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  • 5/14/2025
Ubar is the classic lost city of Arabia. The tale of its splendor and sudden catastrophic downfall is one of the most colorful of the Arabian Nights. One of the earliest maps of the region drawn up by Claudius Ptolemy in 150 AD seems to prove that it really existed, but the actual site eluded a generation of scholars and explorers. Drawing on travelers' tales and space-based remote sensing, an American expedition headed into the vast wasteland of Oman's Rub' al-Khali desert, the largest sea of sand on earth. Their dramatic rediscovery of the lost city made headlines around the world in 1992, and is presented in all its enthralling detail for the first time on NOVA.

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00:01Tonight on NOVA, the search for a legendary city in an endless desert.
00:09A quest to understand a forgotten people.
00:15Tantalizing clues of long-drawn adventures to seek out the ancient city of Ubar.
00:21Now, a new team of archaeologists takes up the challenge.
00:25Will they at last discover the lost city of Arabia?
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01:18By the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and viewers like you.
01:25For centuries, the Rue Balkali Desert of Southern Arabia has kept its secrets.
01:50Hidden beneath dunes a thousand feet high.
01:58It is said that when God divided the world into the sea and the settled lands,
02:04He left this as the empty quarter.
02:07Uninhabitable.
02:08Forbidding.
02:09Unknown.
02:10And yet, it is also said that a fabulous city called Ubar once thrived here,
02:20Only to be swallowed up by the dunes.
02:22If Ubar was real, it owed its existence to the incense trade.
02:32Camel caravans and ships carried balsam, myrrh, and frankincense for hundreds or thousands of miles,
02:39centuries before Christ.
02:40Even today, the most precious cargo of the ancient caravans is still being harvested by hand in Oman.
02:54A gift suitable for the Queen of Sheba and celebrated in the story of three wise men.
03:11The finest frankincense in all the world.
03:14Although the trees look like scrub, their resin was once valued as highly as gold.
03:24In Arabic, frankincense is called luban, or milk.
03:28At first white, it hardens quickly into fragrant crystals.
03:32So valuable was frankincense that Alexander the Great and the Roman emperors dreamed of conquering this land.
03:52In this small Omani village of the Shahra people, the day is still measured by the burning of frankincense.
03:58First, hot coals are placed in a burner.
04:04Then the crystals.
04:13The Shahra's unique tongue has been called the language of the birds.
04:19Migrating south from the Mediterranean in ancient times,
04:23the Shahra's isolated way of life has been preserved.
04:25A glimpse of a nearly vanished past.
04:35Says the woman,
04:36Incense is most pleasing to God,
04:39but the men chider for using too much.
04:41Enough, woman, enough.
04:43For thousands of years, the use of frankincense ranged from the religious to the strictly practical.
05:00It was a sacred offering to the gods,
05:03burned in sanctuaries and temples.
05:05But it was also used to mask the harsh smells of everyday life.
05:11Like incense was also thought to have medicinal powers.
05:26Here it's used to help a child suffering from a cold,
05:29with his mother to comfort him.
05:31To yes,
05:36Ones,
05:37Ones,
05:38Ones.
05:39Ones.
05:39The Shahra still sing their ancient songs in the language of the birds.
06:07They declare proudly that they are the direct descendants of people who built a great city
06:13in the distant past, somewhere in the desert along one of the incense roads.
06:21If they're right, their song may be the last echo of the fabled lost city of Ubar.
06:37When Ubar supposedly disappeared around 300 A.D., the legend began.
06:50According to a 13th century historian, Rashid al-Din, Ubar was a city created as an imitation
06:57of paradise.
06:58It prospered beyond all measure from the frankincense trade.
07:08Ubar was the pride of a prideful king, Shadad, son of King Ad, grandson of Noah.
07:21Ubar was the splendor of Shadad city, with its sumptuous palace and magnificent gardens,
07:28too great in the eyes of a prophet who decried the king's arrogance and impiety and the wickedness
07:34of his subjects.
07:40But the Ubarites were too dissolute to pay heed to the prophet.
07:44They were too drunk to hear his words, too licentious to care.
07:49And so God punished the people of Ubar with a great wind and a terrible noise from the clouds,
07:55which struck them dumb.
07:58Then a voice rang out, You shall perish.
08:09When morning came, there was nothing to be seen except ruins.
08:16From that day on, Ubar belonged to evil creatures, each with a single arm, leg and eye.
08:25And it was written that anyone who ventured near would be driven mad with fear.
08:37But the Ubar legend proved irresistible to a handful of explorers like Bertrand Thomas
08:42of England.
08:47Sixty years ago, Thomas set out on a daring journey and became the first European to cross
08:53the Rub al-Khali Desert.
09:00Along the way, he encountered an ancient caravan route over 100 yards wide.
09:08As Thomas wrote later, a Bedouin guide called it the Road to Ubar.
09:14While Thomas mapped his position, the Bedouin explained that Ubar was a great city.
09:20Our fathers have told us that it existed of old, he said, a city rich in treasure.
09:27It now lies buried beneath the sands, some few days to the north.
09:36Short on water, Thomas could not follow the road.
09:39But he passed on the information to his friend, T.E. Lawrence, Lawrence of Arabia.
09:48Dressed here in Arab clothing, Lawrence is fourth from the right, standing with hands clasped.
09:55A soldier and archaeologist, he had a deep love of Arabian history and culture.
10:04Back in England, Lawrence became convinced the remains of Ubar lay in the desert.
10:10He called it the Atlantis of the Sands.
10:15But before he could return to Arabia, he died in 1935.
10:31It wasn't until 20 years later that a major expedition was launched by a young American archaeologist named Wendell Phillips.
10:46Hoping to find and follow the road that Bertram Thomas described, Phillips ventured into the Rue Balcali.
10:54His expedition of trucks pushed on through the shifting sands, until finally it reached a caravan route with 84 parallel camel tracks.
11:05Thomas' road to Ubar, as it must have looked for centuries.
11:15But Ubar itself eluded him.
11:17The caravan route led into a region of impassable dunes.
11:23From here, I knew we were through, wrote Phillips, for there is no barrier so great as billowing, immeasurable sand stretching as far as the eye could see in cruel and sublime grandeur.
11:41Finally, in California, at the Huntington Library, a filmmaker and amateur archaeologist named Nicholas Clapp decided to try again.
12:02Good morning, Elizabeth.
12:04For years, he searched among books, documents, and maps for clues to Ubar's location.
12:12Finding the fabled city became his obsession.
12:23This was Arabia, Arabia in the days of the incense trade.
12:28And in a way, here was a treasure map, for right where it ought to be, just north of where the finest frankincense was grown, is the land of the Yobaratai.
12:38That's Latin for Ubarites.
12:45There were other clues in the library's climate-controlled vaults.
12:50Visualizing hints in the Koran, references in the Arabian Nights and Greek and Roman histories, and the works of Islamic geographers.
12:59In some books, Ubar was mentioned, but had a different name, or the Ubarites were called the People of Odd.
13:07But nothing gave Ubar's exact location, or proved it was real.
13:12Instead, it was the latest in space technology that provided the breakthrough.
13:25NASA scientists, intrigued with the Ubar story, agreed to alter the space shuttle's flight plan.
13:32For 95 orbits around the Earth, the astronauts performed their usual experiments.
13:38But on the 96th orbit, they steered toward the Rub al-Khali.
13:46With the right handhold here?
13:49Okay, unloaded now.
13:53A powerful radar signal was beamed to Earth, capable of revealing a hidden past beneath the sand.
14:06At NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab, pictures from the shuttle and two satellites were then examined.
14:11Known as false-color images, they were enhanced by computers to bring out subtle geological irregularities.
14:19So we're looking at a big chunk of country.
14:22I think we've got something with this.
14:24Ron Bloom is a NASA geologist.
14:26Yeah, this is false-color.
14:27This is a lancet quarter scene.
14:29We're about 90 kilometers across here.
14:32Bertram Thomas Road area is up in here at the top.
14:35Right across the Wadi Matan there.
14:38Yeah, exactly.
14:39It's an ancient lake bed that hints at a greener past.
14:43And what we want to do is go up in here.
14:47Because caravan roads are beaten down more than surrounding areas, their soil has different
14:53reflective properties.
14:55By scanning several bands of light, the imaging reveals the roads as gossamer-thin lines.
15:01Any more processing we can do?
15:04I've done an enhancement called band ratio, where we divide one band by another.
15:09What that tends to do is enhance the reflectance properties in some cases.
15:14In some cases, they cancel out.
15:15So we'll see what that does for us.
15:18Let's see.
15:20Further processing may tell which roads are relatively new and which, if any, are ancient.
15:27Here we go.
15:33Only when reflected near-infrared light is imaged in color is the answer revealed.
15:39Now, only one road remains, the oldest of them all.
15:48But is it the road to Ubar?
15:50Yeah, and we've got a good track all the way, all the way up through here.
15:54That's incredible.
16:02The only way to find out for sure is to travel to Oman.
16:08A country of one and a half million, Oman gets most of its income now from oil.
16:15But there are still people who follow the old ways.
16:19And to talk of ancient glory, when frankincense was king and all the world sought it.
16:26Although Ubar was thought to be far inland, if anywhere, a new expedition begins on the Omani coast, nearest the incense groves.
16:47In ancient days, the Romans called this land, Arabia Felix, or Fortunate Arabia.
16:56Not out of admiration for its natural beauty, but out of envy for its wealth.
17:01Today, it belongs mostly to the wildlife.
17:15Before the team members search for the road to Ubar, they hope to find some trace of its builders.
17:21The mysterious people of Aad.
17:25They know that 2,000 years ago, ships arrived at a port called Moshe, from as far away as the Indies, seeking cargoes of frankincense.
17:37These ruins are all that remain of a town that guarded the harbor below.
17:42No one knows if it's really Moshe, but it does date to the time of Ubar.
17:47The expedition team is international, a mix of amateurs and professionals led by Nick Clapp.
18:00Ron Bloom is chief navigator.
18:02A little closer to the camera here.
18:05Archaeologist Yuri Zarens is an expert on Arabia, while explorer Ran Fiennes, on the right, will handle logistics.
18:16Fiennes, like Zarens, isn't sure whether Ubar is a single city or an entire land.
18:28After so many years of planning, the search for Ubar is about to begin.
18:41But Ubar's people of Aad proved to be as elusive as Ubar itself.
18:46An inscription at some nearby ruins proclaims the site a colonial outpost of another distant kingdom.
18:57There is no mention of the people of Aad or Ubar.
19:05Hopeful of finding other sites, Yuri Zarens and Ran Fiennes explore the coast.
19:16Wait a minute.
19:17Slow down a little bit.
19:19Let's take some of these over here.
19:20They're really quite nice.
19:21You want to see those structures over there?
19:22You got a big rock we see.
19:23You want to stop?
19:24No, no.
19:25Slow down here.
19:26These are really important.
19:27Near an inlet named Korsoli, they find hundreds of stone structures in an ancient graveyard.
19:33Everything scattered all over the place.
19:34Large, huge blocks you see like that.
19:36And they're all over it out here.
19:38You've never found anything yet, right?
19:39Okay.
19:40Let's take a look.
19:41All right.
19:42What do we got?
19:43Reflection on my instructor.
19:44Now don't step on that.
19:45There's something right there.
19:46See that?
19:47Look at there.
19:48That's pottery.
19:49So what we have here is some of that burnished ware.
19:51Now look at that.
19:52See, hold that in the sun there.
19:53It kind of shines.
19:54See that?
19:55That pottery took a little stick and they rubbed it real good to give it a shine.
19:58They were poor.
19:59They couldn't make fancy pottery.
20:00So that kind of technique tells us a lot because it's not as recent as some of the other pottery.
20:04And it's at least from the time of Christ, maybe even a lot earlier.
20:08The pottery's age and distinctive style leads errands to believe it could be the work of the people of Odd.
20:14Ubar is thought to have lasted for 3,000 years.
20:25But when it disappeared a few centuries after Christ, the people of Odd seemed to vanish with it.
20:39Of all the coastal sites the expedition team visited,
20:43It was most interested in a place called the Oracle of Odd.
20:57An Oracle is an ancient shrine to the gods.
21:00But the site is also marked by a great dry well.
21:04Rad, right to your left.
21:06Yeah, there you go.
21:09They find something at the well's ancient water line.
21:12What do we got, four blocks there?
21:15It's a cluster of stones, which could be the remnants of a platform where the people of Odd filled their jugs with water.
21:25Now you see by your left foot?
21:28Yeah.
21:29Yeah, go to your left a little bit more to trowel.
21:31Yeah.
21:32Yeah, what's that?
21:33Wood.
21:34Can we get down to it?
21:36The wood dates to a period when Ubar had already vanished.
21:40But there may be older artifacts down at the bottom.
21:45We've got the first rim, I think.
21:46See that ledge just behind you, Nick?
21:51Got about five feet.
21:54Okay.
21:55If we touch it at all, we'll bring the whole lot down.
21:58So you've got to be very, very careful.
22:00We're close here.
22:01Stop!
22:02These look really precarious.
22:03What was planned as a brief inspection now threatens to become something far more dangerous.
22:18Behind us, look, on the bottom of that area there, right the way across for about 15 feet.
22:23If one goes, the whole lot will go.
22:26The search is quickly abandoned.
22:31Disappointed, the team leaves the coast for the rugged slopes of the Dothar Mountains,
22:37beyond which lies more fertile land.
22:41For centuries, the mountains protected the people of Odd from coastal invaders.
22:47Today, the region is settled by the Shahra tribe.
22:57A similar chant would have been heard as the ancient caravans passed through on their way to the frankincense groves.
23:08This was thought to be a land of djinns, spirits who could stir the wind.
23:23The legend, like the mountains, discouraged the uninvited.
23:30In the fifth century BC, Herodotus, the Greek historian, warned of flying snakes that guarded the frankincense trees.
23:36Today, a carpet viper is deadly enough, with no antidote for its venom.
23:55Those who traveled in the caravans sometimes left their mark in the valley's many caves.
24:11Perhaps while camped here, a man saw a wolf attacking an ibex and recorded the scene.
24:21Nearby, a camel had just given birth and was suckling her young.
24:30And here are camels laden with incense on their way to Jerusalem, Damascus or Antioch, Gaza or Alexandria.
24:45And this may be the route itself, winding its way through the centuries.
25:02Not far from the groves lies the veil of remembrance.
25:08Here, one can find the remains of the once-honored dead, now long forgotten.
25:22Further down the veil are monuments called triliths, ancient memorials lining the route into the desert.
25:29A few miles further, and the sands erase everything.
25:34Graves, monuments, even cities.
25:53The expedition plan is to angle across the desert to intercept the Ubar Caravan Road
25:59at a point close to where the team hopes the city is hidden.
26:03The way lies across a plain of illusions, showing water where none exists.
26:15The illusion is caused by the heat, an apt symbol of everything that remains ethereal about the desert city.
26:22Like the discoverers of ancient Troy, the team can only hope that all the tales of Ubar are more than a mere mirage.
26:35Once again, they turn to space-age technology.
26:42OK, you've got a position.
26:44Ready to find a position for us.
26:48Very difficult to navigate around here.
26:50All the dunes look very similar.
26:52Very similar.
26:53The team relies on a global positioning system.
26:56But today, the system isn't working, because the satellites are being realigned.
27:01Getting lost in the desert can be a fatal mistake.
27:11When they set up camp, they carefully check their equipment and supplies.
27:16The food and water will be rationed from now on.
27:24Although some settlements exist at the edge of the empty quarter, they are few and far between.
27:30Is this curry?
27:32There are other dangers here as well.
27:39Rand Fiennes remembers a brief encounter with the dreaded camel spider.
27:46Not asleep yet.
27:50Eighteen years ago, we were camped near here.
27:54My signaller, Ibrahim, got visited in the night.
27:58The spiders are six inches long, hairy legs, and big mandibles.
28:04One of them couldn't get into his sleeping bag, so it started to eat his face.
28:10It desensitizes before it bites, so you don't know that it's biting.
28:15This fellow woke up in the morning, and half of his nose and all of his cheek had gone AWOL.
28:24Sleep well.
28:27That looks like it might be a little soft.
28:37Careful.
28:38Okay, okay, here we go.
28:40Oh, this is soft.
28:41Just hold on in the back of it, Nick.
28:43Oh, very good.
28:44All right.
28:45On the second day out, the team encounters its first heavy dunes.
28:49Sorry, I brought you up there.
28:52I'm sorry.
28:52I'm sorry.
28:52I'm sorry.
28:53I'm sorry.
28:53I'm sorry.
28:53I'm sorry.
28:57I'm sorry.
28:58I'm sorry.
28:58Thankfully, they can't help everybody.
28:59Inevitably, the vehicles get stuck.
29:07It becomes a well-worn routine.
29:09Shovel sand away from the wheels
29:13Drop the air pressure to 16 pounds per square inch
29:18Jack up the wheels
29:21Then drop them back down onto aluminum sand ladders
29:26If anyone complains, they need only be reminded of Bertram Thomas
29:32Who spent two weeks on a camel getting here
29:39On the other hand, Thomas was never lost
29:44Highlighted on this false color map is the planned search area
29:48But without a satellite reading, the team could be anywhere
29:53By the time the device is working, they're far off course
29:59Okay, we got a reading
30:09And it looks like we're about 30 kilometers from where we want to be
30:15That's not too good
30:18No, we're up here by this dune
30:20This is dune behind us
30:22And where we want to be is all the way over here
30:27And it's roughly 30 kilometers between the two
30:30But we can't go straight there
30:31We're going to have to work our way back down this dune street
30:34And then either out through here or out around through here
30:37With all the fuel expended on yesterday's detour
30:40There's no room for further error
30:43If Ron's doing his dead reckoning navigation very carefully
30:47Shouldn't be any bother
30:47But when you come to these two enormous lines of heavy dune
30:51I can't see a way through
30:53Sounds okay
31:00Now you can see a bit further ahead
31:02Oh, this is great
31:02Well, I think you want to generally aim for that dune out there
31:06Okay
31:06That gets you in the right direction
31:08That makes sense
31:09From looking at the image, this is the only way in here
31:12Short of walking, that is
31:13So the one that I'm aiming at now is the one you want here
31:15Yeah
31:16Their high-tech navigating system occasionally goes down
31:25When that happens, the team is reduced to simple dead reckoning
31:29Every few kilometers, they have to stop and take a compass reading
31:34One mistake, and they're lost again
31:38Hold it a second
31:39Can I take a...
31:40Yeah
31:40The reading must be taken away from the vehicle's magnetic field
31:50Okay
31:51224 degrees
31:55Watch out for yourself, Steve
32:02It's quite a lot of it to watch out for
32:05Really our only choice
32:09So, it's up and over, or not at all
32:13That's right
32:13There's a Bedouin song of the desert that goes
32:18Only a fool will brave the desert sun
32:21Searching for ghostly cities of the mind
32:24Allah protect us from jinns and fiends
32:28Spirits of evil who infest the dunes
32:31That's a little bit
32:46Yeah, we're coming out of this nasty stuff right here
32:49If their calculations are right
32:53They should be able to see the road from atop this ridge
32:57The caravan route that Bertram Thomas found more than 60 years ago
33:02And there it is at last
33:10A track in the sand slightly lighter in color
33:13The road to Ubar
33:152,500 camels at a time would have passed here
33:29On their way to the great markets of the ancient world
33:32So what we're looking at is an encampment
33:48And here, for example, you've got a pot shirt
33:51Which means that, again, in this particular part of the world
33:54We're talking about the time zone, say, 1500 B.C.
33:57Who's previously found pottery in the empty... inside?
33:59There hasn't been any, really, any empty quarter, per se
34:02What, so this is the first bit of pottery?
34:03Yes, that's one of the first pieces we've ever found, right
34:06Rubal holly
34:07Yuri, you are a maestro
34:17But finding the road to Ubar is just the beginning
34:21After a brief stop, they push on
34:23With Zarens as lookout
34:26Okay, go ahead
34:28Off to your left, on my way
34:39But when they try to follow the road north
34:42It becomes increasingly difficult to imagine a city thriving here
34:47Or even surviving
34:54And even if Ubar does lie out there
34:58The chances of finding it seem nil
35:00Only one hope remains
35:06Only one hope remains
35:10That this isn't the road to Ubar
35:13But the road from Ubar
35:16That the city lies back the other way
35:21Closer to the incense groves
35:24According to this satellite map
35:27According to this satellite map
35:29Branches of the road lead to a pair of other sites
35:32Hylet, Araka, and Shisher
35:35The team checks out Hylet, Araka first
35:42There's little evidence of occupation from the time of Ubar
35:51And yet there's an ancient tale about the incense road
35:55Told by the local sheikh
35:57The story is that Hylet, Araka was once an outlying settlement in the land of the Ubarites
36:07Caravans coming up from the incense groves would stop here to rest
36:12Then they would go on to the great water hole at Shisher
36:17As represented by these two stones
36:22A number of branches converge on Shisher
36:25It's the team's last chance to find clues about Ubar's location
36:37But Shisher has undergone a radical transformation in just a few years
36:44A modern village has been built here by the government
36:50There's even a housing development, would you believe?
36:53No
36:54The people of Shisher welcome the visitors warmly
37:05Salaam Alaikum
37:07Peace be upon you
37:08No matter what peculiar reasons brought the strangers to the village
37:12It's time for tea and conversation
37:37For its part, the team puts on a cheerful front
37:46But after ten years' research and a full-scale expedition
37:52There is nowhere else to go
37:55They are quite literally at the end of the road
38:00Ubar
38:04Surely we don't know where it is, says the Sheikh
38:07Maybe not far away
38:09Things get misplaced in the desert
38:12But if the visitors are interested in ruins
38:15There are in fact some here
38:17They are just behind the tent
38:19According to the villagers, these are the remnants of a fort 500 years old
38:30Bertram Thomas was told the same story
38:33And there is little reason to doubt it
38:35In Arabic, Shisher means the cleft
38:44Formed long ago when an underlying cavern collapsed
38:47I think there is a fracture system here
38:48And that will provide all the water
38:49So what we got here then is kind of initially a large kind of dome
38:52People may be living around it in a kind of a seep
38:54And then the water table fell down
38:56Then this fell in on it
38:57Yeah, it created a sinkhole from all the water moving through here
39:00Curious about what might be down there
39:03The team decides to investigate
39:05After this fracture took place
39:06Ready?
39:07Yeah, I'm ready
39:13Without taking time to dig
39:15There is only one way to see if anything lies beneath the sands in the sinkhole
39:19It's started
39:21Okay, we're on
39:24A device called the red sled can transmit radar impulses
39:28To uncover variations in density far below the surface
39:31Six meters
39:33Thirty feet down
39:35The radar detects the outline of an ancient well
39:38Can you see where it's coming down, right?
39:40Yeah
39:41It's coming down here
39:42Good
39:43So we got halfway there
39:47You see that's all this sand fill which is sitting in here
39:51Three meters
39:54Six meters
39:57Ten-nine
40:00That's it
40:01The team also discovers some ruins
40:04That fell into the sinkhole
40:06Perhaps during an earthquake
40:08Every day
40:17Would have been there
40:20Taking the storm
40:22That 250 Confederıyorsun
40:23Definitely
40:24It's a basement
40:25Of the back of the country
40:26It's an underwater
40:27Will have been there
40:28Come on
40:29Yuri Zarens ponders the possibilities.
40:33Frankly, I didn't know what we had.
40:37If this was Ubar, it seems to me that someone would have figured that out a long time ago.
40:43My first thought was that this was just a medieval site, maybe a stop on the road to Mecca.
40:49But, of course, that would have been far too recent to fit the Ubar legend.
40:53Well, there was one thing we could do. Stop speculating and start digging.
40:58Willing to give it a try, the team decides to excavate the ridge extending east from the existing ruins.
41:16A group of assistant archaeologists and students join them from Southwest Missouri State, Yuri Zarens University.
41:30It's a fragment of Persian pottery.
41:48In hopes of finding more, every bit of rubble, dirt and sand is carefully screened.
42:06Anything interesting?
42:10Shesher slowly begins to yield up its past.
42:16These are potsherds from ancient Greece.
42:32And these are from Syria, dating back to 500 B.C.
42:36From the artifacts found in the first few days, it becomes clear that Shesher is much more than a medieval site.
42:44It isn't 500 years old.
42:47It's 5,000 years old.
42:50Not only is there pottery imported from distant lands, but also distinctive pieces made by the people of Odd.
43:04So Shesher was definitely an ancient site.
43:08But was it a settlement of consequence?
43:11That's really good plaster work there.
43:13The answer comes in the second week of digging.
43:19When the foundation of a wall takes an unexpected curve.
43:25Comes off clean.
43:27It's the base of a horseshoe tower.
43:30So, it's got to make kind of a semicircle.
43:35Here's our rock, and then there's that wall that comes around there, and we've got some small rocks here.
43:40So join up.
43:41Comes around there.
43:42But it looks great.
43:44Okay, Rick, so...
43:46A tower.
43:47Think about that.
43:49You don't just build one in the middle of nowhere.
43:51You have a wall here.
43:53Then a tower.
43:54Then you're going to have more wall.
43:56More towers.
43:57All protecting a large enclosed structure.
44:00A fortress.
44:02That'll look real good, so...
44:03I'd say take it out like this.
44:05Like that.
44:06So we can get out to here, and then we'll have it.
44:10Come on in, Nick.
44:14Come on up, brother.
44:15All right.
44:18For every significant find, a photograph is taken for later reference.
44:24There we are.
44:25Got it.
44:26Okay.
44:27All righty.
44:28Steady yourself.
44:34Set on a sturdy stone foundation, the mud brick tower would have risen as high as 30 feet.
44:40But what's a tower doing at Shishir?
44:47That evening, Nick Clapp returns to the ancient sources that first inspired him.
44:53In most translations of the Quran, Ubar is called the city of pillars, whose like has not been seen in the entire land.
45:03But some translations describe it as a city of towers.
45:08Yuriy Zarin students are now joined by dozens of volunteers who have heard of the site's promise, and who have come to help dig.
45:29For them and the people of Shishir, there's a growing sense of anticipation.
45:35It's now clear that the outer wall continues on to another tower, turns and passes a third, then crosses a gap to a fourth.
45:56As the pattern of the settlement is uncovered, the team is even able to predict the location of buried walls.
46:21So what we're going to have you do is help out right in here.
46:26Clear off the material here and see if we can find that continuation of the wall, all right?
46:33And here is our zero point.
46:36An AT is here.
46:37All right, so you ought to have the wall there somewhere, right?
46:40All right.
46:41Okay, so use your trowel, not your fingers.
46:43Why's that?
46:44Well, because I just cut glass sometimes, the flint's real sharp.
46:47You don't want to cut your hands.
46:48Yeah, you'll find glass there.
46:49There you go.
46:50Oh, look at this.
46:51There's a wall.
46:52Don't move that.
46:53Just leave that.
46:54You don't think this is a definite goer?
46:55No, just leave it.
46:56Yeah.
46:57Any big rock, just leave.
46:58You never know what the heck they did.
46:59Sometimes it'll surprise you if you put a tower in or something.
47:01Yeah.
47:02What you have is you removed all the rocks to the tower.
47:04Then I get mad.
47:05Yeah, I would.
47:06See?
47:07After weeks of digging, Zarens is finally willing to make an educated guess.
47:12Well, you certainly couldn't ask for a better crew or a better site, for that matter.
47:19But was this really Ubar?
47:21Someday, if we're lucky, we'll find an inscription that says, yes, this is the place.
47:26But short of that, the site's age, the way it's laid out, even its destruction are a match
47:33for its legend.
47:35Hold it steady right there.
47:36We'll find you.
47:39As the work continues, his confidence grows that the lost city has indeed been found.
48:02A volunteer finds an artifact in the ruins of what may have been a citadel, the stronghold
48:08of the city.
48:09Yeah.
48:10Sort of period, huh?
48:11That'd be South Arabic period, time of Christ, something like that.
48:15It's really nice.
48:16Beautiful.
48:17It's the handle of an oil lamp, used when Ubar was at its height.
48:33With the aid of the Omani Air Force, Zarens can now survey the entire site from the air.
48:48In Ubar's day, the cavern below must have been filled with water.
48:52Yeah, that's just fine if you want to come up a little higher.
48:57There's no question that water was key here.
48:59In this desert, Ubar could have been hidden anywhere in, say, 50,000 square miles.
49:04But it's here because there's water, permanent water.
49:08I'd be willing to lay odds that this is the only major site in the whole area.
49:12With water, the fortress would have made a fitting home for a king like Shaddad.
49:21It would have had a processing and storage facility for the frankincense and high thick walls to withstand a siege.
49:28But Ubar was far more than a fortress.
49:40It would have been surrounded by thousands of tents set in a vast oasis.
49:47Shaddad's imitation of paradise now turned to sand.
50:01To the northeast, there are remnants of campsites where most people lived.
50:06Here, frankincense caravans would have stopped and pitched their tents, resting up for the grueling track across the Rue Balkali.
50:16A few stunted trees are ghostly reminders of palm groves, orchards, and fertile fields.
50:29Around these fire pits, there was once talk of distant trade
50:33and gossip of the goings on in Ubar's Central Market, a short distance away.
50:46For untold generations, desert lore had preserved the tale of Ubar.
50:59And yet it was never suspected that the fabled city lay hidden beneath their feet.
51:05But this we know, the Sheikh declares.
51:09The people of Aad were corrupt.
51:11It's in the Koran.
51:13For their sins upon the land, God punished them.
51:16A great wind was said to herald the end.
51:19A great wind was said to herald the end.
51:23This is how Ubar may have looked on its last day.
51:36This is how Ubar may have looked on its last day.
51:44About 150 people would have lived within the fortress walls.
51:49Family and servants of the king.
51:52Administrators and record keepers of the frankincense trade.
51:57But as legend has it, when the people of Aad refused to heed the word of God,
52:03King Shaddad's world was doomed to crumble in the great cataclysm.
52:16God's justice was swift and sure.
52:18And so it was Ubar's mother.
52:47So it was Ubar's myth that led the way to the truth.
52:51Schooled in the Koran, these children know all about the price of Shaddad's wickedness.
52:59But now they will also know about an ancient city that played a key role in a vast network of trade.
53:06Until an earthquake destroyed it.
53:12Everything is gone now, Zarens explains.
53:16What happened to the towers? They fell down.
53:20Then everything else fell down too.
53:23Several more seasons of digging have taken place since the team first arrived.
53:29But there is still much to be done.
53:36Tons of sand and rubble must be sifted and removed.
53:41And artifacts analyzed.
53:44But there is great hope of further discovery.
53:49As a forgotten people and their lost city take their rightful place in history.
53:53After nearly 2,000 years, the desert is giving up its secrets at last.
54:07At last.
54:08Learn more about the space age techniques that archaeologists use to find and reveal hidden ruins.
54:14Head for NOVA's website at pbs.org.
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54:40ask about our many other NOVA videos.
54:45NOVA's website at pbs.org.
54:50NOVA's website at pbs.org.
54:51To order this show for $19.95 plus shipping and handling, call 1-800-255-9424.
54:57And to learn more about how science can reveal the truth and solve the mysteries of our world,
55:04ask about our many other NOVA videos.
55:09Next time on NOVA, is it possible to fly around the world in a balloon?
55:19These men think so, but they know it won't be easy.
55:23In my opinion, it's going to be hell.
55:25I'm going to be around the world because I want to be the first man that's ever done it.
55:27Three men and a balloon.
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