" Oases -settlements in Oman" an Exhibition at the Omani Fine Arts Society from 16-17 May 2007

Oases are one of the outstanding features of Oman's cultural landscape. Over the past five millennia they have been shaping the history and cultural environment of the Oman Peninsula. Yet in the wake of modernization they are undergoing processes of rapid change and deterioration. The study and documentation of Omani Oases Settlements in Transformation is the topic of the joint Omani-German project, which was initiated in 1998. Upon completion of a two year long pilot study, funded by Sultan Qaboos University and the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, the project has now entered its second phase, which will cover other areas in the Sultanate, under the joint sponsorship of Sultan Qaboos University and the German Research Foundation.

The exhibition "Oases Settlements in Oman" presents the results of the first two years of research and documentation work within the on-going project. Covering a representative transect through the Western Hajjar mountains the joint team of Omani and German scholars and students surveyed and documented the archaeology, history and ethnography, the architecture and urban structure, and the agrarian systems of the settlements of Wadi Bani Awf, of Balad Seet, Misfat Al-Abriyin and Al-Hamra. Research focused upon patters of land-use and settlement structure and material culture, and upon processes of transformation from the earliest available evidence of occupation into the modern period. Based on the results of this research suggestions and perspectives for future development and cultural heritage preservation are being developed.