Red Sea Folk Beliefs: A Maritime Spirit Landscape

This is the final version of the article. Available from Michigan State University Press via the link in this record.The Red Sea brings together the coastal communities and seafarers of Africa and Arabia through a variety of folk beliefs and superstitions, which manifest something of a common tradition through time and space. This article explores a conceptual framework that might be called a “spiritscape,” an amalgam of ideas and practices that embrace multiple layers of human and nonhuman relationships and interactions within the landscape and seascape of the Red Sea world.I would like to thank King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah; the MARESGoldenWeb Foundation; the Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities and Seven Pillars of Wisdom Trust which made the study possible. I am grateful to Stephen Serels and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful suggestions which were included in this revised version

The maritime heritage of Yemen: a focus on traditional wooden "dhows"

This paper investigates the disappearing heritage of Yemen’s large wooden boats (dhows), both in its current socio-economic context and in historical perspective. Fieldwork conducted by members of the MARES project in February 2009 along the coast between Aden and Salif sought to record remaining evidence of wooden boats and their related industries and practices. Wooden boat use has been in sharp decline in recent decades, as dhow-based commerce has declined, and fishing communities have switched to fibreglass vessels. The fieldwork sought to record remaining dhows through simple survey techniques including photography and illustration, as well as close observation. It also involved ethnographic interviews with people who worked on these vessels, either as builders or mariners. In terms of the vessels themselves, the aim was to produce a typology of Yemeni dhows; to record examples of each; to understand construction sequences; and to inventory the distribution of surviving craft. The findings are compared with previous literature on the subject.This research was conducted as part of the MARES Project, a three-year programme investigating the maritime past and heritage of the Red Sea and Arabian-Persian Gulf. MARES is based at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies of the University of Exeter (http://projects.exeter.ac.uk/mares). The programme is generously funded by the Golden Web Foundation, an educational charity registered in the UK (www.goldenweb.org). Thanks are also due to the Seven Pillars of Wisdom Trust, which provided additional financial support for the fieldwork. In addition, the MARES team would like to thank the following people for their assistance: Dr Abdulla M. Bawazir, President of Yemen’s General Organisation of Antiquities and Museums (GOAM); Dr Muhammad Taha al- Asbahi, General Director of Antiquities at GOAM; Dr Raja Batawil, head of GOAM in Aden; our GOAM-appointed field companion, Salah al-Mansuri; Mr. Hasan Saleh Shihab; Emily Allardyce, Fuad Mazid al-Matairi and their colleagues at the British Yemeni Language Institute; our driver and guide Muhammad al-Matairi; Edward Prados, Director of Amideast; Chris Evans; the British Council; and the British Embassy, Sanʿā. The team wishes to thank also the many individual informants along Yemen’s coast who generously gave of their time and expertise

Where facts and history meet myth and legend: Groups or communities in the Marvels of India stories model

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from SAGE Publications via the DOI in this recordThe cAja-’ib al-Hind (Marvels of India) is a collection of sea stories allegedly compiled by Captain Buzurg Ibn Shahriya-r (d. 399/1009) which belongs to an Arabo-Islamic literary genre called the caja-’ib, containing themes of entertainment—things that are marvellous and strange. But these stories are not merely entertaining, they are an additional resource for the modern researcher because they also reflect the realities of daily life in seafaring communities of the Indian Ocean in the ninth and tenth centuries. Among the tales of the fantastic and the marvel, we find the simple humanity of the seafarers, something lacking in the purely factual, medieval, geographical and historical texts. A complementary model to the understanding of the maritime landscape of a group or community is proposed in this article. The stories model in this article demonstrates the relationship of an occupational group with other seafarers in a trans-regional Indian Ocean trade

The Cognitive Landscape of Seventeenth Century Malta: Communicating Information in a Cosmopolitan Society

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Brill via the DOI in this recordThe cognitive landscape, the proposed framework for this chapter, is built on theories of information and meaning. In essence, the cognitive landscape includes the written word in state and ecclesiastical documents, and the spoken word at all levels of society. It is the language used to communicate information, whether from top to bottom, bottom to top, or laterally, in a diversified cultural-linguistic and religious society. What is presented here, in the context of seventeenth-century Malta, is the word as officially pronounced by the Order of the Knights Hospitaller on land and sea; the language of the Inquisition court officials and witnesses’ testimonials; of the clergy in their liturgical ceremonies and pastoral duties; of professionals when drafting contracts; of skilled/unskilled workers; and, importantly, of the common people and the slaves.Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)British Academ

Boat and ship engravings at Al Zubarah, Qatar: the dāw exposed?

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from ArchaeopressOn-going excavations at the site of the 18th–19th century walled town of Al Zubarah, Qatar, have uncovered a number of engravings of seagoing craft etched into the dry plasterwork of buildings within the settlement. The engravings are essentially graffiti, carved into the interiors of rooms without aesthetic reference to the original decorative schema of their settings. The resulting images are of varying sophistication and detail — dependent, no doubt, on the skill and inclination of their executors. While the crudest images are rudimentary outlines of hulls, others show detail that demonstrates the familiarity of their creators with boat construction and type — not surprising in a settlement whose raison d’être was the livings to be made from the sea. This iconographic vestige provides an insight into the types of vessel their creators used and encountered, and allows us to venture our own identifications of them. It also prompts us to reflect on the nature of the relationship between Al Zubarah’s some-time residents and the sea: the vessels depicted are for the most part a mixture of ocean-going types built within the Gulf or western Indian Ocean region. One, however, is of a European naval vessel, perhaps suggesting the shadow of British imperial power in the Gulf. Finally, the process of identification of these watercraft inspires renewed reflection on the word ‘dhow’ and its variants, from both a typological and an etymological perspective; these new reflections are presented at the end of this paper

The Dhow's last redoubt? Vestiges of wooden boatbuilding traditions in Yemen

This is an accepted version of an article that went on to be published in the Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies in 2010. The reference for the published version is: Agius, D.A., Cooper, J.P., Jansen van Rensburg, J.and Zazzaro, C., 2010 " The dhow's last redoubt? Vestiges of wooden boatbuilding traditions in Yemen". Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies 40: 71—84. Please use the published version in any citations.The final version of the article is available from Archaeopress via the link in this record.Researchers from the MARES Project visited Yemen in February 2009 in order to investigate the building and use of traditional wooden boats (‘dhows’, in English parlance) in the country. The survey covered the coastline from Aden to Salif in the Red Sea, and visited centres of traditional dhow building and use, including Ghureira, Mocha and Khokha. The project aimed to assess the state of the industry, establish a vessel typology, understand construction processes, learn about the use of these vessels, and compile a lexicon of boatbuilding and nautical terms. This article offers the preliminary findings of the survey, pending more comprehensive publication in the future. The survey found that, in all locations visited, the building of new vessels had rapidly diminished in the preceding decade, and had now all but ceased. The only ongoing activity witnessed during the survey was repairs to existing wooden craft. In formerly large boat-building centres, wooden boat-builders, mostly elderly, have ceased work, while younger men were building fishing craft using fibreglass – the material used in the great majority of vessels in Yemen today. A preliminary typology of surviving vessel was established. The doubleended cargo-carrying za<īmahs and zārūqs were recorded only as 2 abandoned hulks. Double-ended <obrīs and transom-sterned ‘large hūrīs’, with their stern-quarter ‘fins’, continued to be used in small numbers for sein fishing and transporting livestock. Again, most examples were abandoned. Various forms of small log and plank hūrī ‘canoes’ were observed, few still in use, while the log-raft ramas survives on the Red Sea coast. The terms used for these vessel types form part of a linguistic survey of dhow activity in Yemen.This research was conducted as part of the MARES Project, a three-year programme investigating the maritime past and heritage of the Red Sea and Arabian-Persian Gulf. MARES is based at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter (http://projects.exeter.ac.uk/mares). The programme is funded by the Golden Web Foundation, an educational charity registered in the UK (www.goldenweb.org), to which our gratitude is due. 27 Thanks are also due to the Seven Pillars of Wisdom Trust, which provided additional financial support for the fieldwork. In addition, the MARES team would like to thank the following people for their assistance: Dr Abdulla M. Bawazir, President of Yemen’s General Organisation of Antiquities and Museums (GOAM); Dr Muhammad Taha al-Asbahi, General Director of Antiquities at GOAM; Dr Raja Batawil, head of GOAM in Aden; our GOAMappointed field companion, Salah al-Mansuri; Mr. Hasan Saleh Shihab; Emily Allardyce, Fuad Mazid al-Matairi and their colleagues at the British Yemeni Language Institute; our driver and guide Muhammad al-Matairi; Edward Prados, Director of Amideast; Chris Evens; the British Council; and the British Embassy. Last but not least, the team wishes to thank the many individual informants along Yemen’s coast who gave their assistance to its research

Maritime Heritage in the Sultanate of Oman

With over 1700 km of coastline, the inhabitants of Oman have had a deep and enduring relationship with the sea for millennia. Located between the Arabian Gulf and the western Indian Ocean, its fishermen have relied on the sea for sustenance. Its mariners were involved in developing long-distance maritime trade from at least the Bronze Age and continued sailing the monsoonal trade routes well into the twentieth century. Periodically, its rulers have established maritime polities extending to Zanzibar and the Makran coast, creating sea-based migrations in the process. With such a rich and enduring seafaring past, it is therefore not surprising that the modern nation-state of Oman has had an active interest in studying and preserving its MUCH.This chapter explores the historical sources, archaeological finds and experimental activities that have allowed researchers to understand Oman’s maritime past and contribute to its current efforts to conserve and showcase its rich maritime connections

Remembering the Sea: Personal and Communal Recollections of Maritime Life in Jizan and the Farasan Islands, Saudi Arabia

This is the final version of the article. Available from the publisher via the DOI in this record.People create narratives of their maritime past through the remembering and forgetting of seafaring experiences, and through the retention and disposal of maritime artefacts that function mnemonically to evoke or suppress those experiences. The sustenance and reproduction of the resulting narratives depends further on effective media of intergenerational transmission; otherwise, they are lost. Rapid socio-economic transformation across Saudi Arabia in the age of oil has disrupted longstanding seafaring economies in the Red Sea archipelago of the Farasan Islands, and the nearby mainland port of Jizan. Vestiges of wooden boatbuilding activity are few; long-distance dhow trade with South Asia, the Arabian-Persian Gulf and East Africa has ceased; and a once substantial pearling and nacre (mother of pearl) collection industry has dwindled to a tiny group of hobbyists: no youth dive today. This widespread withdrawal from seafaring activity among many people in these formerly maritime-oriented communities has diminished the salience of such activity in cultural memory, and has set in motion narrative creation processes, through which memories are filtered and selected, and objects preserved, discarded, or lost. This paper is a product of the encounter of the authors with keepers of maritime memories and objects in the Farasan Islands and Jizan. An older generation of men recall memories of their experiences as boat builders, captains, seafarers, pearl divers and fishermen. Their recounted memories are inscribed, and Arabic seafaring terms recorded. The extent of the retention of maritime material cultural items as memorials is also assessed, and the rôle of individual, communal and state actors in that retention is considered. Through this reflection, it becomes clear that the extra-biological memory and archive of the region’s maritime past is sparse; that intergenerational transmission is failing; that the participation of state agencies in maritime heritage creation is highly limited; and that, as a result, memories current among the older generation have limited prospect of survival. These memories, recorded and interpreted here, identify the Farasan Islands as a former centre of the pearling industry in the Red Sea, and identify them and Jizan as open to far-reaching maritime-mediated cultural influences in an era before the imposition of the attributes of the modern nation-state.This study was funded by the Golden Web Foundation (UK registered charity number 1100608), with additional support from the Seven Pillars of Wisdom Trust (UK registered charity number 208669)

Are self-report of disability pension and long-term sickness absence accurate? Comparisons of self-reported interview data with national register data in a Swedish twin cohort

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Self-reported disability pension (DP) and sickness absence are commonly used in epidemiological and other studies as a measure of exposure or even as an outcome. The aims were (1) to compare such self-reports with national register information in order to evaluate the validity of self-reported DP and sickness absence, and (2) to estimate the concordance of reporting behaviour in different twin zygosity groups, also by sex.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>All Swedish twins born 1933-1958 who participated in the Screening Across the Lifespan Twin study (SALT) 1998-2003, were included (31,122 individuals). The self-reported DP and long-term sickness absence (LTSA) at the time of interview was compared to the corresponding register information retrieved from the National Social Insurance Agency by calculating the proportions of agreements, kappa, sensitivity, specificity, concordance rates, and chi-square test, to evaluate construct validity.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The proportions of overall agreement were 96% and specificity 99% for both DP and LTSA, while the sensitivity was 70% for DP and 45% for LTSA. Kappa estimates were 0.76 for DP, and 0.58 for LTSA. The proportions of positive agreement were 64% for DP and 42% for LTSA. No difference in response style was found between zygosity groups among complete twin pairs for DP and LTSA. Results were similar for women and men and across age. Kappa estimates for DP differed somewhat depending on years of education, 0.68 (college/university) vs. 0.77 (less than 13 years in school) but not for LTSA.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Self-reported DP data may be very useful in studies when register information is not available, however, register data is preferred especially for LTSA. The same degree of twin similarity was found for truthful self-report of DP and LTSA in both monozygotic and dizygotic twin pairs. Thus, the response style was not influenced by genetic factors. One consequence of this would be that when estimating the relative importance of genetic and environmental effects from twin models, heritability estimates would not be biased.</p

Opium use and risk of mortality from digestive diseases: A prospective cohort study

Objectives:Opium use, particularly in low doses, is a common practice among adults in northeastern Iran. We aimed to investigate the association between opium use and subsequent mortality from disorders of the digestive tract.Methods:We used data from the Golestan Cohort Study, a prospective cohort study in northeastern Iran, with detailed, validated data on opium use and several other exposures. A total of 50,045 adults were enrolled during a 4-year period (2004-2008) and followed annually until December 2012, with a follow-up success rate of 99. We used Cox proportional hazard regression models to evaluate the association between opium use and outcomes of interest.Results:In all, 8,487 (17) participants reported opium use, with a mean duration of 12.7 years. During the follow-up period 474 deaths from digestive diseases were reported (387 due to gastrointestinal cancers and 87 due to nonmalignant etiologies). Opium use was associated with an increased risk of death from any digestive disease (adjusted hazard ratio (HR)=1.55, 95 confidence interval (CI)=1.24-1.93). The association was dose dependent, with a HR of 2.21 (1.57-3.31) for the highest quintile of cumulative opium use vs. no use (P trend =0.037). The HRs (95 CI) for the associations between opium use and malignant and nonmalignant causes of digestive mortality were 1.38 (1.07-1.76) and 2.60 (1.57-4.31), respectively. Increased risks were seen both for smoking opium and for ingestion of opium.Conclusions:Long-term opium use, even in low doses, is associated with increased risk of death from both malignant and nonmalignant digestive diseases