Hormuz Island

The earliest evidence for human presence on the island is several stone artifacts discovered at the eastern shorelines of the island. A lithic scatter was found at a site called Chand-Derakht, which is an uplifted marine Pleistocene terrace. This site yielded a Middle Paleolithic lithic assemblage characterized by Levallois methods and dates back to more than 40,000 years ago.[1]

The island, known as Organa (Όργανα) to the ancient Greeks and as Jarun in the Islamic period, acquired the name of "Hormuz" from the important harbour town of Hormuz (Ormus) on the mainland 60 km away, which had been a centre of a minor principality on both sides of the strait. The principality paid tribute to the Mongol-ruled Ilkhanate and was an important source of income from maritime trade.[2] The town's ruler decided to shift his residence to the island around 1300, in order to evade attacks by Mongolian and Turkish groups from the interior.[3] The ruler later made peace with the Ilkhans.

Ibn Battuta also visited the island and New Hormuz.[4]

Portuguese presence in the Persian Gulf and Red Sea. Green – Portuguese possessions. Dark green – allied or under influence.

In 1505, King Manuel I of Portugal established a policy of expansion in Africa and Western Asia. During attempts to expand Portuguese influence into the Indian Ocean, the Portuguese duke Afonso de Albuquerque captured the island in 1507 and it was incorporated into the greater Portuguese Empire. The Portuguese constructed a fortress on the island to deter potential invaders, naming it the Fort of Our Lady of the Conception. The island became an emergency stopover point for Portuguese ships traveling to Goa, Gujarat, and nearby Kishm. The Ottomans laid siege to the island under the admiral and cartographer Piri Reis in 1552.[5]

Shah Abbas I of Persia distrusted the local population and was not interested in maintaining the island as a trading centre or military post; instead he developed the nearby mainland port of Bandar Abbas. Hormuz went into decline. Many of its inhabitants seasonally moved to their fields and orchards around the old Hormuz on the mainland, only fishermen being in permanent residence. The island continued to export small quantities of rock salt and lumps of iron oxide which were used as ballast stones for sailing ships.[6]

^ Zarei, Sepehr, (2021) The First Evidence of the Pleistocene Occupation in the Hormuz Island: A Preliminary Report, Bulletin of Miho Museum 21:101-110. ^ Cambridge history of India, vol. 1, p.147 ^ H. Yule, The Book of Ser Marco Polo, 1903, vol. I, p. 110, quoting Abulfeda ("Hormuz was devastated by the incursions of the Tartars, and its people transferred their abode to an island in the sea called Zarun, near the continent, lying west of the old city.") and Odoric for the date. ^ Battutah, Ibn (2002). The Travels of Ibn Battutah. London: Picador. pp. 98–99, 308. ISBN 9780330418799. ^ Pîrî Reis’in Hürmüz Seferi ve İdamı Hakkındaki Türk ve Portekiz Tarihçilerinin Düşünceleri Archived 2012-12-02 at the Wayback Machine Ertuğrul Önalp. Prof. Dr. Ankara Üniversitesi, Dil ve Tarih-Coğrafya Fakültesi, İspanyol Dili ve Edebiyatı Anabilim Dalı. (in Turkish) ^ "HORMUZ ii. ISLAMIC PERIOD – Encyclopaedia Iranica". www.iranicaonline.org. Archived from the original on May 20, 2020. Retrieved Mar 31, 2020.