Tip: Be sure to fill up your tank again in Thumrayt, as there is no petrol station on the onward journey towards the desert. Shisr is reached via the town of Thumrayt, after 16km a scenically boring dirt road turns off to the west, on which it is another 75km to Shisr. Sightseeing Shisr/Ubar © FRASHO / franks-travelbox HOTELS | PENSIONS | APARTMENTS | VILLAS | CHALETS The search for Ubar and its breathtaking discovery was recorded by Sir Ranulph Fiennes in his book "Atlantis of the Sands - The Search for the lost City of Ubar", making the historical site world famous. Some of the buildings have been dated to the third millennium BC. The city had apparently been literally swallowed up by the earth due to a subsidence of the ground. The old caravan routes had been found, but still no trace of a glorious city.įinally, in 1990, a team of researchers from Southwest Missouri State University set out to finally excavate Ubar, including Arabic archaeology specialist Dr Yuris Zarin, Nicholas Clapp, a US writer, filmmaker and amateur archaeologist often referred to as the "real Indiana Jones", and British adventurer Sir Ranulph Fiennes.Īnd indeed, in 1992, with the help of NASA images and Thomas' notes, the team discovered a caravanserai with a spring, at that time the last stop before the seemingly endless sand desert. The next clue came many years later from the radar of NASA's Challenger space shuttle, which discovered a 100km road under the sand at the edge of the Rub al-Khali. He noted this in his travelogue "Arabia felix" ("Happy Arabia"), but did not pursue the matter further. At that time, one of his Arab companions informed him that the road to Ubar ran through here. The first concrete clue as to where Ubar might be was given to the Briton Bertram Thomas, who crossed the Rub al-Khali in 1932. Discovery of Ubar © FRASHO / franks-travelbox
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