As with all prior reports, this volume too was produced taking into account earlier work by scholars and academic and research institutions that have been involved in the study of Arabian vernacular architecture and urban development. The broader Dhofar region has received some attention from international scholars, through most often as part of the Hadrami/Yemenite cultural sphere. Particularly the nature and history of the frankincense trade of Antiquity has attracted the attention of researchers, with sites such as Sumharam and Al Balid receiving the bulk of scholarly attention. The more recent architectural expressions of southern Oman's settlements are, by comparison, somewhat understudied. While there are a number of historical references to Dhofari architecture by travellers and explorers such as Niebuhr (1792) and Miles (1919) it was Paolo Costa (1994) who provided the first more or less systematic description of the region's coastal architecture in the article 'Architecture of Salalah and the Dhofar Littoral' (Costa & Kite, 1985).