Photo 355/1(38)

General view of Sharjah Town, taken from aross Sharjah Creek looking southeast. The horizon line is punctuated by various built structures, before which a variety of dhows and other craft are moored, at anchor or pulled up along the shoreline.

A large group of figures can be seen standing alongside a white-washed wall right of the centre of the image.

A gravelly area to the left in the foreground indicates that the photograph was taken from land, not from onboard a ship. This photograph was previously identified as the view of the sea front in Bahrain, presumed to be either Manama or Muharraq. Due to evidence found in the map ‘Persian Gulf: Plans of the North East Coast of Bahrain Island’, IOR/L/PS/12/1972, f 245 (i.e., there is no land a few hundred meters offshore of Manama or Muharraq corresponding to that seen in the photograph's foreground and the shorelines in the map do not match the shoreline in the photograph) and the fact that the architectural style of the two defensive towers with their distinctive 'noses’ in the photograph's centre and centre-left is common in the UAE but unknown in Bahrain, it is believed that this is a photograph of Sharjah Town, taken from across Sharjah Creek looking southeast, as shown in the 'Trigonometrical Plan of the Back-water at Sharja’ (1822) in IOR/X/3689.

Inscriptions:

Upper right, in pencil alongside image: 'b', '38'

Below image, in pen: 'Bahrein'