Arabian Peninsula Exploration Bertram Thomas on the Southeastern Rubʿ al Khali 1929

Bertram Thomas

First Edition

Thomas, Bertram. The South-Eastern Borderlands of Rubʿ al Khali, published in 1929, records travel along the little-mapped southeastern margins of the Empty Quarter before Thomas’s complete crossing of the desert in 1930–1931. Drawing upon journeys undertaken while he served the government of the Sultanate of Muscat and Oman, the report describes routes, water sources, terrain, vegetation, settlements, and tribal communities between Dhofar and the desert interior. Its combination of field observations, photographs, and cartography provides primary-source evidence for the study of Arabian historical geography, pastoral mobility, British political activity in Oman, and the production of European geographical knowledge about the peninsula. The article appeared in the March 1929 issue of The Geographical Journal, pages 193–212, and was followed by a published discussion of Thomas’s findings.

Thomas, Bertram. The South-Eastern Borderlands of Rubʿ al Khali. London: Royal Geographical Society, 1929. First edition. The Geographical Journal, Vol. LXXIII, No. 3. Article and accompanying discussion comprising twenty-four pages. Illustrated with photographic plates and a large folding color map. Original blue printed wrappers, with the publisher’s advertisements retained. Thomas details the physical character of the desert borderlands and the communities occupying or traversing them, including coastal and inland routes, animal and plant life, wells, and the practical conditions governing movement through arid country. The photographs supply visual records of terrain and inhabitants, while the folding map locates the reported journeys within the southeastern Arabian Peninsula and clarifies the relationship between Dhofar, Oman, and the Rubʿ al Khali.

The report preceded Thomas’s 1930–1931 journey from Dhofar across the Empty Quarter, the first documented complete crossing of the desert by a European, subsequently narrated in Arabia Felix: Across the Empty Quarter of Arabia in 1932. It also predates The Arabs, published in 1937, and preserves an earlier stage of the geographical and ethnographic work that informed those books. Thomas’s observations must be read within the context of his official position in Muscat and the wider British political presence in the Gulf, but the report retains substantial documentary value for its detailed recording of routes and environments that remained inadequately mapped in contemporary European publications. Complete issue with photographs, folding map, wrappers, and advertisements present; only minor evidence of age and handling is reported. Very good. An early illustrated account of the Rubʿ al Khali’s southeastern borderlands issued shortly before Thomas’s best-known desert crossing.

Item #14564

Price: $250.00