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The third largest country in Arabia is Oman after Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Bordering the Indian Ocean and in the south-east corner of the Arabian peninsula the sultanate of Oman is situated. Oman boasts highly of its rich heritage and culture and the history of the place goes back thousands of years. There are many reasons for which Oman was not modernized until 1970. For this, the traditional Architecture of Oman has survived here longer and it is better than most of the architectural forms in the other Gulf states. The Architecture of Oman can be categorized into various kinds which depend on the location, the building and the material used for construction. The main groups consist of mosques, mansions, houses and forts. The specific combination of materials used in the Architecture in Oman depends mainly upon the type of building and the location,where it is to be constructed. The important building materials utilized in Oman consist of stones, baked bricks, mud bricks, palm trees, mangrove poles and lime which is mainly used for plaster and mortar. The most common form of Architecture at Oman on the coast until recently, was the palm-frond house. These houses take various forms from single-room which are temporarily used for date harvest to large enclosure including summer and winter rooms. The summer houses have pitched roofs called Khaymah meaning tent and the winter houses have flat roofs. The main support of the houses are provided by the palm trunks which are placed externally. In Oman there are many houses made of other materials which are provided with palm-frond verandas or roofs. Another interesting feature in the Architecture of Oman are the building of mosques which are made of stone or mud brick having flat roofs. Minarets where not found in Oman until the 19 th century. One of the most common feature of the mosques is the combination of minbar and mihrab. There is an opening in the mihrab through which the minbar is entered. There are arches resting on cylindrical columns used for the support of the mosque roofs. One of the most noticeable feature of the Architecture of Oman is the fortified building. Almost all the settlements in Oman have some portion of the fortified structure. In Oman there are mainly two types of fortified buildings namely the citadel and the fortified enclosure known as sur. The sur are fairly simple structure with or without a tower, which were mainly used for temporary purposes at times of raids and other disturbances. The citadels are mostly sophisticated structures which include famous forts like Ibra, Nizwa, al-Rustaq, Izki and Mudhairib. All these buildings were mainly influenced by the Portuguese forts found during the 16 th and the 17 th centuries, though certain local features were also included in the forts at the time of construction.
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