Wrote Ryleh--
There was a newspaper article about the expedition sometime back. It seems there're extensive limestone beds under the Arabian Peninsula, a reminder that the area was once ancient ocean floor which was heaved up to the surface through cataclysmic processes over a mind-numbingly long period of time. Those beds're riddled with caves and caverns now filled with freshwater from back when the desert was green. The inhabitants of Ubar/Irem tapped into one of those caverns for their water supply...and thereby brought about their own destruction. According to the article, by removing the water faster than the local aquifer could replenish it, they ultimately removed the sole support for the cavern's ceiling. Once enough water was removed, the cavern collapsed...and a goodly portion of the city went with it!

That, of course, is the "theory"....

However, Donald G. Davis wrote:
"We can always speculate that the cavern collapsed because it was undermined by Something From Below...."

I, Ryleh, tend to concur with Mr. Davis.
Which leaves me wondering what happened to the subterranean passages leading to the nighted abyss far below the city. Was it sealed off during the final collapse--or is it yet intact, just waiting to be found (and explored) in some yet-unexcavated part of the site? For more information on the Ubar/Irem expedition, go to:

and following the NOVA link to the page. Patience is required as the site is very popular. Also be sure to check out the first two links at the end of the article. An animated fly-through of the city is offered at the second link, tho I didn't download it for lack of an mpeg viewer.

All the authorities agree: this must be Many-Pillared Irem--although it is noted that a variant translation of the name could be "Many-Towered" (the city had eight massive towers plus a citadel as part of its defenses). There is an aerial view of the Ubar site available at the webpages (above), with a computer graphic of the citywalls superimposed over it. You can easily see how the collapse of the cavern took almost half the city with it!

Interestingly enough, Ubar/Irem was accidently "discovered" by a geologist using satellite images to check out "anomolyous rock formations" in the Arabian Peninsula! Makes you wonder, doesn't it...?

Donovan Loucks also wrote:
Here's some information on Irem from the "Mythos Lore" section of the alt.horror.cthulhu Newsgroup FAQ:

Q: Where is Irem?

A: Lovecraft mentions an "Irem, City of Pillars" in some stories. This probably has a Koranic source, as suggested by the following magazine item about an archeological discovery:

"The Koran describes how the earth swallowed up a sumptuous but decadent `city of towers' called Iram....diggers can already see that the city center collapsed--as told in the Koran--because it was built over a limestone cavern used to store water." Identified with Ubar, frankincense-trading city in the Arabian Nights.

Also, an article in the October 1995 issue of Reader's Digest ("Search for the Lost City") describes how documentary film-maker Nick Clapp organized several expeditions to Oman to look for the lost city of Ubar. Ubar is believed by some to be "Irem, the many-towered city" mentioned in the Koran. Ubar, like the Biblical towns of Sodom and Gomorrah, was a town of great wickedness that Allah destroyed. Under the sands at the oasis of Shis'r, the researchers not only found pottery and glass artifacts, but the ruins of "eight towers, each perhaps 30 feet high...a lofty citadel...an octagonal fort..a wide court with a well in the center..."

"Here's some information I remember from the last time I looked up Iram. There were once two brothers, Shaddid and Shaddad, who ruled a city somewhere in Arabia. Shaddid died, and Shaddad became arrogant and cruel. He decided that he would build a garden on Earth imitating the celestial paradise. When the garden was completed, Shaddad and all his retainers rode out in a procession to visit it. Before they could reach it, however, a great "noise from heaven" destroyed all of them, and the location of Iram has never been discovered. I wasn't familiar with that Arabian Nights reference; I'll have to look that up." - (Daniel Harms)

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