Forts and Cannon of Oman.

[Ibrahiim al Balooshi]

This print shows Forts Mirani and Jellali ..The two major Forts constructed by the Portuguese ..There also built a few towers around Muttrah.

[Kubur]

Salaam,

A good reference for Omani forts in East Africa
https://www.academia.edu/4719393/Oma...n_East_Africa_

best

[fernando]

Very often fortifications were built over the foundations or remnants of earlier castles, although with designs more compatible with contemporaneous defence needs.
Fortifications Jalali (ex-São João) & Mirani do not escape the rule; they were built upon earlier Islamic forifications by Portuguese Rui Freire.
Mucat presents an extremely nice and curious defence net. Formed by three defence sysems, each with a different purpose.
The first one composed by a wall of envolving the city, as a primary line of defence. In the surrounding mountain heights towers of survey and atck form a circle around the harbour and the city.
These third complex, Jalali and Mirani together with Matrah, were the more sophisticated expression of what may be called the art of defence based in a Luso-Arab cultural whole and not Luso-European.
This might have been the greatest Lusitanian creation on what concerns their way of projecting and living architeture. Seeking to mix with the gigantic landscape that involves it and to which forms an integring part, all geographic irregularities are profited, with the capacity and shrewdness well typical of their know how to live with geographic discontinuity.
Although this formidable defence complex was considered unassailable, it was subdued by the Omanits in 1653.


.

[fernando]

Being nowadays a Sultanate Government-institute, also apparently the fort of Soar was rebuilt by Portuguese, in the case by Rui Freire de Andrade, having had at the time for Captain Gonçalo da Silveira,
It is also beleived that Soar was fortified with trace of Architet Inofre de Carvalho.


.

[fernando]

I wonder where the more comprehensive displays of artillery in Oman are already open to public. In fact a rather complex and expensive work took place quite a few years ago for the purpose; an episode that i happened to follow at the time.
Those are the Castles of Al Hazm, turned into an artillery museum and Bayt Ar Rudaydah, this one converted into a heritage small arms museum which displays the historical progression traditional weapons in Oman.

Attached a picture of a Portuguese crest in a cannon at the entrance of one of Muscat forts

.

[Ibrahiim al Balooshi]

Originally Posted by fernando

I wonder where the more comprehensive displays of artillery in Oman are already open to public. In fact a rather complex and expensive work took place quite a few years ago for the purpose; an episode that i happened to follow at the time.
Those are the Castles of Al Hazm, turned into an artillery museum and Bayt Ar Rudaydah, this one converted into a heritage small arms museum which displays the historical progression traditional weapons in Oman.

Attached a picture of a Portuguese crest in a cannon at the entrance of one of Muscat forts

.

Salaams fernando...True indeed ...I haven't got to those exhibitions yet but am working round to them...There are a number of Portuguese cannon and certainly one at the gates of Nizwa with a Swiss Cannon also. They often have the crest of the particular General etc over the barrel..I will pick up on those and the exhibition which I believe were the result of comprehensive work by Dr Roads. See Martini Henry...http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...3&page=2&pp=30 at #34

Your comments about Sohar...called Soar in the old maps (and correctly mentioned as such in your post)... is interesting and I think you are correct...although details I have read indicate the first Omani firing of cannon was in 1616 from that fort...but it is vague and unclear. Certainly I have Mirani and Jelali plus the towers at Muttrah as Portuguese, though, there must be at least influence if not involvement in other fortified projects. It is also true that they retreated inland when the Piri Reius Turkish expedition attacked Muscat pre the building of Mirani and Jelali... Did not the Portuguese pass on their techniques in areas like Nizwa and Mannah...the latter being a fortified town reminiscent of Portuguese work? The question as to when these cannon arrived at the forts they are now in...is as yet, not answered but I hope to do that as the thread develops.

Thank you for the excellent details...

Regards,
Ibrahiim al Balooshi.

[fernando]

Originally Posted by Ibrahiim al Balooshi

...the exhibition which I believe were the result of comprehensive work by Dr Roads..

Correct; he was the mentor ... and his nephew was on the ground.

Originally Posted by Ibrahiim al Balooshi

Certainly I have Mirani and Jelali plus the towers at Muttrah as Portuguese, though, there must be at least influence if not involvement in other fortified projects..

Countless; either built, rebuilt or modified.
Built from the ground were, for example,
Kalba (Quelba) under Portuguese rule in the XVI century.
Khor Fakkan (Curfacão) in the Sharjah side, with its triangular fort already in ruins by 1666.
The you have Diba Hisn (Doba) (the smallest of three Dibas) which, as you know, was once Omani Capital. Under Portuguese rule from 1624 to 1648, it is beleived they built a fort there.
You also have Qurayyat (Curiate), conquered in 1507. Its rectangular fort built by the Arabs was rebuilt by the Portuguese in the last quarter XVI century.

One must refrain from quoting other examples, as the doubt remains in whether a fortification was Portuguese because the place was under their rule, or indeed was built or rebuilt by them ... something often unclear in citations.
Also to be taken into account that present decharacterization occurs when archelogic autorities, carrying restorations interventions, promote the islamization of certain aspects ... battlements and other.

Originally Posted by Ibrahiim al Balooshi

The question as to when these cannon arrived at the forts they are now in....

One thing inevitable to mind when you take over a medieval castle is to modify it for artillery purposes.
Cannons are heavy, but are portable ... and a vital asset in the period. They moved them a lot ... everywhere ... for the most varied reasons. You take them from you adversary when you win the battle and start using them yourself, you take them as a war trophy and you certainly take them from remote distances to exhibit them in a museum or at the door of somebody important.
One of the most formidable Muslim cannons that ever existed in India resides nowadays in Lisbon Military Museum

.

[Ibrahiim al Balooshi]

Originally Posted by Kubur

Salaam,

A good reference for Omani forts in East Africa
https://www.academia.edu/4719393/Oma...n_East_Africa_

best

Salaams Kubur... That is a superb resource ... I wonder if there is a majic button to get it translated into English for Forum Library that I haven't seen on the site... non the less it is in easy to follow French and the diagrams are great... Thanks for adding that fine reference

Regards,
Ibrahiim al Balooshi.

[fernando]

Originally Posted by Ibrahiim al Balooshi

... non the less it is in easy to follow French and the diagrams are great...

There you may discern a good example of the said difference between property and origin, when you read the title 'Omani Forts in East Africa'.
As may be read in the text, the Fort Jesus de Mombaça (as the name Jesus denotes), was built by Portuguese in 1593-1596 and only taken by the Omani in 1698.
Built upon a coral formation, is considered one the more significant examples of Portuguese military architeture of the XVI century in the oriental African coast; nowadays classified as world patrimony by UNESCO.

.