Saturday 27 / April / 2024
Muscat: The National Museum on Tuesday organised a lecture titled "Maritime Heritage between the Sultanate of Oman, Yemen, and Morocco: Similarities and Differences".
The lecture was presented by Dr. Yahya Latif Abdullah Al Abali, an academic researcher at the National Institute of Archaeological Sciences and Heritage in the Kingdom of Morocco and Assistant Professor of Cultural Heritage at Hajjah University in the Republic of Yemen.
The lecture addressed the maritime heritage between the Sultanate of Oman, Yemen, and Morocco in both its tangible and intangible aspects, focusing on Omani aflaj, Yemeni katzaims, and Moroccan khettaras, highlighting their technical, natural, and cultural characteristics, and their roles in the development of human societies. It also discussed the challenges facing them, means of preserving them, geographical similarities and differences reflected in the deep heritage of Arab countries.
It is worth mentioning that "khettaras" are one of the oldest traditional irrigation systems concentrated in the southeastern regions of Morocco, relying on underground water channels to bring water from highlands and irrigate lower lands based on the law of gravity.
As for "katzaims", they are a method that utilizes water for irrigation and mainly relies on a network of underground channels dug in the valleys towards a straight horizontal line, connecting to each other openly on their edges, and flowing downwards until reaching solid ground. These "katzaims" are usually concentrated in the Sana'a Basin area.
The organisation of this lecture comes within the framework of the bilateral cultural cooperation between the Sultanate of Oman, represented by the National Museum, and the Kingdom of Morocco, represented by the National Institute of Archaeological Sciences and Heritage.
