Khor Rori

Khor Rori is an Early South Arabian archaeological site near Salalah in the Dhofar region of modern Oman. The small fortified town was founded as an outpost for the kingdom of Hadramawt in modern Yemen around the turn of our era, but the site shows signs of Hadrami settlement back to the third century CE. The settlement was probably abandoned in the seventh century.

Inscriptions at Khor Rori reports that the town, called "Sumhuram", was founded on royal initiative and settled by Hadrami emigrants. Dhofar was the main source of frankincense in the ancient period, and it seems likely that the foundation of the settlement was in part motivated by a Hadrami wish to control the production of this valuable commodity. Most scholars identify Khor Rori with the frankincense exporting port of Moscha Limen mentioned in this region in the 1st century CE merchants guide Periplus Maris Erythraei.

Khor Rori / Sumhuram was first discovered by James Theodore Bent during his travels in the region in the late 19th century. The site has been excavated by the American Foundation for the Study of Man (AFSM) in the early 1950s and by the Italian Mission to Oman (IMTO) since 1994. The excavations have uncovered the ground plan of the settlement and has attested maritime contacts with the Hadrami homeland, India and the Mediterranean.

Some LDS scholars believe that this is the "land Bountiful" where Nephi from the Book of Mormon stayed during his travels from Jerusalem (I Nephi 17).