546
PAUL F. HOYE
Today, in high spirits at the prospect of leaving, Muhammad and Misfir
treated us to a hair-raising drive through the valley, a bruising, full-gallop
run between and over the hummocks that dot the valley floor. I will say
that we got around the valley in a hurry, and could at least take a look
at and photograph some of the things we had missed: the inscriptions,
characters about 3 inches high cut into the face of a large stone about
12 feet across and 16 feet high; a series of mounds laid out at roughly
regular intervals, along what could easily have been a street; ancient wells
recently re-excavated; a particular tomb we hadn't inspected; and, again,
the Mountain of the Camel.
As we visited these places and speculated about them, it occurred to
me that all we had come up with in our 5 days of exploration of Mada'in
Salih were questions. Who, for instance, cut those inscriptions we saw this
morning? When? And why in this particular place, not even close to a
tomb? Above the inscriptions a triangular hole pierces the stone. Was it
cut through with the iron tools of the Nabateans or by the silent abrasion
of wind? And is it an accident that this hole throws a triangle of light
almost exactly on top of a mound at sunrise? Or could this be an altar
where some unknown rite came to its climax as the sun climbed over the
twisted rocks of the Jabal Ethlieb?
And the mounds? Are they the houses of an ancient village, or merely
the remnants of some post-Nabatean settlers? Or just mounds? And when
were the wells first dug? By prehistoric man? By the Nabateans?
The questions actually are limitless. I noticed, for example, that in almost all the tombs are the dry, gray shells of old wasp's nests, hundreds
of nests which must have housed hundreds of thousands of wasps. Since
wasps must have great quantities of water and vegetation—sophisticated
vegetation at that—doesn't that imply that there must have been a tremendous amount of cultivated vegetation in the valley at one time? And doesn't
that, in turn, imply agriculture? And people? And homes?
Looking out at the valley tonight, a desert valley, lonely, incredibly silent
under the stars, it's hard to even imagine Mada'in Salih as it might have
been then, lush with growth, perhaps dotted with small homes from which
people bustled forth to greet caravans plodding into the valley with cargoes
of incense or myrrh from South Arabia. But it could have been and if
so—the central question of Mada'in Salih—what happened?
No one knows, of course, but it probably won't be long before the answers begin to emerge. The Hijaz Railway is being rebuilt and in a few
years travel to Mada'in Salih will be relatively easy. Then the archeologists
will come and will put their shovels into the great dunes near Jabal Ethlieb
and the Mountain of the Camel and into the dirt in the tombs in the rock.
and soon the valley will give up its secrets.
PAUL F. HOYE
Today, in high spirits at the prospect of leaving, Muhammad and Misfir
treated us to a hair-raising drive through the valley, a bruising, full-gallop
run between and over the hummocks that dot the valley floor. I will say
that we got around the valley in a hurry, and could at least take a look
at and photograph some of the things we had missed: the inscriptions,
characters about 3 inches high cut into the face of a large stone about
12 feet across and 16 feet high; a series of mounds laid out at roughly
regular intervals, along what could easily have been a street; ancient wells
recently re-excavated; a particular tomb we hadn't inspected; and, again,
the Mountain of the Camel.
As we visited these places and speculated about them, it occurred to
me that all we had come up with in our 5 days of exploration of Mada'in
Salih were questions. Who, for instance, cut those inscriptions we saw this
morning? When? And why in this particular place, not even close to a
tomb? Above the inscriptions a triangular hole pierces the stone. Was it
cut through with the iron tools of the Nabateans or by the silent abrasion
of wind? And is it an accident that this hole throws a triangle of light
almost exactly on top of a mound at sunrise? Or could this be an altar
where some unknown rite came to its climax as the sun climbed over the
twisted rocks of the Jabal Ethlieb?
And the mounds? Are they the houses of an ancient village, or merely
the remnants of some post-Nabatean settlers? Or just mounds? And when
were the wells first dug? By prehistoric man? By the Nabateans?
The questions actually are limitless. I noticed, for example, that in almost all the tombs are the dry, gray shells of old wasp's nests, hundreds
of nests which must have housed hundreds of thousands of wasps. Since
wasps must have great quantities of water and vegetation—sophisticated
vegetation at that—doesn't that imply that there must have been a tremendous amount of cultivated vegetation in the valley at one time? And doesn't
that, in turn, imply agriculture? And people? And homes?
Looking out at the valley tonight, a desert valley, lonely, incredibly silent
under the stars, it's hard to even imagine Mada'in Salih as it might have
been then, lush with growth, perhaps dotted with small homes from which
people bustled forth to greet caravans plodding into the valley with cargoes
of incense or myrrh from South Arabia. But it could have been and if
so—the central question of Mada'in Salih—what happened?
No one knows, of course, but it probably won't be long before the answers begin to emerge. The Hijaz Railway is being rebuilt and in a few
years travel to Mada'in Salih will be relatively easy. Then the archeologists
will come and will put their shovels into the great dunes near Jabal Ethlieb
and the Mountain of the Camel and into the dirt in the tombs in the rock.
and soon the valley will give up its secrets.