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| A mural along the road |
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| Some kind of display, ditto | |
After driving west down the crazyroad (previous post) from Al Souda, we went to Rojal Alma, a five hundred year old town in a steep mountain valley, which used to be a waystation for the camel trains carrying Frankincense out of the mountains of Oman and Yemen to Jeddah and on to Egypt.
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| A herd of cattle in the amphitheatre! |
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| Jacob and Jerry |
Rojal Alma, though a forgotten dusty place now, was once an important regional seat of governance, and a certain wealth accrued from the passage of the lucrative trains. The town boasts a distinctive 'beehive' sort of architecture, where houses of 3 and 4 stories are massed together on the steep canyon wall to form a large interconnected building...
The building complex was restored, I'm guessing, about twenty years ago now, and is still semi-maintained - you can see where a large portion has fallen off in the last couple of years, though. There was a local caretaker there to take our entrance fees and sell us the last two books they had about the place, in English. It's an interesting building, and an interesting read.
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| I'm not sure I would want to step onto any of those verandas... |
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| Rixat and Jacob |
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| Rixat, in the kitchen area |
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| Part of the kitchen area |
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| A giant gourd - for storing water |
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| A hammer made from a burl |
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| Oud - for burning as incense? |
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The most surprising, and strangest room for me was the one with a sign over the door saying 'The Room of Social Politeness' in English. Inside were what looked like strange kinds of pliers, tongs and so on, and a large set of leg shackles (for twelve). I can imagine the teaching methods for 'social politeness'.
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| Traditional knives: each made for, and worn by, a specific person |
There were also a lot of bolt action rifles from the late nineteenth or early twentieth century - sort of the Lee-Enfield, 303 ex-British army type of rifles.
Apparently the Ottomans made it this far at the turn of the twentieth century and perhaps during the first world war...a couple of shells.
Wonderful examples of the unique kind of painting of the interiors practiced only here, by women artists.
And some wild, ratty dusty stuffed...hyenas, martins, wolves, and even a small crocodile...so these animals really did exist here!
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| A hyena |
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| A martin and a trap |
Also a number of framed letters, and a carved stone, no idea what they were about, of course.
A very interesting museum.
As we were leaving the village to head home, we met a herd of camels.
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| The big gun in D'arb |
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| A dusty day down by Jizan |
Thanks to Rixat Abdursal for taking some of these pictures, and for the use of his camera for the rest.
