Thanks all!
Quote:
Originally Posted by photoLith
after further research, it seems the fort is the oldest building Dubai and was built in 1787 and other than a fort there wasn't much in the city until the early 1900's, which is surprising, considering the region is one of the oldest inhabited places by humanity, being close to Iraq, Iran etc which was home to nearly the oldest human civilizations on the planet. I would have figured Dubai had been home to some sort of port for thousands of years but this doesn't seem to be the case.
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Here's the fort:
The difference between Iraq and the Arabian peninsular is that Iraq had the freshwater rivers ( Tigris and Euphrates ) coming down from the mountains of Kurdistan - plus back then doing the end of the ice age Northern Africa ( Sahara ) was very lush bringing a lot of moisture in over Iraq making it a literal garden of Eden
The UAE on the eastern side of the Arabian peninsula was even back then in a rain-shadow and had virtually no freshwater - certainly no powerful rivers like Iraq had - and when ocean currents changes and Shara became a desert living conditions got even more impossible - so until recently only normadic tribes ( beduins ) would enter the area freighting goods back and forth..
Dubai itself is basically founded on pearl diving - being an easy stop on the way for ships sailing up and down the gulf it eventually became a trading port and when it invested in an airport and habour facilities it's central location made it a local success story