The gifts of Eden Ch#7

It had been 10 years since Gabrielae's last visit, and I had recently celebrated my 36^th birthday. I had spent the last decade working as an understudy with Professor Zarins in Missouri, most of which were uneventful. I taught anthropology classes in his department, and after hours we worked on his archaeological projects. His focus had been a Middle Eastern dig site in southwestern Oman. His search was focused on the ancient lost trade routes of the Ubarites, kinfolk of the original residents of Eden according to Dr. Zarins' theories. Dr. Zarins was convinced he had finally discovered the location of Shisur, otherwise known as Ubar, or the fabled "Lost City of the Sands". So I followed him to the southern Arabian Desert, and we spent months living in tents, scouring the desolation for clues that might support his hypotheses. Several months later, it was obvious he had actually found Shisur. The evidence was overwhelming. At long last it seemed his theories were all coming to fruition, after a lifetime of research and patience. I considered myself fortunate to have accompanied such a knowledgeable guide on this journey through the ancient past.

I had never adjusted to sleeping on safari. The nights were long and hot, and the days were almost unbearable. At times the baking winds would whip up the desert sand so it was impossible to see without goggles, or breathe without masks. We had taken to wearing much of the local Arabic clothing as a result. Our skin was smelly and oily, since there were no bathrooms in the desert. Even the bottled water was hot and unsatisfying to drink. But we kept on, as only archaeologists could or would under such circumstances, and it had finally proved worth it.

Today a television crew from America had come to interview Dr. Zarins about the finding of the Lost City of Ubar. Since he was chief archaeologist and the driving force behind the Transarabian Expedition we were on, he was the center of attention now that word of his discovery had leaked out.

We smiled when they spoke of their visit to Ubar, because Ubar was actually a misnomer. You see, Ubar referred to the entire region and a group of peoples, not a specific town. Dr. Zarins had once shown me an ancient second century map of our whereabouts with the name "Lobaritae", another word for Ubarite, plastered across the entire area. The confusion started, he explained, in the Medieval era when the fabled story "The Thousand and One Arabian Nights" was popularized. Since Ubar was the glamorized central city in the tale, the legend stuck. Over the years, the city of Ubar lived and grew in the minds of romantic storytellers and treasure-seekers. Shisur, Dr. Zarins further explained, was not actually Ubar; it was merely one of several major sites along the Ubarite frankincense, myrrh and horse trade routes of that time.

These trade routes had many sites like Shisur, and each one had a heavily protected fortress of thick stone walls and tall battle towers, with small nomadic villages nearby populated by those who sold goods and services to the traveling merchants and warriors. Each fort was manned by armed soldiers, and built around a permanent supply of the most precious resource in the desert, water. The sites were strategically placed close enough together so the caravans could reach the next one before they ran out of supplies. At these outposts, they would restock, rest, and prepare for the next leg of the journey across the unforgiving desert. The defenses had to be formidable, to fend off the raiding Bedouin tribes roaming the desert. Money as well as goods were kept there, so the structures had to be as strong as castles.

Frankincense nowadays is pretty worthless, but back then it was as valuable as gold. In the Bible it was one of the honored gifts from the Magi to the Christ child. The Arabian Desert produced some low, gnarled trees whose roots penetrated the arid sands, sometimes as deep as 200 feet in search of scant supplies of water. The sap these tenacious trees oozed from their bark under the blistering sun was used to make frankincense. Since frankincense was rare and valuable, people all over the world wanted it. So it had to be moved from where it was made to markets wherever they might be. Thus, large caravans with frankincense-laden camels and supplies trekked across the Arabian Desert for weeks and sometimes months to transport, deliver and sell this valuable cargo to customers in far away lands. Horses and myrrh were also extremely valuable commodities, and were oftentimes part of the merchandise moving through the Ubarite trade networks.[1]

The Arabian Desert was a hot place, sometimes the temperature reached above 120 degrees Fahrenheit in the summer. Actually, the Arabian Desert was comprised of all the deserts in the Arabian Peninsula. Over 250,000 square miles of burning hot sands stretched as far as the eye could see! Some of the dunes reached over 1000 feet high, like blistering mountains in the endless sea of sand. We had to bring lots of protection from the sun, a great deal of water, and copious records including maps that kept us from getting lost.[2] Dr. Zarins and I killed our share of carpet viper snakes, and camel spiders were a daily nuisance, but we were there for a reason, and a few local snakes and insects weren't going to scare us away.

The nights were fascinating. I had a telescope I brought out when it was too hot to sleep, and the skies were so clear I could actually see the moons of Jupiter. The silence was breathtaking, and the isolation was humbling. This particular night I was sitting in a chair beside my telescope watching the television crew packing their equipment for the journey back to civilization. They were very pleased with the interview, and had promised they'd let us know when the footage would be broadcast. Dr. Zarins was scrunched over a map on a shaky table under a canvas canopy about 30 feet away. I walked over to him, and stood patiently on the other side of the table while he scanned the paper.

"Yes, Sir." I was a man of few words these days. Solitude and isolation did that to a guy.

"Yes, Sir" I responded, hesitating for a moment. "I won't be going back to Missouri with you this time, Professor. I've received an offer from Stanford University in California, and I've accepted their invitation."

"I was wondering about that. So you've decided to take them up on it, eh?" He didn't seem surprised.

I hesitated again, shuffling my feet on the makeshift flooring. "It's not that I don't appreciate all you've done, it's just that I need to make my own way now." I felt uncomfortable. After all, Juris and I had worked together for many years, both at the University, and in the field. It was difficult to leave him after all we'd been through together, but he was about to become a very famous man, and I just felt I would be in the way.

"I understand, my boy." Dr. Zarins smiled his grand smile again. "Don't let it bother you. You've come a long way, and Stanford is luck to be getting you. And perhaps," he removed his glasses and set them slowly on the rickety table, "perhaps you'll find that Garden of yours in the end after all."

"Perhaps, Sir. Perhaps." I smiled at the man who had been my mentor since I was a youth, nearly 15 years now. It was indeed difficult to go, but it was time. Something deep within me kept telling me it was definitely time.

"Nonsense, my boy. You are a world-class archaeologist in your own right. You just need a bit more self-confidence. Look what you've accomplished in your lifetime. It is your time to shine, my boy. Besides, my path lies in a different direction than yours. I must follow the Ubarites, and you must seek the Garden. So, you see, we have indeed come to a crossroads." He picked his glasses up and perched them on the end of his nose. "You have done well, my boy. You have done well." He smiled once more, then shooed me out of his tent.

I returned to my telescope and leaned against it. I gazed up at the clear, starry night, and wondered what my destiny was in this great universe. It seemed as though I had been going through predestined motions my entire life, and despite years, travels and degrees, was no closer to knowing myself than when I was a lad. I sighed, and turned back to face Dr. Zarins' tent. As I shifted positions, the sleeve of my robe caught on the end of the telescope, pulling it off its center of gravity. It began to fall towards me. I lurched forward in an attempt to catch it before it hit the ground, but only succeeded in receiving a huge scratch down the length of my arm.

"Ow!" I exclaimed, as I ripped my arm away from the offending wing nut. There was a crash, and the tinkling of broken glass. I saw the large lens had been cracked, and small shards of glass lay in the surrounding sand where it hat collided with the ground. I bent down to gather some of the fragments, as the wind began to kick up the nighttime sands. Giving up, I ran to my tent, pulling the entrance flap tightly shut behind me. "Some things will never change," I thought aloud, laying down on my cot as the wind whipped the tent persistently, making flapping noises and causing the fabric to strain against the guy wires and stabilizing poles. I drifted off to sleep, and remembered no more.

[1] http://www.opinionatedtraveler.com/reviews/

[2] http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/ubar/