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
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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.
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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
