16th International Symposium on Boat & Ship Archaeology

35 Zadar, Croatia | 26 September – 1 October 2021 John P. Cooper 1 , Alessandro Ghidoni 1 , Chiara Zazzaro 2 & Shadi Kalantar 2 1 Institute of Arab & Islamic Studies, University of Exeter, Exeter, Devon, UK 2 Chiara Zazzaro, Department of Asia, Africa and Mediterranean, University of Naples, ‘L’Orientale’, Naples, Italy Contextualising the baggāra/ameleh , sewn fishing boat of the Persian Gulf coast, Iran Small fishing boats of sewn construction and with bitumen coatings were to be found until recently along the Persian Gulf coast of Iran’s west Hormuzgan prov- ince, largely deployed in beach-seining activities: they have gradually disappeared over recent decades as alternative fiberglass technologies have become available. As demand for the vessels has diminished, knowledge and skills around their con- struction and use has likewise faded. It remains today within the memories of a dwindling number of older users. Recent published work by some of the authors of this paper has docu- mented the structure of one variety of these craft held in the collection of Qatar Museums (QM), where they are recorded as baggāra s (Arabic ةراّقَب , pl. َب ريِقاق or تاراّقَب ). The present paper augments this scholarship by placing the vessels within their original Iranian social and environmental contexts. It is based on eth- nographic survey work conducted in person and virtually (due to Covid-19 re- strictions) between 2020 and 2021, during which members of coastal communi- ties with memories of, and other connections to, these vessels were interviewed about their naming, construction, materials, coatings, distribution and use, as well as the cause of their decline and disappearance. The baggāra/ameleh is also known along the west Hormuzgan coast as amela ( هلماع ) and, perhaps, shash ( شاش ). Those vessels surviving in the QM col- lection are rare examples of a wider western Indian Ocean, but also unique to recorded scholarship in their stitching-together of both garboards and the keel in a single sewing action; their use of bitumen as a coating is also unique to the eth- nographic record of regional sewn boats—while redolent of much more ancient practices. In all these respects, the baggāra/ameleh , is a highly significant vessel.