Back to the Sand: Back to the Sand--literally!

As you know, if you've been following along, Krista & I were here long ago to dig in a place called Shisur. We were supposedly looking for the lost city of Ubar which is mentioned in the Koran. Whether we found that specific city or not is debatable but we did indeed find a city.

On Friday, we all trekked back to the lost city to see what it looks like now. Krista got to see it in October when she visited in preparation for us coming this season but, I haven't been there since 1993. We intentionally left in the afternoon so that we could be in the desert for sunset, but more on that later.

Krista, Kristy, Lamya, Sarah, Anastasia, Brian, and our trusty liaison, leader, friend & tour guide, Ganem, all set out for the two hour journey. If you go back and look at the map from a previous blog you will see that Shisur is North of Salalah. What the map doesn't tell you is that you have to go through the mountains, then a scruffy low desert, then into a serious desert to get there. It's a really cool journey geographically & temperature wise.

The first thing I noticed on the way back is the shiny new four lane highway. It was barely two lane when we were traveling it, way back when, & pretty scary in some places since there wasn't anything like guard rails, etc. Once you get over the mountain you head to a city called Thumrait, which is pretty much an air force base. That place is huge and unrecognizable now (at least to me.) After that it used to be a dirt road to Shisur, now it's paved all the way--weird.

Once you get close to Shisur, we are talking major desert here, it was 118 degrees, but it's a dry heat. ;-) They have decided to grow crops in the desert around Shisur using irrigation systems. There are patches of green all along the way--their used to be patches of nothing but sand. At first I was like this is totally ridiculous why would anyone want to grow crops in a desert---then I remembered I live in Arizona...

The town of Shisur is totally different, it used to only have a few buildings now there are several houses and the site has it's own entrance. Growth & expansion has come to Shisur for sure. It was really fun to walk around the site, it some ways it's exactly the same as when we left. Here are a few before and after photos. I happened to have some of the old photos with me so you can see the differences.

When we left Shisur in 1993 this is how it looked.

Not exactly the same shot, there are more modern buildings around now so I couldn't get the same shot but you get the idea. Also, a major change, they plastered/concreted over the drop off to prevent more rock from falling.

This is Bayheet, he was the sort of Mayor of the town then. (That's Juris Zarins behind him.)

As we were leaving a man walked up, I recognized him right away, yes this is Bayheet!

I took this photo as soon as I finished excavating, way back when.

A slightly different angle but still there!

This is Krista just starting to excavate a tower. (OMG she's so young & look at those jeans, nice!)

Again, slightly different angle, but this is how the tower (& Krista) turned out. ;-)

This is a plastered well. A couple of the guys and I worked at the very edge of the drop off. (The site caved in log ago due to the fact that it sat over a water reservoir and when they used the water the cavern couldn't support itself and collapsed.)

It really doesn't look any worse for wear, impressive.

When we were leaving, in 1993, they were just starting to put up a fence to protect the site. Now there are informational signs as well.

It's totally different yet totally the same. I'm really glad we went to see it & I'm even more happy they are doing a nice job of preserving it.

After Shisur we headed out to the Rub al Khali (see previous blog) to watch the sunset over the dunes. This is one of those amazing places that once you see it you want to go back again and again. According to the all-knowing Wikipedia, the Rub al Khali is the largest desert in the world--I don't know if that is actually true or not but it is very impressive and awe-inspiring. Here are some photos.