George Hedges dies at 57; celebrity lawyer was also a noted archaeologist

Los Angeles Times ^ | Friday, March 13, 2009 | Thomas H. Maugh II

[SunkenCiv]

Hedges retained an interest in archaeology throughout his law career. A 1984 luncheon conversation with filmmaker Nicholas Clapp brought the fabled city of Ubar to his attention. An important center of the frankincense trade 3,000 years before the birth of Christ, Ubar had been unsuccessfully sought by a variety of archaeologists and explorers, and many thought it was mythical.

Hedges and Clapp decided it was real and enlisted JPL scientists Blom and Charles Elachi, who persuaded NASA astronauts to photograph the region of southern Oman where they believed the city would be found. Those photos revealed faint traces of ancient caravan paths packed firmly by the feet of thousands of camels. Several junctions where the routes converged were possible sites of Ubar.

The team enlisted now- retired archaeologist Juris Zarins of Southwest Missouri State University and descended on Oman. On New Year's Eve 1991, they found preliminary evidence that what is now known as the village of Shisr, in the barren Empty Quarter or Rub'al Khali, was the site of Ubar.

Excavations revealed the presence of an octagonal fort with crenelated towers identical to those described in ancient documents. The fort had inadvertently been constructed over a massive limestone cavern and had collapsed into the cavern during an earthquake, triggering the legend that the city had been destroyed by God because of its greed.

Five years later, the team used similar space imagery of southern Yemen to discover a network of trade routes connecting more than 65 archaeological sites, including a pair of fortresses virtually identical to that discovered at Ubar. Most of the sites were stone caravansaries that guarded portions of the routes used by the camel caravans to transport frankincense from Oman to cultures throughout the Middle East.

[SunkenCiv]

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The Road to Ubar: Finding the Atlantis of the Sands by Nicholas Clapp Hardcover Paperback Unknown Binding Audio Cassette	Atlantis of the Sands: The Search for the Lost City of Ubar by Sir Ranulph Fiennes Paperback	The Lost City of Ubar by Tom Hoopes

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[SunkenCiv]

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[fieldmarshaldj]

RIP.

[krb]

Forestal?

[BigSkyVic]

Is that Mano’s The Hands of Fate?!

[JerseyHighlander]

Saw an old Nova episode on this:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/ubar/index.html

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/radar/sircxsar/ubar1.html

[SoConPubbie]

The fort had inadvertently been constructed over a massive limestone cavern and had collapsed into the cavern during an earthquake, triggering the legend that the city had been destroyed by God because of its greed.

It really is funny how the intellegentia will dismiss God in situations like this not realizing the God will use whatever means necessary, and has through recorded history(see the bible) to get the attention of mortal man.