Bertram looked for the city they spoke of, thinking it to be in the vicinity of an area called the Ramlat Shu’ait, but found no trace of it at the time, and he would later mention it to T. One of the earlier attempts by outsiders to locate the legendary city of Ubar was made in 1930 by the explorer Bertram Thomas, who was at the time in the midst of a harrowing journey across the desolate Rub' al Khali in a bid to become the first European to cross this sea of sun scorched sand, so inhospitable, lifeless and barren that it is locally called “The Empty Quarter.” During his perilous journey through this domain of endless sand and dunes Bertram was told by his Bedouin guides of a lost city lying out under the sand that had once been full of wealth and unrivaled beauty, but which had been ruthlessly buried by a vengeful Allah because of their sins. ![]() Although it is of course unknown if this is all literally true or not, the disappearance of the mythical lost city of Ubar has over the ages been speculated to have at least been based on a real place, and its mystery is such that of course with such an alluring mythology adventurers have long sought it out in the unforgiving landscape of the Arabian desert, some claiming some success and others rumored to have never returned at all. The legend of the lost city of Ubar says that this vanishing was due to punishment brought down from God upon its people after they failed to follow the ways of Allah and refused the advice of the prophet Hud, their city buried by a massive, thunderous sandstorm that swept in out of nowhere to erase them from existence forever. It was supposedly a celebrated stop off point for traders, the land here once lush and green, in a region once called Arabia Felix, or "Fortunate Arabia," its beauty well-known by all who passed, and the city’s legend grew as it was mentioned in fable and song.Īnd then the city suddenly disappeared from history, its people and magnificence fading into the mists of time sometime between around 100-300AD. Said to have been established in around 3,000 BC, it was a place of grand beauty, with lofty buildings and sweeping, majestic pillars, towers and spires soaring up towards the sky, elegant and rich and beyond imagination from its position as a legendary trading post of spices and oils. Often spoken of by the Bedouin nomads of this vast land of heat and sand and even mentioned in the Quran and the classic book A Thousand and One Arabian Nights, the fabled city is said to lie somewhere out in the Rub’ al Khali desert, which spans much of the southern end of the peninsula, and was inhabited by a mysterious people called the Ad, ruled by a King Shaddad ibn 'Ad. The possible anthrosol area is located at approximately 18D 10M N, 53D 54M E, and will be the subject of study in a future expedition.The shifting sands of the deserts of Arabia have long been steeped in myth, magic and, legend, and one of these are the tales of an ancient lost city variously called Ubar, Wabar and Iram of the Pillars, among others, said to be buried out there in the dunes forgotten and abandoned for thousands of years. Based on demonstrated reliability of aspects of carefully interpreted legendary accounts, we postulate that we may have located the area of desert agriculture that may have existed to support the frankincense caravansary of Ubar. Included in legendary accounts of the Ubar region are reports of fertile oases, and "areas that have known the plow". Undocumented possible anthrosol sites include an area east of Shisr in Oman, the archaeological site discovered by us to be responsible for some features of the "Lost City of Ubar" legends. ![]() Many anthrosol sites were noted, most, but not all, of them previously documented. ![]() ![]() Based on other remote sensing research and laboratory spectroscopy, we think that the distinctive image signature is due to low reflectivity in Landsat band 7 resulting from relatively high concentrations of gypsum in the anthrosols. During analysis of Landsat Thematic Mapper satellite images of Yemen and Oman for the Mahra Archaeological Project, we noted that these anthrosols had a distinctive image expression. These soils were the result of agriculture supported by irrigation enabled by water impounded by the dam, areas which were abandoned after dam failure. Possible Ancient Anthrosols Near Lost City of Ubar Site in Oman During mapping for the Wadi al Jubal Archaeological Project in Yemen, USGS Geologists Overstreet and Grolier mapped "anthrosols of pre-Islaniic age" east of the Marib dam site (15D 24M N, 45D 18M E).
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