Given the pervasive, arresting presence of forts, castles and watchtowers that loom from hill-tops or are tucked amid date palm groves in the Sultanate of Oman, it comes as somewhat of a surprise to learn from Dr Patricia Groves, author of the recently released book, Strongholds of Heritage: Forts and Castles of Oman, that hers is only the second book documenting Oman's castle and fort heritage that have so far been published.
A well-known art critic and cultural commentator in Oman, Dr Groves spent six years assembling this book which promises to indelibly situate Oman's varied, complex and beautiful architectural heritage in the literary universe.
The genesis of the book occurred when a former Dutch ambassador to Oman commissioned Dr Groves to create two booklets, Country Castles of Oman and Strongholds of Heritage, to support the Ministry of Tourism's Forts and Castles Development Project.
Thousands of copies of the booklets were subsequently distributed in the castles and forts. "Everyone loved reading them and they became very popular," Dr Groves says. The writing and researching of these booklets culminated into the next step: writing of the book.
Documenting history
Dr Groves originally intended to explore the castles and forts addressed in the booklets in further detail along with a few others. "The Ministry of Tourism greatly encouraged me to work on the book and thus wished me to cover all the forts that lay under their jurisdiction," she says.
The book eventually ended up covering 28 forts and castles in all. Considering the architectural and historical individuality of each structure situated across the sultanate, Dr Groves embarked upon an arduous journey of researching about each building prior to visiting and documenting it.
While there is an undeniable scholarly element to the book, Dr Groves emphasises that she nevertheless strives to imbue her writing with a literary and poetical sensibility. "This is my way of writing," she says. "I am a documentary writer in the sense that I seek to capture a reality of a place. I am particularly interested in the verbalisation of an atmosphere unique to a certain place."
Thus, while presenting the readers with a combination of meticulously researched historical facts and technical architectural details pertaining to the structures, Dr Groves also endeavours to resist drowning the text in jargon.
Her aim is to make the book engaging and exciting to the readers. Having previously been an academic, she says that the experience taught her to take complex ideas and distil the knowledge in an accessible fashion to her audience.
"Each fort or castle possesses a unique architecture and host of stories. They are indeed characters and personalities in themselves," Dr Groves says.
She strove to encapsulate the spirit of each structure in the chapter titles — for example, the reference to the neem tree in the Quriyat fort chapter title details the extent to which the large, sprawling neem tree growing in the courtyard of that fort has become part of the overall architectural space.
"I like to learn stories from the people inside the fort — usually local residents — about the place. However, the stories they share must be authenticated as I want the ones featured in my book to have a sense of validity," she points out, clearly wishing to avoid an excess of apocryphal anecdotes.
Jaap Croese, an Oman-based Dutch photographer who himself has authored two Oman-centric photography books, collaborated with Dr Groves on the book. "It was very important to me that the photography was illustrative of the text: The photographs should not be static, they have to have a relationship with the text," she says. Sensitivity to the dynamics of balancing the photography and text was of utmost priority to her.
Suitable for all
The book is aimed as much at international readers as at Omanis and expatriates residing in Oman, enlightening the readers about Oman's extraordinarily rich architectural heritage. "What other country can boast as many castles and forts?" she asks. "Not many know perhaps that the watchtowers, for instance, are millennia old."
Dr Groves does not take the conventional route of categorising the buildings according to geography and instead chooses to focus upon the structures as coastal and interior, tracking the transitions that occur between each and the architectural energies specific to them.
The book also informs the reader regarding the distinction between forts and castles, the former being military structures, primarily utilised for defence, while the latter were used as residences for royalty and aristocracy.
"However, if the castle was fortified, it could then assume the function of a fort," Dr Groves says, indicating that the structures' categories lie in ambiguity. In that respect, contextualising the surrounding environment, culture, terrain and historical circumstances was integral while chronicling the structure itself.
Dr Groves concludes the book with a chapter set in an unnamed castle in ruins that she and her companion stumbled upon in a date palm grove.
While the other castles and forts are documented and written about in scholarly detail, this is a purely personal chapter in which she chooses to evoke the purely romanticised, mysterious atmosphere that pervades the space.
In a sense, this chapter, dedicated to the unnamed castle, serves to reiterate the essential spirit of function and beauty that define the castles and forts found in the book. Dr Groves certainly endeavours to present them as leading players in their own right in the making of their country's past.
Priyanka Sacheti is a freelance journalist based in Muscat, Oman.
