ABSTRACT
Until mid-1970 Oman was among the least known countries in the world. Geographically isolated by the Arabian Sea to the east, the Empty Quarter to the west and mountains to north and south, ruled over by a backward-looking and autocratic Sultan and with no apparent resources, Oman could have remained this way indefinitely. But the discovery of oil was to change everything. Drive off the main highway, however, and onto the dirt roads and once again one can be in the unchanging Oman of the past, the Oman where warring tribesmen fought and died, where mud forts dominate every likely vantage-point and where inhabitants of oasis towns live as they have done for centuries past. Oman is full of mysteries, the round stone grave-mounds topping the mountains, the fossil shells hundreds of miles into the desert, the hollow geodes whose origin puzzles even the geologists, and stone implements and potsherds found in the most unexpected places.
