dates disagree: UNESCO gives the fourth century BC to the fifth century AD; another source dates the founding to the end of the first century BC and the abandonment to the third century AD. Both ranges are printed. [1–3]