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Description
Property Name: Al Ageer Port
Inventory No: 966-3-4
Date of infill of the inventory form: 2010-05-22
Country (State party): Saudi Arabia
Province : Eastern Province
Town: Al Uqair
Geographic coordinates: 25° 38′ 40.62″ N
50° 12′ 50.37″ E
Historic Period: Umayyad
Year of Construction: 895-1152
Style: Najdi
Original Use: Complex
Current Use: Touristic
Architect: Unknown
Significance
Al Ageer Port has long been the entrance to Hagar, and lies 40km away from Hofuf along the old commercial route. The port was previously described as a market of China, Oman, and Basra. Its name dates back to the Ojeer tribe, which inhabited the region during the first millennium before Christ. Southern Najd claimed Al Ageer as that city’s port due to its proximity: they are linked by a road known as Darb Al- Hojan, which goes from Ahsa to
Hard, which then forks and leads you to Yabrin, north of the Arab Peninsula, or to Al Kharj in Riyadh.
Kingdoms have risen in eastern Arabian Peninsula, known as the Metropolitan Kingdoms since the third millennium B.C., and Al Jarha was of the most famous port in eastern Arabia in the pre-Islamic era, Archeologists and Historians were unable to determine the location of that port, and perhaps the Al Uqair port was near the port of Al Jarha, and Al Uqair importance increased as one of the main ports on the Arabian Gulf after the dawn of Islam, known in particular during the reign of Al Qaramitta (281 to 446 hijri / 895 to1152 A.D).
It was a center for the emirate, customs and government departments, and it was the only seaport for the Al-Ahsa region, as merchant ships carried imports to this port from India, Bahrain, Iraq and Pakistan, and Aqeer was used by the Turks as a port for the Al-Ahsa region before the arrival of the late His Majesty the King Abdulaziz, and it is a historic port.
Selection Criteria
ii. to exhibit an important interchange of human values, over a span of time or within a cultural area of the world, on developments in architecture or technology, monumental arts, town-planning or landscape design
State of Preservation
Well preserved
References
Commission of Tourism and Heritage