Painted Rocks, Deep in the Caves of Oman
Humanities Professor Studies Ancient Art For Clues About Culture and Ritual
By Kenna Caprio
There is plenty of trekking, but it’s not nearly as glamorous (or quite so perilous) as Indiana Jones might make it out to be. “We’re pushing aside branches and trees to get to the rock art and to find our way,” says alumnus William Zimmerle, BA’97 (Flor), assistant professor of humanities at the Metropolitan Campus.
He’s been documenting rock art in cave shelters — in photographs and writing — from the Dhofar region of the Sultanate of Oman for more than three years.
Deep in shelters near the coast of the Arabian Peninsula, families and tribes finger-painted images on rock formations — creations which date to between the fourth and fifth centuries B.C. to the fifth century A.D. Plunging their hands into paint made from hematite and carbon, elements found in soil, they produced scenes of warriors, animals, ships, trees.
“Rock art is so important to humanity as a whole. It’s pretty universal. It’s all around the world. It tells us about the human spirit to survive and to write and to create images,” says Zimmerle.
Ancient Artistry
The scenes show figures — most likely men — climbing trees, collecting dates and coconuts using ladders and nets; packs of Arabian camels; caravans; warriors on camels and horses; handprints; baboons, foxes and Nubian ibex; and ships. “Each rock art panel has a set of images that allows us to shed more light on what life was like back then,” he says.
Researchers also discovered figures that could be women, but it’s not definitive. For now, most of these determinations are speculative. “A lot of people think that women are responsible for making the art,” says Zimmerle. “The men went off, and the women were protecting and organizing their space, and making images.” Creating the cave paintings, like the burning of incense, is ritualistic, says Zimmerle.
“We found this one cave shelter that had extensive weathering, but also had the most impressive rock art. The locals call this cave the ‘Drawings of the Jinn.’ Jinn are ghosts, spirits, even ancestors, in Arabia. It’s where the Anglicized word genie comes from. It’s so vivid, it’s hard to find, and it’s pretty mystical,” says Zimmerle. “Always, in the history of Arabia, this area has been enchanted and mystical.” People in Arabia burn frankincense in the morning and evening to keep evil away — burning during midday could attract it. The ancient Dhofaris even included handprints in their cave art to protect their space from evil. “We all want goodness, and we want to keep the bad away. The rituals involved in creating images, as a way to preserve your space, family and tribe, are part of who you are,” Zimmerle says.
He previously studied incense burners, “a marker of early frankincense trade,” in Jordan as part of his dissertation at the University of Pennsylvania in 2014. That work first took him to the Middle East. As the Samuel Kress Fellow in the history of art and archaeology at the American Center of Oriental Research in Jordan, Zimmerle discovered that potters still make those same burners today. That knowledge inspired his first trip to Oman.
The following year as a Fulbright scholar, he continued his study of incense burners in Dhofar, located in the southern region of the sultanate. That’s when local Omani friends showed Zimmerle the extensive rock art paintings in the caves. He had a new project.
“Excavation is hard work,” says Zimmerle. “We start at 4 or 5 in the morning, when it’s cooler, and work ’til noon.”
The cave art remains, faded from weathering and age, because it’s largely protected from the elements. When the monsoon rains came, ancient peoples had no choice but to flee to the caves for shelter. The valleys in Dhofar filled with water, so people would take their animals into the caves, too. “That’s why the soil is very fertile,” says Zimmerle. At present, the valleys still see a rainy season. In the summer, “It becomes like Scotland. Just gorgeous. It’s all desert, and then one day it suddenly starts to rain, for two or three months.”
Helpful Hosts
Without local guides, Zimmerle would have been lost — “It’s a really rugged environment” — and his research may never have progressed.
His Omani colleague Ali Ahmed Al Shahri knew where to find cave art, having extensively studied and collected data, walking the landscapes for his entire life. “Without that work, we’d be lost out in the field,” Zimmerle says.
“Most people have very 19th-century colonial views of archaeology and that’s not the case. We work alongside locals, who are keepers of their own heritage. We train them in some of the latest techniques, and they train us often in aspects of ethnography and local traditions,” he continues. “There’s no one person like Indiana Jones getting all the glory. The glory belongs to the country and the people.”
And working in Oman presents far fewer logistical complications for academics than other countries in the Middle East. “Oman is always there, maintaining stable relationships, bringing partners into dialogue with one another. Because of that it is probably the safest Middle Eastern country to work in. The people are the kindest and most hospitable that I’ve worked with around the world.”
It helps that the royal court of Oman supports Zimmerle’s research. The Sultan Qaboos Cultural Center in Washington, D.C., has also provided some of the funding for Zimmerle’s research. “Sultan Qaboos is a renaissance king. When he took the throne [in 1970], he invested in his people. He took revenue from oil and brought it back to the country and invested it in education, science, infrastructure, culture and arts,” says Zimmerle. In Oman, “we can do this kind of work safely,” he says. “We’ve had unhindered access everywhere we’ve wanted to go, and that’s been a big key.”
Though many archaeological, cultural and heritage sites have been ravaged and destroyed in other Middle Eastern countries during decades of unrest — not in Oman. “Oman still has its cultural treasures,” says Zimmerle.
Highlighting Humanities
His job, he says, is to preserve and protect. Down the line, he wants to explore conservation and protect the cave sites for archaeological tourism. There are so many projects within projects, he says.
“To be human is to be part of culture. We all have a cultural background and want to know more about our place in this world. That draws and pulls us in. The current is powerful and strong.” — William Zimmerle, assistant professor of humanities
Paint residue is out for laboratory testing, so researchers can determine if plant dyes or other minerals were added to the materials. Researchers are examining the letters and inscriptions accompanying some of the images with plans to add the markings to a database. Eventually they’ll grant access to other linguists, scholars and experts, so translations can be made. With their expertise, Zimmerle is hopeful in a few years, people will be able to read the inscriptions and understand more about ancient South Arabian languages.
“This whole area is full of writing. The inscriptions are made with the Thamudic alphabet. It’s pre-Islamic,” says Zimmerle. “We can’t read it yet. We can read the letters, but when we try to read what it says, it’s almost gibberish.”
He also has FDU students involved in the research — art students have been drawing panels of the rock art. “They will walk away with skills in museum drafting and illustrating,” says Zimmerle. “They can draw artifacts. They can actually go to sites and draw.” One day he hopes to take FDU students to Oman for fieldwork.
“Students tend to say they love culture classes, but they want majors that are more economically productive,” says Zimmerle. “I tell them that you can still find work. There’s great work to be done.” He recommends interested students study archaeology with him and also select a science minor, like chemistry. With that dual expertise, graduates can work on archaeological projects, testing residue in ancient burners, for example, to determine the composition of incense.
“It’s not humanities versus science. Ultimately, it’s bringing these two into discussion and tandem. We’re asking macro-humanities questions, and we’re using science on a micro level to answer them,” Zimmerle says.
Notes From the Field
In February and March 2017, Zimmerle exhibited images at the Sultan Qaboos Cultural Center. The exhibit and accompanying catalog were the project’s first benchmark. He hopes to have the United Nations host the exhibition going forward.
More recently, Zimmerle conducted a “field-study session” over the summer, in part due to monsoon-soaked worksites. “The landscape, albeit beautiful from continuous mist, became impassable. The fog was so thick I had to turn back, because I was afraid my truck would roll down the mountain or that I would hit a camel sitting in the middle of the road.” Instead, the team worked on materials already collected. “In many ways, we were more productive than ever since we were backlogged.”
He is also starting to use 3-D cameras and infrared technology on the project. “Rock art is really hard to photograph because of the lighting conditions. We really have to experiment on getting it right.” These advancements allow researchers to see far more than with the naked eye. “For example, we are able to capture fingerprints from the cave walls which will help us identify the genders and ages of the painters.”
Zimmerle is on sabbatical for the spring 2018 semester, but plans to teach Introduction to Anthropology in fall 2018 and Introduction to Archaeology in spring 2019. “Every break and holiday, I’m over there figuring things out — another piece of the puzzle,” says Zimmerle. “One find can change the entire history and narrative of an area.”
