Atlantis of the Sands and The Lost City of Ubar: Lost, Found, and Lost Again
The myth of the Arabian ‘lost city of the desert’ can be traced to a book of bedtime stories dating from the early ninth century, which was largely responsible for the European romantic perception of Arabia as a place of harems, flying carpets, genies and miscellaneous magic of all kinds – the Arabian Nights.
One Thousand and One Nights
Also known as The One Thousand and One Nights, the story of the book itself is almost as much of a tale of mystery as the stories it includes. The earliest version is thought to have been based on folk tales from India and Persia and was probably written in the ninth century in Syria. Over time it grew, perhaps in an attempt to bulk up the text to reach the number of tales promised in the title, with stories added in the ninth and tenth centuries from Iraq, including many about the Caliph Harun al-Rashid, the fifth Caliph who lived in Baghdad in the late eighth century.
During the reign of the Harun al-Rashid, the city of Baghdad began to flourish as a center of knowledge, culture and trade. 1236-1237 AD. (Public Domain)
