His Royal Highness Prince Sultan bin Salman of Saudi Arabia and Governor Tom Corbett of Pennsylvania launched an astonishing exhibit of artifacts entitled Roads of Arabia at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA on June 21, 2013. The 240 pieces on display tell the story of life and art in the Arabian Peninsula from 7,000 years ago to the early 20th century. Surprising though it may seem, The Guadalajara Reporter was on hand for this event, thanks to a kind invitation extended by the Prince himself, but before describing what can only be called a landmark exhibition, I must say a word about an aspect of the evening that will probably not be recorded by other reporters.
A crowd of about 200 people attended the inauguration ceremonies and dinner. Many of them were benefactors of the Carnegie Museum or sponsors of the event. The others, my wife and I discovered as we mingled with them, turned out to be “just people” from all walks of life who, over the years, had formed warm bonds of friendship with Prince Sultan.
Take Betty Murphy, widow of Pat Murphy, editor of the Phoenix Gazette. “Sultan lived with our family when he was a student majoring in English,” she told me. “He’s such a good person! I’ve known him since he was 17 years old and I’ll tell you something. He steals people’s hearts.”
Well, this was a theme we heard again and again. We heard it from Ken Hoffman, who taught Sultan to fly a plane and from Doctor Michael Saba, who got to know the Prince while writing a book on Captain Joe Grant, the pilot of an airplane donated to King Abdulaziz in 1945 by Franklin Delano Roosevelt (“King Abdulaziz, his Plane and his Pilot” published by Gulf America Press in 2009). Again, this theme was echoed by Governor Corbett, who began his speech by saying, “This encounter with Prince Sultan has been an absolute treat for me and if I ever need a tourist guide, I’m coming to him.”
So, what archaeological wonders did Prince Sultan, who is not only a pilot and former astronaut, but also head of the Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities, bring with him to Pittsburgh? Well, I think few people would have expected breathtaking sandstone statues of Lihyanite kings dating back 6,000 years, anthropomorphic stelae from the 4th millennium BC, a bronze head in the Greco-Roman tradition and even the gold burial mask of a six-year-old girl (1 AD), found in a tomb outside the fabled city of Thaj. In addition, for the very first time outside Arabia, we see an object from the Ka’aba in Mecca, an ornate wooden door gilded in silver leaf, dating back to the Ottoman period.
This collection of ancient treasures from Arabia was first put on display at the Louvre in Paris in 2010. This is quite astonishing considering that only thirty years earlier, there were few archaeologists and few museums in the country, even though the Arabian Peninsula has a long and rich history.
As late as 1998, I remember facing the wrath of an angry guard at the ruins of Al ‘Ula, in northern Saudi Arabia, which was a commercial hub linking Syria and Egypt with southern Arabia in the 6th century B.C. The guard had locked the gate of the parking lot so we could not “escape” after spending hours visiting the fascinating oven tombs of Al Ula. “Why did you take so long when most people only stay for 15 minutes?” he cried, “and why are you carrying two cameras?” Fortunately, we had in our party a speaker of fluent Arabic who was finally able to convince the old man that I was not a spy, but simply a person who genuinely appreciated that ancient site…and at last, the guard opened the gate and let us leave.
This may give some idea of the sort of obstacles that Prince Sultan had to overcome during his years as head of the Saudi Commission on Antiquities.
As a cave explorer and a former consultant to the Saudi Geological Survey, I suspect that many more astounding treasures will be unearthed in Arabia simply because no archaeologist has ever carried out a single study inside the many subterranean passages which lie beneath this vast country’s deserts and mountains. Just by way of example, let me mention a lava field north of Medina called Harrat Khaybar where we explored a system of lava tubes 1.4 kilometers long (and probably well over a million years old), now known as Umm Jirsan Cave. Deep inside, we found what seem to be crude knives and scrapers made of basalt as well as two human skull caps carbon-dated at 4,000 years old. All of these were lying on a dirt floor at least two meters deep. What ancient marvels will be found once shovels are used to dig down beneath the surface? Considering that mankind’s forebears have been passing next to and through Harrat Khaybar nonstop for at least the last 70,000 years, we could expect to find a fine record of human history inside those caves. And the best part of all is that there are at least 400 kilometers more of huge lava tubes in this area, none of which have been studied or mapped.
The stupendous pieces in the Roads of Arabia exhibit may someday be considered only the tip of the iceberg as far as the archaeological treasures of Saudi Arabia—and the world—are concerned.
Many thanks to Prince Sultan bin Salman for inviting this reporter to Pittsburgh and I hope, after touring the USA, that this extraordinary collection will next head south into Mexico.
You can see more of the articles on display in Pittsburgh at www.roadsofarabia.com and you’ll find the story of the exploration of the Umm Jirsan Lava Tube System at http://www.saudicaves.com/jirsan/index.htm