Tag: Stark

Dhofar coast & Dame Freya Stark.

From my Oman files.
Dhofar coast: the type of coastline Freya Stark would have seen and described in the book I am now reading, also the one from my previous post – see below..

From the big encyclopædia in the sky:

Dame Freya Madeline Stark. DBE.
In 1934, Stark sailed down the Red Sea to Aden and began a new adventure. She hoped to trace the frankincense route of the Hadhramaut, the hinterland of southern Arabia. Only a handful of Western explorers had ventured into the region but never as far or as widely as she. Her goal was to reach the ancient city of Shabwa, which was rumoured to have been the capital of the Queen of Sheba.

Click cover for Amazon link and note how rare and expensive most of her hardback books have become. Ex-library or well used books can be got at reasonable cost: many of her First addition, Mint & Fine used copies are not easily found.

Ubar ?

Ubar ?
Ubar again.I have another post somewhere about this place they claim is The lost City of Ubar: known by various other names (Wubar, Wabar, Iram of the Pillars and Atlantis of the Sands mentioned by Lawrence of Arabia) but the more I visit, the more I think it lives by reputation & reality is something quite different.

It certainly held some significance for the Frankincense trade route but; looking at the site with mark one eyeball, it is small compared to Khor Rorī or Al Balid on the coast: a lot of wishful thinking going on me thinks.
Freya Stark sums it up.

When the explorer Freya Stark consulted the works of Arab geographers, she found a wide range of opinions as to the location of Wabar: “Yaqut says: “In Yemen is the qaria of Wabar.” El-Laith, quoted by Yaqut, puts it between the sands of Yabrin and Yemen. Ibn Ishaq… places it between “Sabub (unknown to Yaqut and Hamdani) and the Hadhramaut. Hamdani, a very reliable man, places it between Najran, Hadhramaut, Shihr and Mahra. Yaqut, presumably citing Hamdani, puts it between the boundaries of Shihr and San’a, and then, on the authority of Abu Mundhir between the sands of B.Sa’d (near Yabrin) and Shihr and Mahra. Abu Mundhir puts it between Hadhramaut and Najran.”

I paraphrase:   With such evidence, it seems quite possible  to find Wabar in opposite corners of Arabia.

Ubar. (Sultanate of Oman)

Lost Town of Ubar

Taken with my ‘cheap Nokia phone’ and tinkered with in Photoshop – no camera !

The lost City of Ubar; known by various other names (Wubar, Wabar, Iram of the Pillars and Atlantis of the Sands mentioned by Lawrence of Arabia)

Ubar was a processing and transportation centre for frankincense, an aromatic resin used in religious ceremonies as well as perfumes and medicines, it was as valuable as gold.

Shis’r  (Shisr or then again Shasar) being the modern name of this location in Oman. [Even today, names change or most often the spelling used for transliteration can be quite imaginative]

The ancient structure found here from satellite images (Landsat) was partly excavated by Dr. Juris Zarins (Missouri State University) starting in 1992. Others involved were Nicolas Clapp, Sir Ranulph Fiennes, and an archaeologist Dr. Juris Zarins.

There is some considerable doubt !

From that well-known on-line encyclopædia:

When the explorer Freya Stark consulted the works of Arab geographers, she found a wide range of opinions as to the location of Wabar: “Yaqut says: “In Yemen is the qaria of Wabar.” El-Laith, quoted by Yaqut, puts it between the sands of Yabrin and Yemen. Ibn Ishaq… places it between “Sabub (unknown to Yaqut and Hamdani) and the Hadhramaut. Hamdani, a very reliable man, places it between Najran, Hadhramaut, Shihr and Mahra. Yaqut, presumably citing Hamdani, puts it between the boundaries of Shihr and San’a, and then, on the authority of Abu Mundhir between the sands of B.Sa’d (near Yabrin) and Shihr and Mahra. Abu Mundhir puts it between Hadhramaut and Najran.”

“With such evidence,” Stark concluded, “it seems quite possible for Mr Thomas and Mr Philby each to find Wabar in an opposite corner of Arabia.”

See these two links for more detailed information:

 http://nabataea.net/ubar.html

 http://nabataea.net/shisr.html

Freya Stark.

Freya Stark – Passionate Nomad by Jane Fletcher Geniesse.

 

Freya Stark – now she was a lady we do not see much of these days, of Polish/German English descent. Made Dame of the British Empire in 1972.

To quote The New York Times –

Dame Freya’s books about the Middle East and nearby countries were called lucid, spontaneous and elegant and were lauded for imparting an inspired sense of both history and people. The consensus of reviewers was that she wrote with spirit, authority and humour and that she was a consummate traveller because of her fearlessness, candour, charm, idealism and streak of naïveté.

And to quote her –

“One can only really travel if one lets oneself go and takes what every place brings without trying to turn it into a healthy private pattern of one’s own and I suppose that is the difference between travel and tourism”   – Freya Stark