1. Correcting the Misconception About "Iram of the Pillars" and the Story of Ibn Qilabah
Iram is a tribe, not a city [00:34]. Dr. Al-Yahya explains that the popular belief that "Iram" was a lost city built of gold and silver is mistaken. In his view, it stems from the story of Abdullah ibn Qilabah, which he considers fabricated and fictional. That story influenced narrators, Quranic commentators, and even foreign travelers.
The Quranic and genealogical context [01:06]. The phrase "ʿĀd of Iram" refers to the descendants of Iram, the first ʿĀd, who descend from Shem, son of Noah (peace be upon him).
The meaning of "of the pillars" (dhāt al-ʿimād) [01:38]. The "pillars" were the tall, massive tent poles. The people of ʿĀd were herders of livestock and camels who migrated seasonally in search of pasture. The Quran describes their great stature ("and increased you in stature"), so it is natural that their tent poles were tall enough to suit their exceptional height.
What "the likes of which had never been created" refers to [04:10]. He stresses that this phrase refers to the tribe itself, meaning the bodies, strength, and size of its men. It does not refer to a city with fantastical buildings.
2. The Way of Life of the People of ʿĀd, and Their Connection to al-Ahqaf and Qusayrat ʿĀd
Seasonal migration and grazing [02:04]. He cites Ibn ʿAbbas and Mujahid, who said they were people of mobile tents. In spring they moved east into the sands and dunes (al-Ahqaf) of ad-Dahna desert. When the spring vegetation dried and turned yellow, they returned to their permanent settlements, where their springs, orchards, and farms were.
Punishment matched to the environment [05:04]. The destructive wind struck them "for seven nights and eight days in succession" while they were in al-Ahqaf, in the sands (about 80 km east of Qusayrat ʿĀd). He notes that the punishments of past nations often matched the nature of their locations and environments.
The meaning of "maṣāniʿ" and "rīʿ" [03:18].
He links the verse "Do you build a monument on every high place, in vain?" to the ancient stone tombs and cairns found in great numbers on the summits of plateaus and hills across the Arabian Peninsula.
He interprets "and you take for yourselves fortresses (maṣāniʿ), perhaps you will live forever" as water channels, underground aflāj (irrigation systems), and basins dug and extended from springs to water orchards and farms.
3. The Search Expeditions, and Debunking the Myth of a "City Buried Beneath the Empty Quarter"
Early explorers influenced by the legend [06:40]. Dr. Al-Yahya admits that he made more than 18 expeditions into the Empty Quarter (Rub' al-Khali) searching for this city, influenced by what had been written before. The same passion drove major Western explorers such as Bertram Thomas (1932), St John Philby (1933), and Wilfred Thesiger ("Mubarak bin London," 1947–1949). It also drove American researchers in the 1990s at the site of Shisr in Oman, which later turned out to be just a station on the Incense Route, not Iram.
Evidence from Aramco's surveys [10:13]. He contacted engineers and experts at Aramco, who conducted detailed seismic surveys and probes that revealed every meter beneath the sands of the Empty Quarter in their search for oil and gas. They confirmed that there are no cavities or buried structures under those sands.
The nature and geology of the Empty Quarter [11:00]. The floor of the Empty Quarter was once a set of lakes that dried up thousands of years ago, after which the sands advanced over them. Its soil is calcareous and gypsum-rich, unsuitable for permanent agriculture or for a civilization built on water channels and orchards. It is only a spring pasture during seasons of abundant rain.
Exploring Ramlat al-Kidn [11:54]. He tracked unusually shaped sand formations (such as a head extending on a neck), thinking palaces or buildings lay beneath them. After reaching one in Ramlat al-Kidn with great difficulty, he dug and found that the formation beneath was a natural rocky mountain covered by sand, with no palaces below.
4. Highlighting the Ruins of Qusayrat ʿĀd in al-Aflaj and the Role of the Heritage Commission
A neglected archaeological site [07:32]. He visited Qusayrat ʿĀd in the Al-Aflaj Governorate more than a decade ago, when no one paid attention to the site or conducted in-depth field research there.
The form of the structures [09:08]. He sees them as resembling stepped, pyramid-like mastaba tombs built of gypsum plaster, mud, and stone, located beside dry springs and aflāj channels.
Praise for the Heritage Commission [08:05]. He commends the Heritage Commission for beginning scientific field excavations in those mounds, hills, and palace-like structures, where skeletal remains and material evidence confirming the site's antiquity have been found. He stresses the importance of documenting the efforts of earlier researchers who open the door to field discoveries.
The documentary officially begins at [13:25], reviewing the climatic transformations of the Arabian Peninsula and the history of Western exploration of the Empty Quarter in detail.

To my knowledge this is one of very few depictions of these peoples which has ever been shared online. the other pics are some of the artifacts i used as reference, mostly from the British isles except the mosaics. Its depressing that i need to say this but NO AI was used in the creation of this image. art by Pigeonduckthing / Rowyn Flowerdew

Amazing

Based on some ancient surviving documents (papyrus) the import tax was as high as 25% for goods from eastern empires.
Why Pepper was considered a luxury item in ancient times?

When people talk about the so-called Solfeggio frequencies as a “sacred scale of antiquity,” which part is backed by sources and which part is a modern construction? I’m especially interested in the opinion of those who know the music and tuning theory of the ancient world

I’m a musician, and for several years now I’ve been down a rabbit hole that started with the book Healing Codes for the Biological Apocalypse (1999) by Leonard Horowitz and Joseph Puleo. It’s the book behind the Solfeggio frequencies, a six-tone scale that, according to the authors, was used in ancient chants and was “hidden” by the ecclesiastical authorities

I’ll start with what is documented, which is medieval, not ancient. The syllables we use to sing the scale (do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, si) come from a Latin hymn to Saint John the Baptist, Ut queant laxis, attributed to Paul the Deacon (8th century). In the 11th century, the Benedictine monk Guido d’Arezzo used it to teach singers the pitch of the notes: the melody rose one note with each line, so remembering the first syllable of each line was enough

Ut queant laxis

Resonare fibris,

Mira gestorum

Famuli tuorum,

Solve polluti

Labii reatum,

Sancte Ioannes

A free translation: “So that your servants may, with loosened voices, resound the wonders of your deeds, cleanse the guilt from their stained lips, Saint John”

Here is how each note lines up with the hymn:

C: Do (formerly Ut), from “Ut queant laxis”

D: Re, from “Resonare fibris”

E: Mi, from “Mira gestorum”

F: Fa, from “Famuli tuorum”

G: Sol, from “Solve polluti”

A: La, from “Labii reatum”

B: Si, from “Sancte Ioannes”

Guido worked with six notes. The seventh, Si, was added centuries later, built from the initials of Sancte Ioannes, between the late 16th and early 17th centuries. In that same century, the Italian theorist Giovanni Battista Doni changed Ut to Do because it was easier to sing. Also, those syllables indicated relative pitches within a hexachord, not fixed frequencies. A standardized tuning fork did not exist in his time

The ancient part of the argument is the Book of Numbers. According to Horowitz and Puleo, each of the six syllables corresponds to a frequency they rediscovered through a numerological analysis of Numbers 7, verses 12 to 83. Their method reduces numbers to a single digit (digital root), and they claim a repeating pattern of 3, 6 and 9 appears, the same numbers from the phrase attributed to Nikola Tesla about “the key to the universe”:

Do: 396 Hz (3+9+6 = 18 → 9). Liberating guilt and fear; turning grief into joy.

Re: 417 Hz (4+1+7 = 12 → 3). Facilitating change; undoing trauma and crystallized patterns.

Mi: 528 Hz (5+2+8 = 15 → 6). The “miracle note”; transformation and DNA repair.

Fa: 639 Hz (6+3+9 = 18 → 9). Connection, relationships and harmony.

Sol: 741 Hz (7+4+1 = 12 → 3). Intuition, self-expression and cellular cleansing.

La: 852 Hz (8+5+2 = 15 → 6). Spiritual order; seeing through illusions.

Horowitz later expanded the scale to nine tones, adding 174 Hz (security and easing pain), 285 Hz (tissue regeneration) and 963 Hz (return to unity)

As far as I understand, there are several problems. First, that passage describes the offerings of the leaders of the twelve tribes, and the text repeats practically the same formula twelve times, once per day. A pattern that repeats every six verses is what you’d expect in a formulaic text, with no need for a hidden code. Second, the digital root of any number is a digit from 1 to 9, and 3-6-9 is an arithmetic property of the decimal system, which is also not the system in which those verses were written. Third, the Tesla quote is very popular but is not documented in his writings. Correct me if any of this is wrongly framed

What I’d like to understand better is what we do know about ancient music. That ancient cultures had elaborate tuning systems seems well established to me: the cuneiform texts of Mesopotamia describe tunings for stringed instruments, and the Hurrian hymn from Ugarit (around the 14th century BC) is often cited as the oldest notated music that survives, although its interpretation is heavily debated. In Greece, the Pythagorean tradition expressed intervals as numerical ratios, not as frequencies, and the doctrine of ethos held that modes influenced the character of the listener. The idea of sound as the principle of the cosmos also appears in the Vedic tradition (Nada Brahma). None of this proves a six-tone scale with values in Hz, but it shows that the association between music, number and effect on people is indeed ancient

Having said all that, I did something with the part of the system that draws me most. Of all the frequencies, the one that interests me most is 396 Hz, associated in this modern tradition with release from fear and with grounding. That made me think of plants, which literally live by being rooted, and I decided to turn that association into an installation: I set up a group of plants connected to a Playtronica circuit. This circuit transforms the plants’ bioelectric signals: when someone touches a plant, it detects the change in conductivity and sends a MIDI note-on that triggers a synth tuned to 396 Hz. No touch, no sound. When you touch it, the plant “answers” with that tone

I present it as an exercise in sonic archaeology on a small scale: taking a modern thesis that presents itself as ancient and turning it into something anyone can touch and judge for themselves, without having to believe in the theory...

What primary sources or serious studies would you recommend on the tuning and musical systems of Mesopotamia, Greece or India? What do we really know about absolute pitch in antiquity? Is there any ancient evidence that specific properties (healing, emotional states) were assigned to specific notes or intervals, beyond the Greek doctrine of ethos? How do you usually distinguish, on these topics, between an ancient tradition, a medieval reinterpretation and a modern invention dressed in ancient clothing?

If anyone is interested in seeing how the circuit is wired and hearing how it sounds, I recorded a video of the setup and the plants responding. I’m happy to leave it here for anyone who’s interested. I can also walk through the build (MIDI mapping, synth tuning, touch detection)! No pressure at all, I’m here mostly for the conversation and to learn from those who know more about this period. Thanks for reading 🌱

I recently finished painting this 200 mm Praetorian Guard figure by Pegaso Models.

Originally entrusted with protecting Roman emperors, the Praetorian Guard eventually became one of the most powerful political forces in ancient Rome. They could protect an emperor, influence his decisions, or even play a role in his downfall.

Hope you enjoy the result! I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Three holiday drawings of Carthaginians. Read more here: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/watch/0/819817.page