Arabia 3D
- NOT RATED
- Year:
- 2011
- 46 min
- 40 Views
Scalded by the desert sun,
the waters of the Red Sea
would cook most corals.
These reefs have
had to adapt to survive,
just like the Arabian people.
Over the last 2,000 years,
two eras of enlightenment,
two Golden Ages.
Just to survive in this desert
is an accomplishment.
Who would ever think that the seeds of
knowledge could sprout here and grow?
Only 80 years ago, most people
or in houses
of coral rock or mud.
But in a matter of decades,
all that changed.
Saudi Arabia is now a nation
of some 30 million people.
The capital city of Riyadh
and the holy city of Makkah
have been transformed.
A modern district has grown up
around the Grand Mosque.
Five times each day, Muslims around the
world turn towards Makkah to pray.
And in the busy coastal city of Jeddah,
educational horizons are widening.
Thanks to the wealth
from the oil boom,
Hamzah is one of 80,000 Saudi
Arabians studying abroad.
He is a film student at
DePaul University in Chicago.
I've lived in the U.S. for
seven years, going to school,
to my brother, Saleh.
He usually wears the white thawb
because it's part of tradition,
and most men wear it every day.
After 9/11, many of my friends in America
got the idea that we're all extremists.
And we're not.
As my mom says,
we're not perfect.
But we've had a glorious past.
And I can't wait
and make a film about who
we are and how we got here.
My first stop was the old
section of my hometown, Jeddah.
The houses here haven't changed
much since I was a kid.
But it's amazing, all my country
is progressing so quickly.
Like many other religions and cultures, we're
trying to balance the old and the new.
Tradition and progress.
It's important to maintain
the old values,
and I'd like to capture
some of that balance on video.
The freedom to change is really
important to my generation.
The Arabian Peninsula
is not all sand.
We have mountains, valleys
and even volcanoes.
document a vanishing way of life.
Just like the American cowboy,
the Bedouin is a cultural hero.
To survive out here, the Bedouin
have to live by a strict code of honor,
based on fierce family loyalty,
hospitality and trust.
A true Bedouin kept his word and passed
all these values on to his kids,
and to us.
They say camels are
sweet-natured, unless they're not.
Camels are designed
for the desert.
They have an extra row of lashes for
protection, just like sunglasses.
like a windshield wiper.
One thing I never expected to see
here was a bunch of baboons,
Most of our animals
originated in Africa.
Twenty-five million years
ago, when the Red Sea formed,
it trapped animals
that were originally African.
As lush vegetation vanished
these animals adapted.
I went looking for more
clues to our past underwater.
We only found iron shipwrecks.
But that's what my guide,
Housam, looks for.
Every time we'd find a modern-day
ship, we'd find an ancient one, too,
because they hit the same reef.
A long time ago, wooden ships
carried all kinds of things,
such as ceramic jugs
filled with olive oil.
Archeologists are continuing
to find undamaged artifacts,
like this ancient amphora.
Even tiny broken pieces
can speak worlds.
All I found
were old pottery fragments.
But they led me to a civilization
that was completely new to me.
Where were they from?
I contacted the leading
archeologist in Arabia.
Dr. Daifallah al-Talhi.
And I think the secrets of Madain
Saleh, the secrets of the Nabataeans,
lie underneath
a settlement area.
Dr. al-Talhi couldn't date my
fragments, but he did something better.
He took me to his
research site in the desert.
Dr. al-Talhi studies the early settlers
of this region, the Nabataeans.
The Nabataeans created the first
Arabian Golden Age, 2,000 years ago.
have a Golden Age is wealth.
The source of the Nabataeans'
fabulous wealth seems unlikely.
Their huge fortunes literally
grew on trees, Boswellia trees.
The bark oozes the sap needed
to make precious frankincense,
the same frankincense
mentioned in the Bible.
The Nabataean traders started at the
southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula,
and carried frankincense north.
From there, the frankincense
was shipped to cities
throughout the vast
Roman Empire.
At that time, the Romans
worshipped over a dozen gods,
in thousands of temples, each
perfumed with precious frankincense,
up to 3,000 tons a year.
And the Nabataeans
controlled every ounce.
When a trader approached a Bedouin
camp, he faced a crucial question,
"Friend or foe?"
a matter of life or death.
Hospitality had a purpose.
This Bedouin was collecting the most
valuable trade good of all, information.
Because many Bedouins died in
battle, women outnumbered men.
The code of honor
called for modesty.
It was a tribe's duty
to protect widows.
Even today, once you make friends with
an Arab, you're friends for life.
Only the luckiest traders
made it to the Mediterranean
to sell their precious
cargo of frankincense.
Many centuries
after its decline,
forgotten this ancient kingdom
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