Great caravans of camels, en route from the coast of Dhofar (in southern Oman today) would head through Ubar on their northerly land route. Celebrity customers included the Queen of Sheba, the King of Persia, Nero and (courtesy of the Three Wise Men) the baby Jesus. It was also widely used in religious ceremonies and in medicines. The gum from the stumpy frankincense tree was highly prized for its scent, used for the finest perfume and incense. It thrived because it was one of the major trading posts for frankincense, the richest commodity of ancient times, worth more per measure than gold. It became important in about 2500BC, when camels were first used to carry goods across the desert, and was destroyed between 300 and 500AD. It was destroyed, says the Koran, by the wrath of God, to punish the decadent Ad people who lived there. Ubar, or so the legend goes, was a magical oasis supposedly of golden pillars and fabulous wealth, sited in the sands of the southern Arabian Desert. We are retracing the footsteps of the world’s greatest living explorer, Sir Ranulph Fiennes, the latest in a long line of 20th century British adventurers who set out to find the lost city of Ubar, tagged by TE Lawrence – Lawrence of Arabia – as the ‘Atlantis of the Sands’. Time to use the sand ladders and dig troughs around the tyres. The ground is firmer there, but we still get badly stuck in the soft sand. Far below, our modern-day ship of the desert, a Range Rover TDV8, has been gingerly skirting around the dunes – in low range, ride height pumped up, ‘sand’ mode selected in the Terrain Response – seeking whatever shingle and scrubland it can find. We are on the southern fringe of the Empty Quarter, near the Saudi Arabian and Yemeni borders, in Oman. That last stop was the fabled city of Ubar.
The men too would have been in good spirits, for their last stop was famed for its wealth.
#Lost city of ubar full
My hair is full of sand grains, my sunglasses and clothes are dirty, and I need a drink.Īround 1700 years ago, caravans of camels – up to 2000 strong – would trek through this uninhabitable Arabian land, carrying their valuable cargo of frankincense on its way to the northern markets of Mesopotamia, Egypt and Persia. Wisps of sand spray from the dunes and down on the ground, far below, the air is filled with fine dust. It’s 44 degrees and a hot wind is blowing. It is the world’s largest sea of sand, bigger than France or Texas. The dunes stretch as far as you can see, golden orange in the clear afternoon light. Standing on top of a mountain of sand, all around is Arabia’s Empty Quarter, or Rub al Khali.
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