Salūt

Salūt, near Bisya in the ad-Dakhiliya Governorate, central Oman, is a site occupied from the Bronze Age until the Late Islamic Period. Three main areas have been excavated: the castle (Ḥuṣn Salūt), the village (Qaryat Salūt), and the necropolis in the plain. Salūt reached its zenith during the Iron Age (1300–300 BCE). A necropolis located in the plain to the east of Ḥuṣn Salūt bears witness to the continued occupation of the area in the following centuries (300 BCE–200 CE).

Location

The site of Salūt is located in the valley of the Wādī Sayfam, close to its junction with the valley of the Wādī Bahlāʾ, 2.5 km to the northeast of the city of Bisya in central Oman.

Historical sources

Two myths, two stories are set in Salūt. Al-ʿAwtabī tells two undoubtedly fanciful stories, but with interesting historical implications (Amaldi 2017). Sulaymān bin Dawīd arrives in Salūt in flight and, impressed by the monumentality of the site, orders the jinns to dig thousands of underground channels to irrigate the plain. This is an evocative explanation for the invention of the complex system of the aflāj at the beginning of the 1st millennium BCE in Oman. The Arabization of Oman is linked to the mythological battle of Salūt when the Azd tribe, led by Malik bin Fāhm, was victorious over the Persians.

Archaeological research

Discovered in 1973 (Wilkinson 1977: 129), the site of Salūt was first mentioned in 1974 in a report of the British Archaeological Expedition in Oman under the name BB-15 (Humphries 1974: 51), and in 1976 as site 38 (De Cardi et al. 1976: 145, 164). Two phases of occupation were initially identified: an Iron Age and an Islamic one. The Italian Mission to Oman (IMTO) began excavations in Salūt in 2004 until 2019. Excavations have brought to light different periods of occupation from the Bronze Age until the Late Islamic Period. The main one is dated to the Iron Age (ca. 1300 BCE–300 BCE).

Bronze Age

Bronze Age towers and tombs bear testimony to the history of Salūt possibly from the end of the 4th millennium BCE. The Early Bronze Age (3100–2000 BCE) occupation of the area is witnessed by dozens of hilltop tombs on elevations in the surroundings of the site (Fig. 1). Northwest of the main site, a few hundred metres away, stands an imposing tower from the Early Bronze Age (Degli Esposti 2016) (Figs 2–3). The materials uncovered during the excavation of the tower are interesting: alongside the local pottery confirming the dating of the site to the 3rd millennium BCE, there is abundant evidence of imports and contacts with the Indus valley civilization (Degli Esposti 2015; Frenez et al. 2016) (Fig. 4).

Iron Age

Salūt reached its zenith in the Iron Age. Three main areas have been excavated by the IMTO: the so-called castle (Ḥuṣn Salūt), the surrounding village (Qaryat Salūt), and the necropolis in the plain east of the settlement.

Ḥuṣn Salūt

Ḥuṣn Salūt is an oval area measuring around 55 x 60 m surrounded by a thick perimeter wall, with a massive tower measuring around 15 x 25 m projecting onto the plain to the north-northeast (Fig. 5). The top of Ḥuṣn Salūt is over 20 m above the level of the surrounding plain, which makes it one of the most impressive monumental sites known in Southeast Arabia in the Iron Age. Three successive phases of occupation were distinguished at Ḥuṣn Salūt.

In the first phase (1300–1100 BCE), four terraces or platforms in mudbrick were built on the hilltop, the lowest to the northeast, the highest to the southwest (Terrace I) (Fig. 6). One building (the "Burnt Building") was constructed on the floor of the highest terrace, while a second (the "Basement") was built on a lower level and accessed from the terrace by a single flight of stairs. The height of the perimeter walls did not exceed the height of the top of the terraces at any point of the site, so that the buildings on the terrace were visible from far out on the plain. Access to the top of the site was from the northeast, via a monumental two-flight staircase. The plan of the Burnt Building was centred around a corridor, with several narrow rooms, and a larger rectangular room with a central mudbrick pillar.

In the second phase (1100–600 BCE), after a fire severely damaged the Basement, a new building was erected on the northern part of Terrace I. It included a rectangular north-eastern part with a pillared room connected to smaller rooms and a large rectangular space to the southwest, possibly a large columned hall.

The third phase (600–300 BCE) is mainly marked by the construction of a large stone outer wall around the eastern and northern parts of the site and the addition of a massive tower at the north-eastern end. A small rectangular construction interpreted as a shrine with a six columned base was discovered on top of a nearby hill to the northeast (Phillips et al. 2015). From a historical point of view, the main result was the identification of the specific chrono-cultural development of central Oman, which partly diverges from accounts of the modern-day UAE territory (Degli Esposti et al. 2018). As we will see, settlement may have ended a few centuries later than 300 BCE.

Qaryat Salūt

The settlement (excavated by the IMTO from 2015 to 2019) extends over the whole hill and part of the plain, with an impressive stone-built terrace system developing over the whole eastern and western slopes (Fig. 7). So far, no traces of building have been revealed on the investigated terraces. However, a test trench dug through the deposits covering the largest of these terraces revealed the presence of manured soil at the base of the sequence. This is not surprising, given the numerous examples of modern-day houses located on the lower slopes of the wadi valleys, with one or more small terrace-gardens where date palms and/or other cultivars are grown. The actual residential part of the settlement (Fig. 8) was at the foot of the hill, on plain ground. The settlement probably extended over nearly 10 ha. So far, two main sectors of the settlement have been unearthed, one to the east and one to the north of the hill. Numerous buildings, separated by narrow streets, have been excavated. An area apparently devoted to small-scale copper working was located immediately outside the substantial wall closing the settlement to the north and supporting the large northern terrace. The material from Qaryat Salūt shows that the settlement most definitely dates back to the Early Iron Age and its foundation is likely coeval with Ḥuṣn Salūt.

The Salūt plain necropolis

Forty graves have been excavated so far — including one severely disturbed camel burial (Fig. 9). The overall layout of the cemetery is still unclear. Conversely, it is evident that at least part of it was established on top of older buried structures, associated with Early Iron Age pottery. The most abundant class of materials represented in the tombs are iron weapons. A set of copper-based items clearly linked with ceremonial banquets was discovered, including a deep bowl with an applied horse-protome spout (Fig. 10). Only one complete similar artefact is known elsewhere, from ed-Dur. Two spouts were found: one is a horse-protome, the other a unicum in that it bears a hybrid human/animal representation reminiscent of a sphinx (Fig. 11). The imported material found in the graves is very interesting from a chronological point of view: glazed vessels that can be linked with Parthian productions, including jars and pilgrim flasks. A number of mosaic glass ribbed bowls bear witness to the arrival of peripheral (in all likelihood Levantine) Roman productions in inland Oman, and at the same time provide a solid chronological benchmark, as they can be dated to the first century CE. This cemetery was the place where the people living at Salūt buried their dead well after 300 BCE, that is, the final (conventional) date for Iron Age occupation at Salūt. It is now clear that the site survived much longer, at least 300–400 years more, and not merely as a residual occupation of decaying older structures. A few sherds of Fine Painted Ware, similar to those known from Late Iron Age sites in the northern Oman Peninsula (such as Mleiha and Ed-Dur, Degli Esposti et al. 2019), discovered at Ḥuṣn Salūt, and quantities of other sherds from later contexts at Qaryat Salūt, confirm that the site lived on beyond 300 BCE.

Material collected on the site and interpretation

The material collected at Ḥuṣn Salūt mainly includes pottery, metal items, soft-stone vessels, an assortment also encountered on most Iron Age sites in the region. It also comprises a number of objects that have been linked to ritual practices on other Southeast Arabian sites (al-Qusays, Bithna, Masāfī-3, Sarūq al-Hadīd, Mudhmar East), such as long-handled bowls and other pottery vessels decorated with snake representations in relief and snake figurines in bronze (Fig. 12). The site also yielded many bridge-spouted jugs, small carinated bowls, and bronze ladles. Such vessels are characteristic of columned halls, usually interpreted as places of official meetings. These halls played an important function in the administration of local territories and collective resources, and were possibly used for festivities including libation and banqueting practices. This material and the impressive architecture of the fortified complex gives this site a collective and prestigious function; it might have been a ceremonial place related both to authority and religion. Ḥuṣn Salūt can be seen as a sort of ‘acropolis’ for the village (Qaryat Salūt), hosting specific functions, with specific edifices where these functions could be carried out, and may have housed a limited number of people, entrusted with performing such functions.

Alessandra Avanzini & Michele Degli Esposti

References and suggested reading

Sources

• Amaldi, D. 2017. The origins of the history in Oman. The Kitāb al-Ansāb by al-Awtabī (Arabia Antica 13). Rome: "L’Erma" di Bretschneider.

Studies

• Avanzini, A. (ed.) 2015. In the heart of Oman. The castle of Salut. Rome: "L’Erma" di Bretschneider.
• Avanzini, A. 2019. Salut: at the heart of Oman, in Ex Oriente lux. Collected papers to mark the 75th anniversary of Mikhail Borisovich Piotrovsky: 68–77. Saint Petersburg: The State Hermitage Publishers
• Avanzini, A. & M. Degli Esposti (eds) 2018. Ḥuṣn Salut and the Iron Age of South-east Arabia. Excavations of the Italian Mission to Oman 2004-2014 (Arabia Antica 15). Rome: "L’Erma" di Bretschneider.
• Condoluci, C., M. Degli Esposti & C. Phillips 2014. Iron Age settlement patterns at Salut, c. 1300–300 BC. PSAS 44: 99–119. www.jstor.org/stable/43782905.
• De Cardi, B., S. Collier & B. Doe 1976. Excavations and survey in Oman 1974-1975. JOS 2: 101–188.
• Degli Esposti, M. 2015. Pottery from the Bronze Age tower ST1: local tradition, imports and influences, in A. Avanzini (ed.) In the heart of Oman. The castle of Salut: 99–107. Rome: "L’Erma" di Bretschneider.
• Degli Esposti, M. 2016. Excavations at the Early Bronze Age site «ST1» near Bisyah (sultanate of Oman): notes on the architectural and material culture, in R.A. Stucky, O. Kaelin & H.P. Mathys (eds) Proceedings of the 9th international congress on the archaeology of ancient near east. June 9-13 2014. University of Basel 3: 665–678. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
• Degli Esposti, M. & C. Phillips 2012. Iron Age impact on a Bronze Age archaeological landscape: results from the Italian Mission to Oman excavations at Salūt, Sultanate of Oman. PSAS 42: 87–100. www.jstor.org/stable/41623630.
• Degli Esposti, M., C. Condoluci, C. Phillips, E. Tagliamonte & M. Sasso 2018. The Early Iron Age chronology of South East Arabia: a reassessment on the basis of Husn Salut excavations, in A. Avanzini. & M. Degli Esposti (eds) Ḥuṣn Salut and the Iron Age of South-east Arabia. Excavations of the Italian Mission to Oman 2004-2014: 371–380 (Arabia Antica 15). Rome: "L’Erma" di Bretschneider.
• Degli Esposti, M., E. Tagliamonte, M. Sasso & P. Ramorino 2019. The Late Iron Age of central Oman (c. 300 BC–AD 300) – new insights from Salūt. PSAS 49: 97–114. www.jstor.org/stable/27014142.
• Frenez, D., M. Degli Esposti, S. Méry & J.M. Kenoyer, 2016. Bronze Age Salūt (ST1) and the Indus Civilization: recent discoveries and new insights on regional interaction. PSAS 46: 107–124. www.jstor.org/stable/45163421.
• Humphries, J.H. 1974. Harvard Archaeological Survey in Oman II. Some late prehistoric sites in the Sultanate of Oman. PSAS 4: 49–77. www.jstor.org/stable/41223136.
• Phillips, C., C. Condoluci, & M. Degli Esposti 2010. Archaeological Survey in the wadi Bahla (Sultanate of Oman). An Iron Age site on Jabal al-Agma, near Bisyah. EVO 33: 151–168.
• Phillips, C., C. Condoluci, & M. Degli Esposti 2012. Further consideration on Bronze and Iron Age settlement patterns at Salut. EVO 35: 193–217.
• Phillips, C., C. Condoluci & M. Degli Esposti. 2015. The “shrine” on Jabal Salut. Excavation, interpretation, conservation and restoration, in C. Condoluci & M. Degli Esposti (ed.) High places in Oman. The IMTO Excavations of Bronze and Iron Age remains at Salut: 40–49 (Quaderni di Arabia Antica 3). Rome: "L’Erma" di Bretschneider.
• Potts, D.1985. From Qadê to Mazun. Four notes on Oman c. 700 BC – 700 AD. JOS 8: 81–95.
• Potts, D. 1990. The Arabian Gulf in Antiquity, vol. 2. From Prehistory to the fall of the Achaemenid empire. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Tagliamonte, E. & A. Avanzini 2018. New data from the renewed excavation at Salūt: the Iron Age settlement (Qaryat Salūt). PSAS 48: 339–351. www.jstor.org/stable/45163166.
• Wilkinson, J.C. 1977. Water and tribal settlement in South-East Arabia. A study of the aflāj in Oman. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

_{Alternante spellings: Ḥuṣn Salût, Husn Salût, Husn Salut, Ḥiṣn Salūt, Salût, Salut, Sallut, Sallūt}