Exploring
Bountiful in Arabia: Recent Travels
By Garth Norman
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I have recently had an incredible experience being able
to travel in the Book of Mormon land “Bountiful”
in the region of Dhofar Oman, on the Indian Sea coast
of Arabia. The Book of Mormon history is becoming more
real, both in terms of our understanding of it as history,
and with respect to its contributions to ancient history.
I truly feel a new beginning in Book of Mormon exploration
is upon us with doors opening after many years of arduous
plodding. I thank George Potter and his Nephi Project
for his invitation for me to make an archaeological
exploration of pertinent locations in this region, and
for making the Oman exploration trip possible and fruitful.
George Potter’s prime candidate for Nephi’s
ship building dock at the Khor Rori inlet is truly impressive.
I felt a bond with Nephi as I stood on the edge of a
high mesa cliff on the edge of inlet and viewed the
waves crashing against the cliff below where Nephi's
brothers may well have threatened to throw him to his
death.
Recent excavations of the earliest citadel city of Sumhuram
located on the inlet shore that managed the frankincense
trade industry dates to the latter part of the fourth
century B.C., according to recent excavations. We observed
several cuts in the rim rock on adjacent shoreline of
the inlet that were probably used for boat docks. One
had a smooth flat taper that could have been used for
beaching ships for repair, or building and launching
a ship. An un-excavated stone structure nearby beckoned
a shovel at another day to see if it might date back
to Lehi's time.
Interesting Speculations
With Ali Ahmed Al Shahri, a local antiquarian as our
guide, we inspected pictographs in a cave in the nearby
mountains. The pictographs depicted three sailing ships.
Ali has collected similar pictures of 35 ships in the
Dhofar area in a variety of styles and comparative sizes.
He hopes to be able to date them by testing the paint
pigmentation.
Ali had recorded ship pictographs
in the isolated Wadi Sayq canyon, favored by some as
Lehi's Bountiful for its isolation, but no spot along
this coast was isolated from the view of passing ships
and occasional visits.
Recent excavations of the city citadel uncovered a room
that was used as an iron ore smelter. We wonder if Nephi’s
earlier discovery of local iron ore for tool making
could have utilized or even started this smelter development.
Smoothly cut stones in a shrine complex were measured
where I found both the Royal Babylonian cubit (49.5
cm.) and Royal Egyptian cubit (52.5 cm.). This was confirmed
by using my marked meter tape, which I developed for
comparative study in 1984 after discovering these measures
at Izapa, Mexico. These two primary ancient standards
for measurement from the two earliest major civilizations
in the Middle East indeed have a long and far flung
history.
I was struck by the striking similarity of many petroglyphs
recorded by Ali with those I have recorded at the Parowan
Gap and elsewhere in southern Utah that may date back
to the same time period, and that have a long history.
These include spirals, concentric circles, fields of
circles, lattices, parallel zigzag lines, two circles
connect by a line, rows and fields of dots, rows of
parallel lines, and more. I recall a petroglyph from
Lynn Hilton’s exploration in Arabia of strange
human stick figures identical to those in the Southwest
U.S., with arms and legs forming opposing right angle
U’s.
Small World
The ancient world was a much smaller
place to seafarers than we have been led to believe
by my isolationist American anthropologists colleagues.
A map in the new regional museum at Salalah, Oman, shows
the sea trade network extending from Dhofar west to
South Africa, and east through the Sea of Japan to China.
The extent of the sea trade network seems to be confirmed
by my measurement of a stone box in the Cleveland Museum
in 2002 from China with width, height and depth measures
based on the Royal Egyptian cubit.
Well my friends, it seems to be no greater feat for
the ancient sea traders to stretch from South Africa
to China, than to keep going east along the Pacific
coast of America. Chinese ship anchors found in San
Francisco Bay from an apparent ship wreck are proof
enough, but are curiously ignored.
The Egyptian and Babylonian cubits could have arrived
at Izapa by this coastal route, as well as by crossing
the sea with Nephi’s ship. Crossing the Atlantic
with the Mulekites and possibly the Jaredites, and whoever
else, is also becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.
The rich “Bountiful” lands of the Dhofar
mountains and the sea coast are being advertised by
the Omani travel bureau as the “bountiful”
of Arabia in a pamphlet we saw at our hotel.
This land is everything George Potter and Richard Wellington
have told us in their excellent book Lehi in the
Wilderness, which you can get on our AAF web link
if you don’t already have it. I am now re-reading
mine with renewed interest and insights.
No Isolated Journey
We have tended to read Nephi’s brief account of
the Lord leading them on an eight-year journey through
the wilderness to southern Arabia, where they spent
a few more years, as a journey in isolation. George
and Richard explode this myth. And the clue that father
Ishmael died and was buried at a place called Nahom,
which has been found with stone carvings bearing the
name, confirms their involvement with other peoples.
Lynn Hilton argued for Lehi making a significant impact
on Lehanites, which George and Richard explored further
in route from the Valley of Lemuel on the sea of Acaba.
So, we may suspect that Lehi could have similarly had
a significant positive influence and interaction with
peoples in the region of this Bountiful land in Dhofar.
And that Lehi was led here to a world shipping port
where it would be possible to design, build and equip
a sailing ship large enough, and then get his men trained
sufficiently to sail it to America.
Why should we assume the Lehi colony
had to live in isolation and build and sail the ship
with no help, as some suppose, just because the brief
text does not mention other people — even though
there were ship builders not far up the coast, who would
have been sailing by seeing their project?
We may never know the exact location of Lehi’s
Bountiful and ship-building port, but then again, who
can see what future archaeology digging might reveal.
The Book of Mormon is indeed taking its place in helping
construct ancient history.
See my new Book of
Mormon Geography Map and Book just off the press
by going to our Ancient America Foundation website,
http://www.ancientamerica.org,
under the menu “Bookstore.” An order form
is available for purchase.
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