HIGH TAQAH

Built in the ^19th century as the residence of Sheikh Ali bin Timman Al Ma'ashani, this small fort surrounded by crenellations with triangular merlons, and featuring three square towers, gilds in the sun in its salmon-colored dress. Made of Taqah stone, limestone and coral, this is the southernmost publicly accessible Sultanian fortification in the country. In the 1930s, the fort began a peaceful career as an administrative headquarters under Sultan Taimur bin Faisal, housing the local "prefecture". This role came to an end in 1984. Restoration work was undertaken in 1992, and was all the more successful as the citadel had benefited from excellent maintenance.

From the terreplein in front of the entrance, note another more martial fort on the northern hilltop, 500 meters away, which is not open to visitors. Tip: climb up there a little later for the panoramic view over the palm grove. As we cross the threshold of the Taqah citadel, we discover, in a space much smaller than that of the country's other developed forts, a skilful spatialization around the courtyard, its palm tree and its badamier, then a sophisticated interlacing of staircases, passages and doors leading to several rooms... Furniture and fabrics have been replaced in each room, as if the wali still lived there, with his child in a curious mosquito-screened bed.

In one of the galleries, take the opportunity to learn about the exploits of French paleo-anthropologists, who discovered the remains of some surprising residents right here: monkeys. Yvonne Rebeyrol's account of these discoveries is provided by the Omani excavation management: "Six hundred teeth and a few bits of primate bone, several thousand teeth and also small fragments of bone from other mammals, the remains of turtles, crocodiles and sharks, thousands of limestone nummulite skeletons. Such is the 'harvest' of our fourth mission to the Sultanate of Oman, which took place from January 15 to February 15, 1992". The joy and pride of Herbert Thomas, palaeontologist (Collège de France), and Jack Roger, geologist (Bureau de recherches géologiques et minières) are a joy to behold. But the layman is both surprised and amazed when he is shown, carefully arranged in a transparent plastic box, tiny things 2 or 3 millimetres long, all of which are primate teeth found among kilos of fine sediment, and which remind us of the crucial role played by the Arab-African continent in the long history of this group.