First published in 2008. From the text: Anyone coming from Europe which so much interest centring in the Middle Ages has to customize the eyes to a new focus. It is as if he were to come from a well-kept garden to life in mid-oceans, stretching the eyes over a waste of waters. Everything is so old in the East; and being so old, is apt to be fragmentary. Civilizations come and go; nations have their rise, the of period pf prosperity and then they disappear...

*Includes pictures *Includes excerpts of medieval accounts *Includes a bibliography for further reading The story of Atlantis has captured the minds and hearts of historians, scientists, artists, and writers for millennia, and yet, it never ceases to amaze people when told that the only literary evidence that exists comes from a single 4th century BCEE author. The Athenian philosopher Plato, famous for his dialogues in which the Socratic Method was invented, was the first writer to mention the mysterious continent of Atlantis. In his works Timaeus and Critias, Plato outlines the beginning of the story of Atlantis, but the Critias, where the longer and more detailed account takes place, was never finished and, therefore, has become the mysterious germ for millennia of thought. The annals of world history are filled with intriguing, although often outlandish stories of lost cities and kingdoms, and in addition to Atlantis, there are also Hyperborea, Shambhala, and Aztlan, to name just a few. Besides being cities and kingdoms that have been lost, often through some sort of catastrophe, all of these places are mentioned in religious texts or as part of a peoples' national history. They play a major role in the identity of certain groups, at least in how certain groups identify with these mythical places. Although many, if not all, of these locations are mythical, they may have been based on actual locations, even if modern scholars are yet to definitively discover any such places. One of these lost cities is that known as Ubar, Wabar or Iram, names which are all believed to refer to the same, possibly mythical, location. The city is mentioned as a den of iniquity that was destroyed by God, both in the Quran as well as the mythical Arabian Nights. As such, Ubar became a metaphor for how good Muslims should not act, and what could happen to non-believers, especially when allowed to congregate in a specific area. Later Islamic historians and geographers describe Ubar as being somewhere in the Arabian Desert, in what is today the nation-state of Oman. In modern times there were a few attempts to locate the lost city, but, for the most part, they were futile. Ubar and its location continued to fascinate people around the world, and it seemed as though its secrets would remain hidden beneath the Arabian sands until the 1980s, when a photojournalist named Nicholas Clapp became interested in the city. Clapp eventually turned his interest into a full-time endeavor to find Ubar and put together a team of adventurers and archaeologists, receiving funding from a number of different sources. Working backwards from the few scant historical and geographical accounts that portray Ubar as a prosperous city or kingdom in the centuries before Islam, Clapp and his team narrowed their search to a location on the edge of the Arabian Desert in the Dhofar region of Oman. It is there that they believed they found Ubar, which appeared to be a productive, wealthy, and growing city from the early 1st millennium BCEE until as late as the 6th century BCEE. Clapp received great fame for his discovery and recorded his journey in a book, even as some historians remained convinced that he had not actually discovered Ubar. In fact, some continue to believe that Ubar was a purely mythical place, even as others are convinced that it was a large, historical kingdom that remains lost. The Lost City of Ubar: The History and Legends of the Ancient Arabian City Known as the Atlantis of the Sands chronicles the origins of the city, the stories about it, the way the stories spread as they became more popular, and their impact on history. Along with pictures depicting important people, places, and events, you will learn about the Atlantis of the Sands like never before.

Join Childress as he discovers forbidden cities in the Empty Quarter of Arabia, 'Atlantean' ruins in Egypt and the Kalahari desert; a mysterious, ancient empire in the Sahara; and more. This is an extraordinary life on the road: across war torn countries Childress searches for King Solomon's Mines, living dinosaurs, the Ark of the Covenant and the solutions to the fantastic mysteries of the past.

Explores some of the world's oldest and most remote countries in search of lost cities and ancient mysteries.

In a mixture of travel, adventure, and scholarship, historian Tudor Parfitt sets out in search of answers to a fascinating ethnological puzzle: is the Lemba tribe of Southern Africa really one of the lost tribes of Israel, descended from King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba? Beginning in the Lemba villages in South Africa, where he witnesses customs such as food taboos and circumcision rites that seem part of Jewish tradition, Parfitt retraces the supposed path of the Lembas' through Zimbabwe, Malawi, and Tanzania, taking in sights like Zanzibar and the remains of the stone city Great Zimbabwe. The story of his eccentric travels, a blend of the ancient allure of King Solomon's mines and Prester John with contemporary Africa in all its beauty and brutality, makes for an irresistible glimpse at a various and rapidly changing continent. And in a new epilogue, Parfitt discusses recent DNA evidence that, amazingly, lends credence to the Lemba's tribal myth.