The Tigris Expedition

by Heyerdahl, Thor

  The topic was fully revived at Bahrain, when Geoffrey Bibby took us to the ruins of his Dilmun temple-pyramid. It had, he stated, all the main characteristics of a Mesopotamian ziggurat. It was compact, stepped and sun-oriented, with lateral stairways and a temple on top. Nothing else like it existed outside Mesopotamia. That is, apart from ancient Mexico and Peru. Bibby, in fact, referred to his temple as a "mini-ziggurat." He had even found Mesopotamian artifacts at this Bahrain temple. Bahrain was almost halfway to Oman. I ventured a bold question to Bibby: Had he heard rumors of a Sumerian ziggurat found recently in Oman?

  Never. He had heard nothing of the sort.

  If Bibby had not heard of it, with his key position in gulf archaeology, then the whole story had to be invented. We tried to forget it once more.

  But Oman maintained its magic grip on both Norman and me. Outside the gulf, when he wanted to coast southward and overhaul our rigging in Oman, I suspected he had not entirely forgotten the

  rumored ziggurat. It was admittedly a major reason why I discarded the miique chance of saihng on a visit to the Indus Valley, a decision I took with much doubt and a heavy heart.

  The idea that we could do with a general overhaul before we took off for distant lands was not entirely unfounded. Our superstructure had suffered more from two days of roUing in the wakes of supertankers than from the stormy waters of the unsheltered gulf. The mountains of Oman had given us shelter from the storm raging in the gulf from the very moment we had rounded the cape outside the Hormuz Strait. The sea should therefore have been just as calm as the air but for the frantic traffic. We woke up in the very midst of the shipping lane, with ships on all sides, most of them tankers. We were so reheved at having sailed clear of reefs and chffs, and at suddenly being in shelter, that we did not fully perceive that this was the most crazy place in which to rock about in a reed ship with a foul wind that barely permitted us to move.

  In this exposed position we celebrated New Year's Eve. The next night our heavy sail hung down completely slack. Most of our progress came from a strong current that puUed us parallel to the coast of Oman in the direction of Muscat. Our kerosene lamps and Ae faint blips at our masthead seemed Hke glowworms compared to the bright electric hghts on all the big ships that passed us. For this reason one of the helmsmen had to run up in front of the sail every three or four minutes during the night, to watch for arriving lights and to play with our strongest flashhght on the sail to disclose our own whereabouts to such ships as still had human beings on lookout.

  On my watch a huge and brilliantly lit oil platform was slowly towed past us on its way into the gulf. I counted lights from up to twelve ships at a time; they came and went and rushed so fast that we swung in their wakes as in a hammock, and with a fast and crazy rhythm that we had never experienced in any ocean. Ocean swells give a sturdy reed ship a slow and pleasant motion, soothing to the most restless mind; even the short and choppy seas of the stormy gulf dug up troughs wide enough for an almost decent rolhng as compared with the hasty, nerve-racking rocking in the manmade wakes of the superships. We felt maltreated, as if put into a cocktail shaker, or as if galloping without reins on an unsaddled

  bull. Everything inside us seemed shaken to bits; we were vexed and harassed by tumbhng about on deck or in bed, unable to set proper sea legs or lie down without rolhng over like barrels. The short intervals of calm sea between sudden wakes, crosswakes, backwash from other wakes, and the next set of wakes, made the fitful rocking the more disturbing.

  Bridge poles and mast legs started a regular stilt dancing in the sockets that held them to the reeds, and without wind lift the heavy sail rolled with the masts and helped strain and stretch all stays and guys and other cordage securing rigging, cabins and bridge to the reeds. Every time a huge tanker chased by at twenty knots the sudden jerks, throwing us from side to side, were so rough that we feared something would break loose from the deck bundles. The two heavy rudder oars again hammered left and right inside the steering forks, until either of these thick blocks spHt into two and had to be adjusted with new rope and wooden wedges. The brief encounter with the pohce boat hardly improved this sHghtly jerky condition of our woodwork, but in calm sea the straddle mast and bridge poles stood as steady as any man setting sea legs.

  The day after the collision we lost sight of the wild mountains of northern Oman, but in the afternoon we came close enough inshore to see low land with a few scattered tall trees. The landscape was so flat that the invisible waterfront almost certainly had to be a long beach, with offshore water shallow enough for us to anchor. But before we made up our minds to steer toward land, Norman shouted from his comer in the main cabin that he had succeeded in getting two-way-radio contact with a coastal station. We were told by the authorities in Muscat to keep away from the coast of Oman until we received permission to land. Another message was relayed from the BBC on behalf of the consortium: Norman was told not to use his own amateur radio for any kind of message. He was not to give our position to the radio hams. If he failed, as hitherto, to contact land on the special wavelength of the consortium's transceiver, he should give no position and tell no news to the radio amateurs except *A11 well."

  This prohibition made Norman furious. "What if we get wrecked?* he asked and tore off his earphones.

  It was still broad dayhght when the dhow stopped alongside the floats of a large fishnet, which this time we carefuUy avoided. The men in the dhow began pulling in the net, and to our surprise

  they started picking out splashing fish that were caught in the meshes. This done, they tied a plastic bag to one of the floats and threw the net back into the sea. They had placed three dinars inside the bag as payment for the fresh seafood and beckoned to Rashad to come over in the dinghy for our share.

  Shortly after, steaming fresh fish was scooped out of Carlo's big pot, while Tom prepared some raw cubes soaked in soya sauce, Japanese style. It was a most pleasant surprise to those on board who had never tasted raw fish. Tom himself looked as if he too had come out of a frying pan, with rashes and bhsters all over. As if to console his own discomforts, he had been sitting hectically stroking the feathers of a big, bushy-headed kingfisher that had landed on board almost exhausted. Tom had been the first to dive overboard that day, into a sea that proved to be packed full of a species of small jellyfish. These tiny, glassy coelenterates were suddenly around us in endless quantities, waving coquettishly with their violet skirts and trailing long stinging filaments behind while shamelessly mating everywhere on the surface as if intent on fiUing the world's oceans with their own kind.

  Man, too, had left evidence of his own effort to dominate sea and land. The surface of the open water outside the entrance to the gulf was covered by a thin rainbow-colored oil sHck. We had expected more tar balls, but soHd oil clots were small and far between. There were more to be seen a decade earher, when oiu* unexpected observations from Re / and II urged us to send a message to the United Nations that the Atlantic Ocean was becoming polluted. Since then dehberate discharge of waste oil from tankers has clearly diminished. But we did see some giant oil tankers pump out their sludge with the ballast water in unbroken cascades just before they turned to enter the Hormuz Strait. This was probably a convenient area, since the now existing regulations would otherwise have had to be broken at greater risk inside the gulf.

  A school of at least a hundred porpoises was seen tumbling and leaping high around us in the thin oil shck. And there was no lack of plankton, though invisible as the stellar heaven until the sun went down. But in the starht night the plankton sparkled Hke firecrackers around the rudder oars as these cut the water. At intervals we saw large flashes deep down in the sea, as if somebody signaled with a small lamp down there or struck a match that burned for half a second. The night was now so mild that we steered in shirt-sleeves.

  The new moon once more rode like a Sumerian ship above the cahn waters; a month had passed since the last time. The squeaking and creaking of Tigris had completely di
ed down, with the unfortunate result that it was possible for HP to point out that Thor, Gherman and Yuri were snoring.

  We saw few of the poisonous sea snakes, although this was supposed to be one of their main breeding grounds. But in the mornings we began to find the first dead flying fish on deck.

  Although the patroUing police boat never came back, it was clear that the Oman authorities had been notified of our whereabouts. And Captain Said was clearly worried, as if he had been appointed our guardian by the visiting pohce. He was now just as panicky about our coming too close to the shores of his own country as he had been about his own trespassing into Iranian territorial waters when his dhow had been in serious need of repair. Obviously, we had come too close to shore for his comfort, and he insisted on holding us in tow, almost as prisoners, when we approached the offshore islets of Suwadi, where we anchored side by side right up against the cHffs.

  There was a great temptation to go ashore, but we had received new radio warnings from Bahrain not to attempt any landing. All the afternoon we had seen a beautiful white beach, fringed by scattered palms and other trees, with calm water in front and the shadows of blue mountains far beyond. The distant range of mountains must have been the wild, steep ridges we had followed in Tigris in the opposite direction on the other side of this great peninsula. All the moimtains in this part of Oman seemed to have been swept toward the side facing the gulf and the setting sun, leaving wide plains on our side, which faced the sunrise and the open road into the ocean. Here, indeed, on this friendly open beach, an ancient explorer would have steered his raft-ship in to go ashore. We were aching to do the same, but the last radio contact had given us strict instructions first to clear our passports and obtain landing permits in Muscat, way down the coast.

  With OMC binoculars we could see a large nimaber of small boats pulled up all along the white beach behind the islands. They were too far away for us to distinguish any details, and I had yet to learn what I woiild have missed if the sultan of Oman were to refuse us access to his carefully guarded sultanate. The few vessels that came close enough to be seen clearly showed no details of outstanding interest.

  As the evening drew near, the long beach as far as we could see became alive, and numerous small fishing boats, all with motors, left the beach and swarmed like ants into the sea. A few canoelike rowing boats came around our island to tend to fishing nets. In one shaky craft were two old men brought by a young boy who vdelded a natural branch with a makeshift paddle blade lashed to the end. A charming old rascal with eagle nose and long white beard ofiFered us hve fish at a modest price. Lacking local cash we showed him a far too large note in Bahrain dinars and a still larger one in Qatar currency. He grabbed both and told Rashad they were going across to the dhow to learn the values before they made their choice and paid us back the change. Once they were around the dhow they suddenly put three pairs of oars into the water and rowed away behind the island so fast that they would have won any boat race.

  When we were left alone again that evening there were fish and sea birds everywhere aroimd us. A couple of turtles raised their heads hke periscopes above the calm water and looked at us. And more than once a huge creature we never saw, probably a whale, barely touched the surface and loudly took in a deep breath before submerging, leaving only ripples to mark the spot.

  What a marvelous place. The islands formed a cluster with friendly slopes and bright beaches along the sheltered channels between them, but vdth chffs almost three hundred feet high on the side facing the open sea. We all itched to swim ashore. But Captain Said begged us for his sake not to touch the shore with our feet; he now admitted he felt responsible, as the pohce had seen him in our company in Oman waters.

  Norman suddenly made excellent contact v^dth a shore station again. Once more it was Bahrain Radio. We sent an ofiBcial request to Gulf Agency in Muscat to help us obtain permission to land. We were told that the harbor authorities would give us their answer next day, but that in no circumstances would we be allowed to come ashore anywhere except in the port of Oman's capital, Muscat.

  There was no oil shck off the Suwadi islands; only some tiny tar balls and bits of plastic drifted by. But when Tom again insisted on diving to the bottom, this time to film us weighing anchor next morning, he came up and said he could see neither rope nor anchor at twenty-two feet depth, for the sea was fuU of small white particles. We all put goggles on and had a look. It was hke watching a

  calm snowdrift through a winter window. The whole mass of sea-water was on a slow move past our anchor rope in the same direction we had sailed. The current was made visible by biUions of tiny white shreds and morsels too minute for us to identify, but looking very like dissolved bread cnunbs or pulverized papier-mache. Where it originated was anybody's guess, but the cmrent came from the Hormuz Strait, as we had done.

  At 8 A.M. we hoisted sail and left the islands. Norman had devised a topsail on a bamboo boom which helped us keep a steady course parallel to land. By midday he again received a radio message telling us we were not permitted to land, but the matter was now being discussed at **high levels."

  At 3:15 P.M. a large patrol vessel bearing the word "Pohce" and the name Haras II in European letters caught up with us from astern. A friendly oflBcer waved and shouted: "Are you all right?"

  "Yes, thank you," I shouted, and waved back from the bridge. But my waving turned to frantic gesticulations when I saw the heavy vessel turn to come straight for our side hke a charging rhinoceros. For a moment I thought it was a joke, perhaps a humorous reference to the behavior of the other poHce vessel farther up the coast. But I was soon to learn that this was no joke. There was apparently something magnetic to pohce inspectors about our widest point, where the door opening of the main cabin gaped toward visitors. Or perhaps our entire vessel looked like an indestructible fender of bundles and ropes, and that a head-on arrival was the usual way of boarding barges and floating platforms. Certain is it that a bow appeared in our cabin door for the second time. While we on Tigris ran about on deck and cabin roofs yeUing and waving OUT arms in despair, Haras II seemingly took a good aim and rammed us with great force precisely where we had been hit the last time. HP rolled over on his back as the bow of the pohce boat hit him in the stomach. He and Yuri were sitting side by side in the low door opening and both were pushed inside, where Norman sat alone in his corner with earphones on his head. Norman did not be-heve his own eyes when he saw a large bow closing the doorway. Fortunately the gunwales of the pohce vessel were higher than the side bundles of Tigris, so the ship ran up into the six strong backstays to the mast and was stopped by a network of rope and bamboo devised by Carlo to reduce the danger of tumbling overboard

  in heavy seas. Bamboo, canes and rigging squeaked and creaked while masts and cabin wavered under the impact.

  When we had recovered from the shock and had ascertained that our ship was still in one piece, we began to look for the poHce boat. Our wild behavior must have seemed utterly uncivilized to the truly courteous visitors, who perhaps had only come to welcome us but now escaped at full speed in the direction of Muscat. After all, their confidence about our sohdity had proved justified by a test, so why had we chased them away with such an impohte war dance?

  Norman received a new message from shore: we were told to wait in international waters outside Muscat until next day; it was not yet decided whether we would be permitted to come ashore.

  "TeU them we are on a reed raft," I said to Norman. "We'U drift away. It is too deep for us to anchor in the open sea. Ask why we cannot come into port."

  Norman conveyed the message, and added that we sailed under United Nations flag. A moment after he took off his earphones: "Beheve it or not," he said, "they say it is because we have a Russian on board."

  The dhow accompanied us unexpectedly close to shore, as if Said was convinced that we would no longer escape. There was scarcely a habitation to be seen, but at one place we saw what most resembled a waUed medieval burgh with defens
e towers and parapets partly hiding big, Arabian-style buildings. One of the sultan's incredible seaside castles. His main palace was in Muscat. Soon afterward the lowlands ended and bizarre mountain formations again reached the water's edge. By now we were close enough to Muscat to see ships at anchor and others heading for port. We were glad to take a tow from the dhow for fear of more coUisions. Shortly, countless city Hghts were Ht on the coastal plateaux and in the valleys. Way ahead the night twinkled with navigation lights and ships in increasing nimnbers, so many that we began to feel uncomfortable. Muscat was clearly a busy modem port.

  Again we were reminded that we were hving in a changing world. The sultanate of Oman formed a large portion of the Arabian peninsula, some twenty times larger than Kuwait, yet it had until quite recently been one of the least-known territories in the world. The country had been closed to all foreign visitors xmtil seven years ago, when the present totalitarian ruler. Sultan Qaboos, put his own father in prison and began to modernize the country.

  He started by building roads and allowing the first automobiles to be imported. We were yet to learn, however, that in spite of every evidence of economic boom and building activity in the immediate vicinity of Muscat, tourists were still not admitted to any part of the country. The only foreigners of any category allowed ashore were those approved by the sultan personally.

  As night fell on us the contours of a large rock island with a lighthouse rose ahead. In front of it was the cargo ship anchorage with several vessels awaiting their turn to enter Muscat harbor, or perhaps some were too big to get in. In a renewed radio contact we made it clear that unless we were at least permitted to anchor among the cargo ships, the current would carry us far beyond Muscat with no possibihty of returning next morning. We were finally permitted to anchor with the other vessels. But neither Said nor we could reach bottom in deep water outside, so when the dhow headed for the harbor entrance we quietly followed and ended up by ourselves inside, at anchor in the midst of a most picturesque group of dhows. Dhows from all surrounding countries, although in the starhght they looked like the silhouettes of a fleet of Viking ships.