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Ubar was a near-legendary trading city that thrived on the frankincense trade hundreds of years before the time of Jesus Christ, at the edge of the Rub' al Khali desert of Arabia. It may have been the same as the
legendary city of Irem. In the district of Ubar (condensed to a single city in myth), the
caravan trails that led from the valleys in the Dhofar valley of the Hadramaut,
the coastal region of Arabia where the frankincense trees grew, diverged at a series of fortified waterholes, to make their way
across the desert and eventually to find markets in the Mediterranean
world. Thought to have been lost in desert storms around 300 AD, the 'city' of Ubar became
mythologized as the quintessential opulently rich trade city, for instance, in the writings of historian Rashad al-Din in the 13th century. It is said that the city was swallowed up in a storm as punishment
for prideful impiety to God. Afterwards, it is said to have been the home of beastly,
malformed creatures with only a single eye, arm and leg each. To travel to Ubar led only to madness.
European adventurers in the last century made a vocation of entering the desert to try to scout out the location of this
'Atlantis of the sands', including Bertram Thomas and later his friend, Thomas Edward Lawrence (of Arabia). Success eluded them both. Some years later, an American
archeologist, Wendell Phillips, searched along present-day camel
caravan routes in the Rub al Khali desert, but also met with failure.
Then, in the early 1980s, archaeological enthusiast Nicholas Clapp used ancient maps,
literature, and records to arrive at a general location for Ubar in southern Oman. Clapp
contacted Dr. Ronald Blom
of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory for help. Images taken from the Space Shuttle Challenger in October 1986 showed distinct tracks through the desert, identified as old
caravan routes, converging at Ash
Shisr. Two expeditions to Oman were mounted in 1990 and 1991. The expedition team included Clapp, Blom, archaeologist Dr. Juris Zarins, and British
explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes, who had been on previous Ubar searches.
The team investigated the area around Ash Shisr, and began excavation.
The excavations uncovered a large octagonal fortress with thick walls ten feet high and eight tall towers at the corners. The
archaeologists also found Greek, Roman, and Syrian pottery, the
oldest of which was identified as more than 4,000 years old (predating the 21st century BC). The discovery of these types of artifacts – including pottery that showed influence
of the Parthians of Iran and other faraway
places – indicated that this was indeed a major center for trade, and likely the fabled Ubar. Crystallized frankincense was
also found at the site.
One startling result of the excavation was that it appears that Ubar did meet with a catastrophic end as the legends describe.
The excavation revealed a giant limestone cavern beneath the fortress. It is believed that Ubar may have been destroyed when a
large portion of it collapsed into the cavern.
External links
References
Nicholas Clapp, The Road to Ubar, 1998. 'Search for Ubar: how remote sensing helped find a
lost city'.
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