The 2000 campaigns at Khor Rori, Oman - Università degli Studi di Pisa

During 2000 two archaeological campaigns have been performed in different areas of Sumhuram: city gate, area between the gate and the Monumental Building, inside the Monumental Building, outside the city wall.
Regarding the city gate, the architectural studies and the analysis of the inscriptions, placed along the path, cleared the existence of three different construction phases. During the first one, the gate of the city was comprised between the two buttresses, during the second the defensive system was increased building a new tower and constructing a third door, while in the third phase a thick isolated wall was added to avoid a frontal attack by war machines. Between the gate and the monumental building (A8) two different areas were individuated: a lower area with a very thin cultural deposit, already spoiled by American excavations, and an upper area with the remains of a so-called "subterranean kitchen" (room A14).
Two walls of the monumental building were used as walls for the room which revealed a lot of different materials: a complete kitchen vessel in "Indian Style", bronze and iron objects, stone tools and coins. The artifacts and the filling itself gave clear indications about the possible function of the room, interpreted as kitchen. The cleansing and digging of the Monumental Building, already excavated by the Americans, brought to light a mud brick filling, arranged in rows of three bricks each. It's probably the structure was not just a filling of area A10, but probably the remains of a wall built for stability reasons. Outside the wall a buttress constituted by a double wall structure was found, near by the north-eastern corner of the monumental building.
It was built contemporary to the adjoining internal wall to strengthen the northern city wall, creating a further defence tower. In the second campaign of 2000 was surveyed the settlement situated on the promontory delimiting the mouth of Wadi Darbat on the eastern side. A wall, made of roughly worked stones assembled dry or using mortar, was measured for a length of 700 m. Some rooms, built on the top of calcareous rocks, were explored revealing pottery assemblages belonging to the Islamic period.