Look at what we found on the Incense route.
We found animals, and now we will show you these animals
that lived during the days of tropical forests and high humidity.
Then, came the savanna animals.
Look at the stone ages.
The rock of ancient languages
A human culture and a natural culture.
The first is acquired, and the second is transient in space and time.
Perhaps, the concept of culture is the most controversial topic ever.
However, everyone agrees that human culture
is the outcome of human interaction with his surroundings.
There is an urban culture and a Bedouin, mountainous, or coastal one.
With the change of cultures, the expression changes.
Here, in Sarmada in the Tayma desert
there is a rock that collected forms of expression, including drawing and writing
for the people of this region and those who passed through
it on a long historical stretch.
This rock turned into what is called in today’s language an archival document.
Sarmada, southwest of Taima
We arrived to a place in an area close to Tayma
that is not far from Al-Ula called Sarmada.
Sarmada means eternal.
This desert between Al-Ula and Tayma
was on the Incense route that stretches from Al-Ula to Tayma.
It was described by the travelers.
That is why the name Sarmada describes this situation. It is made up of sandy rocks
and a tiled land as a result of sculpture.
It also includes old lakes that dried since the age of savanna
but since it is on Incense route, look at what we found.
We found inscriptions of camels that were used by the people
for convoys and trade and by travelers on the Incense route.
Camels were also used for trade from the Arabian Peninsula to Iraq
that is close to this area and the Levant.
If it were not for God and the camels
this route in the eternal desert would have never developed.
The camel is the ship in the desert.
In the past, this rock and its surroundings
were a vital station along the Incense route.
It was also a breakpoint for the convoys of traders.
In this static desert, there is a loud screen that resembles a fixed screen.
On it, they documented
details of their historical and cultural journeys.
Look at the Nabataean alphabet. We will start with the name Salem. Salam.
All these writings are Nabataean alphabet, from which the Arabic calligraphy evolved.
Nabataean means Arabic calligraphy. Look, this is a Nabataean script
and this is a Thamudi script. The name Salam was seen many times.
Salam, Salam, Salam, meaning peace.
It is really a path of peace because without peace, trade would not have developed.
Without security, the economy would not flourish
and people would not enjoy prosperity.
The name Salam is very common. No one lived here and ruined someone else's life.
There are multiple languages and drawings
but someone lived during the modern era and carved a hole here, unfortunately.
He was probably searching for a treasure, as I previously mentioned. This is silly.
They usually see a Thamudi letter and run into a conclusion that someone must have buried a treasure here.
This is silly. This is a Thamudi letter that has nothing to do with a treasure.
Mada'en Saleh
I will tell you about this Buffalo. I will use a piece of coal.
Coal can be easily removed. This is the tail.
This huge buffalo
was the first thing that was drawn on this painting.
All the people who drew paintings over the course of age respected each other's paintings.
God willing, we will do the same.
Regarding this painting, the issue is not only archaeological but also germophological.
It is related to the climate.
Look at this animal. There is a wide line in the middle of its stomach.
Look
this animal lived in the Arabian Peninsula in this place before the era of the savanna.
It lived in the tropical forests
or before the savanna when the Arabian Peninsula was more fertile than the savanna.
Therefore, we find petrified trees in the Empty Quarter and in Suman.
Trees that only grow in tropical forests.
Huge trees that do not grow in the savanna, but instead in tropical forests.
However, who drew them
lived during those ancient times
thirty or seventy thousand years ago.
Seventy or eighty thousand years in the Arabian Peninsula.
The research surveys in the Al-Nafud proved
that there are elephant tusks.
There is a human bone that dates back to eighty five thousand years.
During that period, the savanna did not exist in the Arabian Peninsula. It was tropical.
There were green forests and tall petrified trees
which we found in many places.
Look, this animal is drawn here in the cave.
There is no doubt that this animal was drawn by a human being.
Someone might believe that this is irrational.
However, this is nonsense.
It suffices that the bone that was discovered here, close to Sarmada
dates back to eighty five thousand years.
Look, this animal has a horn. Even at the end of the horn
the painter during that period and the ancient stone age did not forget
to display the horn. There are two horns here
in front of the animal's face.
The weird thing is that the pattern is the same in all the paintings.
In South Hail the pattern is also the same. A line in the center.
Look at its beauty.
Between the paintings' overlapping lines, histories and stories
there is a deep layer, in which an abstract drawing melts
as if it is the work of an artist from the modern era.
When the old artist was able to convey to us his thoughts and feelings
through this abstraction, he managed to perpetuate what he wanted to say in a very modern way.
The wild buffalo was drawn on this rock
in a style that is very similar to Picasso's style
thousands of years after him.
In the power of these abstract lines
time disappears, but art never loses its beauty as years pass.
Look at the importance here.
An Aramaic, Thamudi, and Nabatean scripts.
Not only this.
There is also a Greek script in the back, dating back to a hundred years BC.
If it were not for camels, this place...
This animal desertificated and died.
The climate in the Arabian Peninsula changed. They say we cannot find a writing
belonging to this extinct buffalo.
It became extinct many years go. It needs large quantities of water and grass.
I forgot to tell you, look in the middle of the buffalo there is a lion.
Look at the lion.
The lion was drawn at a later stage
perhaps during the savanna days
because the lion does not live in tropical forests, but rather in the savanna
because it goes well with its yellow color.
The grass in the savanna turns yellow
which goes well with the lion's color.
Therefore, the animals heading to drink can no longer see the lion, and thus, it attacks them.
The drawing of the lion followed that of the buffalo.
The drawings of camels on the trade route followed as well.
The writings are continuous and do not belong to one era.
There is the Aramaic writing and the Greek writing,
in addition to drawings from the ancient stone ages
and from the savanna, and drawings on the Incense route.
The camel transported these people who wrote everything.
Before camels, nothing existed here except for the drawing of this buffalo.
The Greek language is one of the ancient world's languages.
The language of philosophers, scientists, historians, and playwrights.
Between the ninth and third centuries BC.
- Nabataean - From the second century BC until the fourth after it
the Arabs used the Nabataean Semitic letters.
As for the Aramaic language, it is the first language of the heavenly books
used by many people. It never disappeared
as some people still use it until this very day.
All of this is gathered on the rock of ancient languages.
On the same rock
in the barren desert of Sarmada
we find Thamudi, Aramaic and Nabataean scripts.
Look at what we also found; we found a Greek calligraphy.
All of these people and cultures were brought by the camel.
If it were not for God, and then the camel, they would have never come to this barren desert.
The horse did not bring the people to this place.
Donkeys cannot cross this desert in Sarmada
and cows cannot walk here.
Cows used to live here during the fertile days,
but we are now talking about a later development.
Moreover, inside this cave we found pottery.
It is from Tayma, and it took its name after it.
The archaeological surveys conducted in Tayma
found large ancient pottery
that is neither well cooked nor grilled and has flaws.
The German-Saudi team examined the pottery with radioactive carbon 14
and concluded that it dates back to four thousand years BC
or six thousand years until this very day. We will leave it in this place.
This is an indication that those who drew the ancient
Thamudi inscriptions and writings
in that era we will leave them here and enter to this cave.
We can find Thamudi writings
and other drawings of these wondrous animals
that lived here in the fertile days
and before the Neolithic era, the days of extreme fertility
and humidity. We will enter and see.
Glory be to God. They used to live here.
They also cooked and ate. Look at this bull.
It is protected here.
When we traced the traces of camels and their drawings on the rocks
along with the Thamudi inscriptions
we found these rocks and Thamudi inscriptions on them.
We learned about the climate situation in the Arabian Peninsula
and the vegetation cover in the Arabian Peninsula
from ancient times even before the domestication of the camel
that began in the Arabian Peninsula eight thousand years ago.
We cannot understand the languages or understand the drawings
unless we understand the climate and the weather.
This is why we talked about the northern Thamudi language
which is the Ancient Northern Arabian script and that it is the first alphabet.
Look, on the same rock, we find huge extinct buffaloes
which were not accompanied by any writing
because these existed before the era of writing.
Of course, they were not deaf at that time
but they did not write.
Look at this male buffalo drawn using the tapping method.
Of course, because it is a sandy rock.
They got a basalt rock
which is brought from the Hijaz.
It is very solid.
This is the male, and this is the female.
The strange thing is that the human being in the Arabian Peninsula is an artist
who was able to draw this drawing, and it is repeated
in other places without any mistake.
The human being back then was as capable as the human being today.
He was a wise and intelligent human being
who was able to draw his life journey on these rocks.
Look, this is a female, and this is a male
because it has a smaller horn, and the male is the dominant one.
The male is higher than the female. How amazing!
We cannot understand science
whether archeology, sociology, or geography
unless we go down to the field.
We went to the field to trace the footsteps of the camel and the footsteps of the Arabs.
We were able to see numerous issues
and we understood them
better than those who resort to books.
They do not go to the field like we do.
We excuse them because going to the field is very tiring.
Modern archaeological excavations show
that man lived in a homogeneous environment in the Arabian Peninsula
about one hundred and twenty thousand years ago.
Stone tools, fossils, climatic surveys, and scientific research
played a role in redrawing the image of the Arabian Peninsula
Al'arkhas Giant wild bull, was last seen in 1627 before its desertification and before animals
that could not adapt with the fluctuating climate became extinct.
It turned into a desert about five thousand years ago.
Despite the violence of climate change
these rocks remained along with their drawings.
On this universal rock
we find a camel engraved with a bold and tap inscription
but we find something amazing.
It is a proper name of a Thamudi woman.
Thamdat that is similar to names like Iffat, Jawdat, and Shawkat.
These are Arabic names and not Turkish, as some believe.
Everything originates from here, from this region's language.
Most people think that the the Arabic "T" letter is Turkish or Circassian, but this is not true.
This camel belongs to this woman.
Mamdouh Al-Shammari read this inscription
which is considered a discovery because it is number 9.
It mentioned a Thamudi tribe, people, or civilization
not as some orientalists want to believe that Thamudi
does not refer to a tribe and is not a proper name.
As we go down to the field, we will discover more proper names for the Thamudi tribe members.
This woman owns this camel. For "Thamdat". It is clear.
For Thamdat
The most important inscriptions in the Arabian Peninsula are those that mentioned
In the fifth episode, sixth season "In the arms of Mount Umm Senman" the word "Thamada", meaning Thamudi.
Here are eight texts in the Arabian Peninsula
in the middle of this cave. One of them,
is perhaps the most important of all.
The distance between the slopes of Umm Sanaman Mountain
and the Sarmada desert may be far
but one word shortened these distances between them
to be confined to the word “Thamad”.
This word says that man here and there
wrote with the same script, communicated, and established cultures
that were the product of his relationship with the nature around him.
This mountain and that desert as well as camels, the climate, and life details.