Abu Musa Island
— — a small island of red earth in a blue sea.
Not only on a wall.
“Abu Musa is a small island of about 12 square kilometres in the lower Persian Gulf, roughly equidistant from the coasts of Sharjah and Iran. Its red ochre soil gave the island its historical export, and the surrounding waters run shallow and clear. Sovereignty has been disputed since 1971; the island is currently administered by Iran while claimed by the United Arab Emirates through the emirate of Sharjah.
Abu Musa Island, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Abu Musa lies in the lower Persian Gulf about 75 kilometres north of Sharjah and a similar distance south of the Iranian coast at Bandar Lengeh. The island measures roughly 12 square kilometres and rises to about 110 metres at its highest point. Historically valued for its red ochre, exported in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to British paint manufacturers, the island has been administered by Iran since November 1971 and remains the subject of an ongoing sovereignty claim by the United Arab Emirates through the emirate of Sharjah.
The island's distinctive red soil comes from hematite-rich earth, mined for export as red ochre pigment from the early twentieth century. Cargoes loaded at Abu Musa supplied paint factories in Britain and Germany into the 1960s. Against the pale shallows of the southern Persian Gulf — where water depths over much of the surrounding shelf sit under 30 metres — the contrast of red headland and turquoise sea is the visual signature visiting sailors and offshore workers remember most. Older buildings on the island still wear the same iron-red dust.
Access to Abu Musa is restricted. The island carries no commercial tourist infrastructure and is administered as part of Iran's Hormozgan Province, with a small civilian population and a military garrison. Regional fisheries and offshore oil and gas operations work the surrounding waters; the Mubarak oil field, a shared resource agreed between Sharjah and Iran in 1974, lies just off the island. Boat traffic into Abu Musa requires Iranian permits, and the United Arab Emirates does not recognise the current administering authority's jurisdiction.