Plenty of fruit in Michele Ziolkowski’s Fujairah’s Date Palm Gardens
Fujairah’s Date Palm Gardens, A Preliminary Survey by Fujairah resident and UAE citizen Dr Michele C Ziolkowski, published by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Hamad Al Sharqi, Crown Prince of Fujairah, is a nearly hundred pages long volume that provides a detailed picture of the settlements which have existed for centuries in the palm gardens of the coastal towns and villages of Fujairah, UAE, and adjacent parts of Oman — a “vast acreage of alluvial farmland so juicy rich, you can almost hear it gurgling like the tummy of an overfed infant”, as a writer put it.
Ziolkowski, a trained archaeologist, was intrigued by the mounds of soil and rubble, often dismissed as collateral damage of agricultural activities, present in the above mentioned areas. She was sure there was a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma here.
She began examining and, with the help of associates, excavating the mounds. What she found there was a wealth of material, which spoke of life and loves of times gone by.
The mounds (“nud” in Arabic), were old. Some of them were already visible prior to the development of the twentieth century date palm gardens in Fujairah. Several generations of Fujairah farmers do not remember how they were formed; as far as they could recall, “they were always there.” A hundred mounds were explored, revealing items such as shells, pottery sherds, khunj ware, ceramics, porcelain, copper coins, imported ware from places ranging from Iran to Myanmar, Thailand to China and Mesopotamia to Indus.
As the shovels, trowels, spades, brushes, sieves and buckets began their work, a bewildering range of surprises were encountered: gravel, quartz, boulders, pebbles, car tracks, farm fences, debris, trees, animal fodder, farming and gardening material and others of the kind. In a message, the author described the exhilaration and exhaustion of her journey. “It took years of work,” she said. “Even crawling under wire fences, commando style!
The article has been published on Fujairah Observer Magazine page 10, 11 and 13. To read the full article please click on the link below:
https://www.fujairahobserver.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/4-April-2021.pdf
