The name Hormuz (Pers., Hurmuz) refers to a cluster of settlements, including a port, on the Persian Gulf coast of Iran and to an island of forty-two square kilometres less than ten kilometres from the mainland and some twenty-five kilometres northeast of the island of Qishm. Archaeological evidence along the coast has revealed a prehistoric settlement, which the Greeks knew as Organa. Trade in the area is recorded in the first millennium BCE and possibly much earlier. 1. Hormuz before the Ṣafavids The port of Hormuz, located some