BRIDGING THE GULF: MARITIME CULTURAL HERITAGE OF THE WESTERN INDIAN OCEAN

"The volume presents papers by archaeologists, anthropologists, historians and heritage specialists and highlights the multi-layered meaning of maritime cultural landscapes. The authors shift the emphasis from understanding heritage in its local context to discussing it across the waters of the Arabian Sea. The relationship between the sea and the land underlines the centrality of the coast; the communities who inhabited the space between the ocean and the hinterland; their histories and attempts at constructing their cultural environment. An important component of this cultural landscape is monumental architecture and archaeological sites, as also their inter-linkage with travelling groups who moved both across the sea, as well as on routes into the interior. A common concern that all papers share is with definitions of maritime heritage; different articulations of social and political power; and regional and local nautical traditions.