[Oman-L] Archives in Oman

[Joachim Duester]

For the Sultanate: As another helpful contact on the
archives question, I would suggest John E. Peterson
(see his personal website www.jepeterson.net ).
Personally, I would not pin any hopes on the
availability of archival sources in Oman. They do seem
to exist, however: at least the authors of the British
Memorial prepared for arbitration in the Buraimi
dispute quote from archival material, and John B.
Kelly refers to them in his "Eastern Arabian
Frontiers". But I have never seen any other scholarly
publication that draws on Omani archival material. 

The manuscripts kept in the MSS collection of National
Heritage & Culture are listed and described in
published sources, but this is hardly the sort of
material that you are looking for.

For the UAE: there is the Documentation Centre set up
in the 1960s under Muhammad Morsy Abdallah. It was
housed in the old fort for many years untill it was
taken over by the Cultural Foundation and is now in
new premises. They mostly collected copies (microfilms
etc) of material relevant to Oman/UAE kept in archives
of other countries.

Joachim Duester
 
--- Olga Andriyanova <misr_olga at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

> Dear all, 
> 
> I'm a student from Russia who is studying actually
> in Paris. I study the history of Oman and Eastern
> Arabia in particular the questions of state, power 
> and society in the second half of the XVIIth - 
> XIXth centuries. 
> I would like to make a PhD on the subject. As I'm
> planning a voyage in Oman, I would like to know the
> state of the archives in Oman and in the Emirates.
> What kind of documents can I find there? Is the
> access to the archives possible? 
> I know that a collection of manuscripts exists, but
> is there any correspondance, tax reports and 
> the like? 
> 
> I would be grateful for any information on the
> sources which one can get during the field work 
> as well as for any kind of advice.
> 
> Best regards, 
> 
> Olga Andriyanova.