English abstract
Although many falaj communities still use sundials to time water shares by day, the use of stars at night has died out. Such star knowledge was an oral heritage and rarely documented. Written sources of information are therefore scarce, and the discovery of a manuscript describing the stars once used on Falaj Al Hammām in Rustaq was unexpected. In November 2018, Nash and Al-Shukaili spent ten days in Rustaq with assistance from Talib Al-Rumhi, trying to find the complete manuscript and information on the stars used. This was only partially successful: the complete manuscript and its sources were not located, and only one person was found who remembered the star system. However, the owner of the original document was identified, and sufficient information was collected to provide a list of all of the main falaj stars and to identify many of them. Although the manuscript would not have been used by farmers at night, it provides a record of the tradition. This adds to the small body of work recording falaj star use in Oman and provides a resource for the younger generation of Omanis to learn about their lost traditions.
