Chapter Fifty-Eight
A city?” Tim asked. “You mean Ubar?”
“Maybe,” Nate murmured. He dusted off several stones and was intensely fixated on them. There was something familiar about the construction, but he was having difficulty reconciling the anachronistic paradox in his mind.
“What is it?” Ana asked, coming up behind him.
“Look at the construction of this road,” he said incredulously. “It appears almost Roman in design.”
“Maybe they shared technology,” Wally offered. “You did say the city would have been a melting pot for different cultures.”
“Sure,” Nate said. “But there’s no references to the city in Roman history, and they kept meticulous records. It’s likely the city may have fallen out of existence before the Roman Empire was even created.”
“So you’re saying that someone else beat the Romans to discovering advanced roadway construction?” Ana asked.
“Or the Romans inherited it from them,” Nate responded absently, lost in thought.
“What makes you say that?” Tim asked.
“The first Roman roads were built around three hundred BCE. Everything points to Ubar as having been much older.” Nate pointed at the cracks between the paving stones.
“Do you see the seams here? The Romans built roads in much the same way we build patios today. Large stone slabs called summum dorsum were set into a base layer of concrete. That’s what you see between the stones.
Underneath were several layers of sand and gravel called rudus, and then the base layer of foundation stones, or statumen. ”
The group took a closer look at the road as he pointed to a section that was missing a paving stone.
“You can see on the damaged portions the rudus, which in Rome was a layer of rubble bound with lime mortar. Rudimentary forms of concrete were used back in ancient Egypt around three thousand BCE, mostly a mix of gypsum and lime. But the Romans were the first recorded to use something close to what we’d call modern cement. ”
“Until now,” Tim concluded.
“Right,” Nate conceded. “There’s so much history that’s been lost over time. The Romans were able to build wonders like the Colosseum and the Pantheon using concrete. If a city like this had access to similar technology, there’s no telling the things they could have accomplished.”
“Well, all roads lead somewhere, don’t they?” Tim asked. Nate smiled. The old saying went All roads lead to Rome. Perhaps this road led somewhere different.
“You’re right,” Nate replied, and traced the stone road back the way they had come. It led into the water. Just below the surface the water was clear enough to show the stones without the presence of dirt on them. Wally came forward and clicked on a flashlight, handing it to him.
“Nate,” Wally said, tapping him on the shoulder and pointing into the water. “Look.”
The angle they swam in on must have caused them to miss it entirely, but as he shone the flashlight out over the water, he could make out columns rising above the surface.
They were interspersed every twenty feet or so on either side of the road, and ran at a downward slope before disappearing entirely.
“The Pillars of Iram,” Nate whispered under his breath.
The columns were reminiscent of Greek design, larger on the bottom and tapering as they rose toward the top.
They were capped with smooth, round capitals that would have been called Doric in the Greek order of architecture.
They seemed strangely out of place here in this cavern and would have been more at home adorning the Parthenon in Athens.
Nate was beginning to understand a larger implication of what they were on the verge of discovering.
He had imagined a lost city, built by massive wealth along a previously unknown ancient trade route through the desert.
What he was seeing now was evidence of an ancient city that predated some of the more classical civilizations in history, yet contained aspects of those cultures.
Depending on the date of the city, they could be rewriting history with this discovery.
“Pillars aren’t the only thing to see,” Tim said, and pointed at the ground.
Repositioning the beam from the flashlight, it took Nate several seconds to realize what he was staring at.
A body lay curled up at the edge of the subterranean lake, half-sunken into the silt.
Leathery fragments of skin were attached to the upper arm and rib cage, dark and wrinkled like ancient parchment.
The skull was crusted over with a thick layer of calcite, which reflected the light from the SureFire, the eyes long since decayed.
Atop it, pale strands of hair clung to the scalp, fragile and wiry with age.
Faint traces of woven, colored cloth wrapped around the pelvis, partially fused to the bone.
“Whoa!” Shane said. “This guy still looks like he has some life in him… metaphorically speaking.” Tim gave him a look, and he shrugged.
“It must be the cave,” Nate said. He wasn’t well versed in forensic archaeology and would have expected a skeleton. But these remains appeared mummified.
“Millennia of being sealed off from the outside world without fresh air, mixed with the humidity from the underground water. It seems to have preserved the body in an almost mummified-like state,” he said out loud, talking it through.
“How many more do you think are down here?” Ana asked.
“No idea,” Nate answered. “I guess it all depends on where the road leads.”
“Well, it disappears under the water here,” Wally stated, and Nate looked away from the preserved corpse and followed the road with the beam of the flashlight.
“So where does the road go in the other direction?” Shane asked.
Nate turned around. “Let’s find out.”
He led the way, new pillars coming into view. He absently reached out and placed his hand on one of them. It was cool to the touch. He observed it, noting how it was perfectly constructed. The creases where the individual cylinders were fitted atop one another were barely perceptible.
“The craftsmanship is incredible,” he noted.
“Marble,” Ana added, placing her hand alongside his. “Where would they have gotten marble from?”
“You forget,” Nate responded, “this was the only trading post for hundreds of miles. The people of ‘Ad who made Ubar their permanent residence were obsessed with building an opulent city. It’s the reason Muslims believe Allah destroyed the city, for their greed. They would have gone out of their way to acquire the finest materials and would have been willing to transport them a long way.”
“Looks like a dead end up ahead,” Tim said.
They moved through the pillars and arrived at what appeared to be a wall of solid rock.
“This isn’t right,” Nate said. “The road wouldn’t lead to nowhere.”
He stepped forward and examined the wall more closely, and Ana joined him.
“It isn’t rock,” she said, touching it.
She looked around and spotted a large stone nearby.
She walked off the road into the dirt and picked it up before returning to the wall and chipping at it with the rock.
A large chunk of caked-on dirt broke away.
She repeated the effort several times, and a flat surface materialized underneath.
Nate walked up and put his hand through the hole and could feel solid sandstone.
“It’s a wall,” he said, and pointed the flashlight toward the top. The wall must have been at least fifty feet high, but he could just barely make out the top.
“Too bad we don’t have a rope,” Tim said.
“No,” Nate said absently, “we shouldn’t need one.”
He moved back onto the road and examined the wall.
This should have been an entrance. He pulled out his Yarborough knife and began chipping away as Ana had, and the caked-on layer began to fall away in a similar fashion.
This time, however, his knife struck a surface that made a dull thudding sound.
“I think it’s metal under here,” he said in surprise.
He pried off several more pieces and directed the flashlight into the hole he had created. The light reflected back onto him and he had to look away, momentarily blinded. Slowly he returned his gaze, looking at it from a different angle.
“Gold,” he said emphatically, staring at the shiny yellow material. “It’s gold! This must be a gate of solid gold!”
“Gold? They had a gate made of gold?” Shane asked in disbelief. “For a palace or something? How rich was this city?”
“Richer than you or I can imagine,” Nate responded, then quoted, “ ‘Build me there a city of gold and silver, whose gravel shall be chrysolite and rubies and pearls, and for support of its vaults make pillars of jasper.’ ”
“What is that from?” Shane asked.
“One Thousand and One Nights,” Nate answered, as he continued excitedly chipping away.
“Often mistakenly referred to as Arabian Nights. A woman named Scheherazade, a new wife to the monarch, told stories to King Shahryar every night to stay her execution in the morning. One of those stories was about Iram of the Pillars.”
“Did it work?”
“It did. Also, I don’t think this is a palace. I think this is the gate to the city.”
“Pretty fancy gate, yeah?” Wally asked.
“If their front door is made of gold, I’d love to get a look at their palace,” Shane added.
“Help me clear this off,” Nate said, and began prying larger chunks of crusted sand and dirt from the door as bits of sand slowly sprinkled down from the sandstorm outside the hole in the cavern high above them.
They worked for the next ten minutes uncovering as much of the doors as they could, larger chunks of dirt falling from above as they destabilized the bottom.
There were two doors, and they appeared to be massive, each one nearly six feet wide and twice as tall.
They stood in sharp contrast to the dusty surroundings, the gold dulled from the dirt of the ages yet still shimmering in the reflected light from the hole in the cave roof above.
The design was inlaid with concentric squares, giving it a classical Mesopotamian vibe.
“Gold isn’t a very good material for defense,” Nate said. “They must not have been worried about being attacked and were more concerned with appearances.”
“They look heavy,” Ana commented.
“I think I know what to do,” Shane said. He walked in front of the doors and dramatically opened his arms wide. “Open sesame!” After a moment of waiting he turned back and shrugged. “It worked for Ali Baba.”
“Another story from One Thousand and One Nights,” Ana noted.
“The people of ‘Ad would have had to move these doors,” Nate said. “It was a trade station, which means that caravans would have been coming and going at all hours of the day. Judging by the construction of their pillars and roads, I’m sure they created a smooth track to allow them to open with as little force as possible.”
“So, what do we do?” Tim asked, cutting to the chase.
Nate shrugged. “We push.”
All five of them consolidated their efforts and put their hands on the left door, giving it a hard shove. Nothing happened. They leaned harder into it, yet still there was no movement.
“This bloody thing won’t budge,” Wally said. “It must weigh a ton.”
Something didn’t add up. Why would the people of the city make excruciatingly heavy doors out of gold that wouldn’t open unless extreme force was applied?
It was possible that it was locked from the other side, in which case they would need to find another way around.
Or perhaps it was eroded from time and accumulation of dirt. Although there was another possibility.
“I have an idea,” Nate said. “Let’s split up. Tim and Shane, you two take the right door. The rest of us will take the left. We’ll push at the same time, on three.”
“Like on three, or one, two, three, and then go?” Tim asked.
“On three,” Nate clarified. “The actual number three.”
“Just checking.” They all got into position.
“Ready?” Nate asked, and they all gave him the affirmation. “One, two, three!”
The five of them pushed with all their might, and the doors began to move.
Nate had been right, and the gate was designed in such a way that the space between them was so slim that each door pushed onto the other.
Attempting to move one was impossible, as it was stopped by the other.
Pressure needed to be applied equally to both doors to break the seal.
Once that was accomplished, the hinges and smooth track allowed the doors to move relatively easily, even after centuries of nonuse.
It was an ingenious design, and Nate found himself more and more impressed with the builders of the city.
But he was in for the biggest surprise yet.