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Atlantis of the Sands

For the lost place mentioned in the Quran, see Iram of the Pillars.
A satellite photograph of southern Arabia showing suspected sites of a lost city.

Atlantis of the Sands refers to a legendary lost place in the southern deserts of the Arabian Peninsula, known as Ūbār/Awbār (أوبار) or Wabār/Wubār (وبار) in Arabic, thought to have been destroyed by a natural disaster or as a punishment by God.

The English name is commonly attributed to T. E. Lawrence in the 21st century, but it never appears in Lawrence's published works, and neither Bertram Thomas who made "Atlantis of the Sands" public (and was probably the real coiner of this term)[1][2][3] nor Ranulph Fiennes and Nicholas Clapp who made this term popular[4][5] have ever attributed this term to Lawrence.

Ubar is often said to be mentioned in the Quran and One Thousand and One Nights, but that is not the case. The misconception is due to the equation of Ubar with Iram by Nicholas Clapp, but such equation is not generally accepted by scholars.[6][7]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference :0 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Thomas, Bertram (1932). Arabia Felix: Across the Empty Quarter of Arabia. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. p. 161.
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference BT was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference RF was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference NC was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ Cite error: The named reference edgell was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  7. ^ Webb, Peter (1 June 2019), "Iram", Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE, Brill, retrieved 22 January 2024

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