Iram

Iram off the Pillars (إرَمذاتالعماد, Iram dhāt Al `imād), also called Irem , Ubar , Wabar or the Quoted of the thousand pillars , is a quoted lost apparently located on the Arab Péninsule.

History

Ubar is mentioned in old writings and the oral tradition like an important shopping mall of the desert of Rub' Al Khali, located in the Southern part of the Arab peninsula. It is estimated that it existed of -3000 until the 1st century. The city disappears in the modern world and is evoked more only in some legends.

The Coran says that Iram was built by the tribe of `AD, great-grandchildren of Noah. It was then a rich and declining city, whose inhabitants practiced the Occult sciences. Its king, Shaddad, refused to take into account the warnings of the prophet Houd and God destroyed the city by hiding it under sands thus transforming it into true Atlantis sands.

The legend of this city arrives in European civilization with the translation of the Tales from the Arabian Nights .

With the redécouverte of Ubar/Iram

Several recent discoveries arose Iram of the world of the Mythe for that of the history.

The first discovered was that of shelves in the files of Ebla which mention the name of Iram explicitly. The second comes from the study by Archéologue S of photographs of the Persian Gulf taken since the Space shuttle Columbia in 1984. These photographs show several traces of destroyed cities clearly all along the road of the Encens between the years -2800 and 100. One of enters at the end Is of Oman in the province of Dhofar is a named city Ubar , which is generally identified as being Iram.

At the beginning of the Years 1980, a group of researchers interested in the history of Ubar. They then use data coming from the satellites GPR and Landsat of NASA as well as the Satellite Spot to find the old roads chamelières and their points of convergeance. Excavations then make it possible to update a fortress serving to protect the road and especially a point from water in the shape as a vast cave under the fortress. This cave would have crumbled between -300 and -350, thus blocking the access to the source.

In 1992, an archeologist amateur, Nicholas Clapp claims to have discovered the city by using the data of NASA. It then locates it also on one of the water points, on the Route of the driving incense of the mountains Omani to the quoted rich person of North. This city would have been destroyed for half in gigantic a Doline then given up by its inhabitants.

However, Ubar will not be discovered by the simple use of the satellite data but practically by chance by a team directed by Ranulph Fiennes which excavated the ruins of the fort of Shis' R dating from the 16th century. Under the fort, they then find the remainders of the Atlantis of sands (according to the expression of T.E. Lawrence).

In fact, Ubar was not the name of the city, but that of the area. At the 2nd century, Ptolémée draws up a chart on which, it names the zone Iobaritae ( Ubarite in French). Thereafter, the legend will concentrate on the city and will use the name of the area to indicate it.

In the fiction

In the contemporary legend, this city is quoted in the work of Howard Philips Lovecraft like being close to the Ville without Name . This legend also probably inspired to Frank Herbert in his novel the Children of Dune . Lastly, the novel Tonnerre of Sand of James Rollins locates his action around Iram and of its mysteries.

See too

Internal bonds

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