Abstract: Khor Rori, which forms the mouth of Wadi (Valley) Darbat, is the largest inlet along the Dhofar coast of southern Arabia. The khor was excavated into a harbor by the erosive action of the river that flows through Wadi Darbat. In ancient times, Khor Rori was the only harbor in the Dhofar Region that could accommodate large sailing ships. The first colonizers of Khor Rori, who arrived around the ninth century bc, must have realized that this particular khor, because of its morphology, was an ideal natural port for trading their frankincense with other seafaring nations. Because Khor Rori has long been considered an important candidate for Bountiful and offers the advantage of not only the rich vegetation in Wadi Darbat and good sources of flowing water, it is also a safe harbor where a ship could have been built — indeed, the harbor would later become a busy port noted for building ships and much trade. This article provides updates since the original publications about Khor Rori, better documenting its advantages and exploring the possibility that essential raw materials for shipbuilding and shipwright expertise might have already existed at Khor Rori in Nephi’s day.

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In 2003, Richard Wellington and I put forward the idea in our book Lehi in the Wilderness that the ancient frankincense harbor of Khor Rori (Khor means ”inlet”) in Oman is the probable place where Nephi built his ship.1 At the time, we both lived in Saudi Arabia, and our research on Nephi’s harbor constituted the last phase in our five-year effort to locate qualified candidates for sites described in the book of 1 Nephi. We were the first to propose that Wadi Tayyib al Ism is a candidate for the Valley of Lemuel, that Wadi Sharma is a candidate for Shazer, that [Page 254]the villages along the frankincense trail between Wadi Ula to Medinah are candidates for the fertile parts, and that Khor Rori is a candidate for Nephi’s harbor. Since that time, I have continued my research on Khor Rori and now wish to share further information.

The central event of the Old World Bountiful in the Book of Mormon is the building of Nephi’s ship. As I search for the locations mentioned in the Book of Mormon, I appreciate that we will probably never know exactly where Nephi built his ship, unless the Lord reveals it. However, we are directed to “seek learning even by study, and also by faith” (D&C 109:14), so I feel it not amiss to use what scholarship is available to us to attempt to show that what Nephi described in the first book of the Book of Mormon was in keeping with what one would have probably found at Khor Rori at the turn of the sixth-century bc.

Two other candidates have been proposed for Nephi’s harbor, namely Khor Kharfot by Warren Aston,2 and Wadi Mughsayl by W. Revell Phillips.3 This paper approaches the subject of the location of Nephi’s harbor in five parts:

* Part One: What is reasonable to discern about the nature of Nephi’s ship?

* Part Two: What were the geological features Nephi needed to build, outfit, and successfully launch his ship?

* Part Three: Where is Khor Rori, and what are the attributes of the land Bountiful?

* Part Four: Could Khor Rori have had the maritime res...