![]() At the time he observed the ruins of a 'rude fort' but judged it to be a few hundred, not thousand, years old. Previous researchers attempted to locate Ubar, with Thomas, apparently coming close about 60 years ago. Its rulers became wealthy, and - according to Islamic legend - so wicked that God allowed the city to be swallowed up by the desert.īut the search team has determined the city was unwittingly constructed over a large limestone cavern until its weight caused the cavern to collapse in a massive sinkhole, destroying much of the city and causing the rest to be abandoned. As he approached its southern edge his guide, pointing to the faint outline of a road, remarked, 'Look Sahib, there is the way to Ubar. In 1930 the British explorer Bertram Thomas set out across the Rub al-Khali, or Empty Quarter, in central Arabia. Thomas had heard about Ubar on previous journeys through central Arabia. ![]() Lawrence, better known as Lawrence of Arabia, Ubar was a thriving trading capital for frankincense, the highly valuable resin used in medicines, perfumes and cremations that was second in value only to gold in ancient times. Southern Oman yields ruins of an ancient city on the fabled frankincense route. Southern Oman yields ruins of an ancient city on the fabled frankincense route. Remains of bodies, he said, would be at the bottom of the city.Ĭalled 'the Atlantis of the sands,' by T.E. ![]() The bottom of the city, he said, is believed to reach 30 feet below ground.Ĭlapp said the search team has identified the city through pottery that has been unearthed, but he acknowleged archeologists will not be '100 percent sure' it is Ubar until inscriptions are analyzed. Then we will head west across the gravel desert of Al Nejd to the site of what many believe is the legendary ancient kingdom of Ubar, which was romanticised in. The digging led to the remains of an eight-sided structure, a fortress with 10 foot to 12 foot walls 2 feet thick and 60 feet long, that is believed to have served as the home of the king at the center of what was the tent city of Ubar.Ĭlapp said the digging is continuing, and his team has applied for a five-year excavation permit from the nation of Oman. 'As little as six weeks ago, we were on the brink of total failure.īut then Clapp and his team began gingerly digging at the site where the carvan routes converged - and within days found walls of the ancient city 'within a couple of feet' below the surface. 'The key clues were the old caravan routes,' Clapp said, referring to the series of submerged desert roads carved out by teams of hundreds of thousands of camels that converged on a single site. Ronald Blom, one of the JPL scientists, said that after determining Clapp and his team were serious, scientists scanned more than 50images of the area where Ubar was described by ancient maps and books as being located. Arab historians state that the name Ubar, or Wabar, refers not to a city, but to a wide land in southern Arabia.But then Clapp read in a magazine about a special radar system that was flown on the last successful mission of the space shuttle Challenger, and approached members of the imaging team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. There is no evidence that Shisur was once a city called Ubar, although it was probably a caravanserai on an overland frankincense trade route. This sinkhole exposes the Middle Eocene Dammam limestone aquifer and is an isolated waterhole. Ubar's rulers became wealthy and powerful and its residents - according to Islamic legend - so wicked and debauched that eventually God destroyed the city, allowing it to be swallowed up by the. However, this is 175 km south-east of Ramlat Shuʿayt and is in the stony desert (najd), not the sands. The ancient city of Ubar, Shisr, in Dhofar region, Oman. NASA has published satellite images and online articles about "Ubar" since 1994, showing the sinkhole at Shisur. Traveler backpacker Asian women lesbian lgbt couple travel in Bangkok, Thailand. Although Thomas (1933) denied Ubar was a "Lost City", Fiennes (1992) and Clapp (1998) claim to have discovered it at the once walled sinkhole at Shisur in interior Dhofar. Thomas published this statement in 1932, and this led to a search for Ubar by Philby (1933-1934), Phillips (1953-1956), and Clapp, Fiennes, Hedges, and Zarins (1990-1996). It now lies buried beneath the sands of the Ramlat Shuʿayt" in north-western Dhofar. It was a great city, rich in treasures with date gardens and a fort of red silver. In 1930-1931, Bertram Thomas became the first westerner to cross the 660,000-km² Rubʿ al-Khālī desert, and was shown wide tracks between dunes by the Bedouin who accompanied him.
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