Sharjah Coastal Fortified Network Added to UNESCO Tentative List

The Coastal Fortified Network of South Eastern Arabia in Sharjah has been added to UNESCO’s Tentative List for World Heritage, linking Dibba Al-Hisn, Khor Fakkan and Khor Kalba as a single serial property.

Together, the three sites trace more than two millennia of trade, navigation, defence and coastal administration along the Oman Sea and across the western Indian Ocean.

The submission was prepared by the Sharjah World Heritage Office of the Sharjah Archaeology Authority and highlights archaeological and architectural evidence showing how maritime power and exchange shifted over time.

At Dibba Al-Hisn, excavations at Dibba Fort uncovered settlement layers spanning from the Neolithic period to the twentieth century. Finds include glass-working workshops using imported Roman and Mesopotamian ingots, 12 madābis used for date processing, pearl-processing installations and a nineteenth-century fish-salting facility.

Khor Fakkan preserves evidence of one of the eastern Arabian coast’s most sheltered historic harbours, including East and West Forts, stone-built houses dating to the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, and more than 155 metres of the historic town wall. The West Fort contains three major phases of fortification associated with Portuguese, Arab and Al Qasimi control between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries.

At Khor Kalba, historical records describe a fortified settlement linked to the Kingdom of Hormuz before Portuguese forces took the site in 1624. The Portuguese built a rammed-earth fort on stone foundations, later absorbed into the maritime sphere of the Al Qawasim and used for supply, defence and regulation of coastal movement.

The addition brings the UAE’s Tentative List to 16 sites, including six in Sharjah. The Sharjah Archaeology Authority said further archaeological research and studies will now be carried out to deepen understanding of the network and support any future nomination to the World Heritage List.