Hundred-year-old documents found in Bahla house
MUSCAT: A routine exploratory tour to the Al’Aqar area in Bahla last Saturday led to the discovery of some 100-year-old documents.
The tour was led by Omani researcher Mohammed Amir Al Aisary, whose main interest lies in heritage.
According to Khamis Rashid Saeed Al Adawi, Head of the Founding Board of the A’Nnadwa Library, a public library in Bahla, who was a member of the explorers’ team, the documents were found inside one of the demolished ancient houses in Al’Aqar, located near the Bahla Castle and Bahla Mosque, in the heart of the Bahla wilayat.
The documents included the Holy Quran, wills for endowments, and ancient complaints.
“Among the traced documents, we found a book cover supposedly printed at the Royal Printer in Zanzibar, which belonged to Oman at the time,” he said.
Zanzibar connection
Al Adawi further said the documents were evidence of correspondence and communication that took place between Bahla and Zanzibar during the beginning of the 20th century.
“We found the documents on two shelves of one of the ancient houses in Al’Aqar. We will form a team to clean, check, and study them,” he added.
Commenting on the future of the discovered documents, Al Adawi said they will be stored inside Bahla’s Public Chamber at A’Nnadwa Library in Bahla for research purposes. The exploratory tour was an extension of Al Adawi’s effort to explore archaeological sites in Bahla, following a book he published in 2016.