Iram (Lost City)
Iram ( Arabic إرم ذات العماد, DMG Iram ḏāt al-ʿimād 'Iram with the pillars'), also Irem or Irâm , is a lost city, which is mentioned in the Koran in verses 89: 6-8 and in oriental tradition. The different spelling of the name is due to the fact that the Hebrew and Arabic alphabet and also the hieroglyphs usually do not show vowels. Ranulph Fiennes also calls Irem the "Atlantis of the sand".
Eastern Semitic
In the Ebla archives around 2400 B.C. A city called Irem mentioned.
Egyptian
In Egyptian sources around 1450 BC. A country Irem mentioned, which lies between Punt (gold country) and Egypt . The localization is controversial (e.g. in Africa: on the Nile above the fifth cataract, on the southern Red Sea (on both banks) or in Asia: from Byblos in Lebanon inland). It is only mentioned under Hatshepsut in the punt reports, not on previous expeditions. The residents live in stilt houses and produce frankincense and myrrh .
Arabic
In the Koran
The Koran describes Iram in sura 89 , verses 6-8 as a city of the people of the ʿĀd , which was destroyed by Allah due to the sinful way of life of the inhabitants.
In a thousand and one nights
In several stories in the Arabian Nights , a city is mentioned in the middle of the desert.
- The city of pillars : King of Iram was Schaddad /شدّاد. He was the son of ʿĀd , the son of Uz, the son of Aram , the son of Shem , the son of Noah . In the history of the 277th to 279th nights, the city is located in southern Arabia and discovered at the time of the Caliph Muawiya .
- In the story of the Brass City, a submerged city, the last of which was King Kush, son of Schaddad, son of Ad, is discovered at the time of Caliph Omar when a caravan is looking for bottle spirits . The city is located in the Maghreb (Northwest Africa).
Persian
Irem is a fabulous paradise garden, mentioned in the story of the Charezmian princess in Nezami : The seven stories of the seven princesses.
Modern identifications
Iram has been identified by Muslim scholars with both Damascus and Alexandria. Harold Glidden wants to equate the Nabataean Jabal Ramm in Jordan (approx. 30 km east of Aqaba ), excavated since 1932 by George Horsfield and Father Raphael Savignac of the École Biblique in Jerusalem, with Iram, and also considers it to be the Aramaua of Ptolemy . Nicolas Clapp is of the opinion that the ruins of Ubar in the Rub al-Chali desert inland from the coast of Oman are to be equated with Irem.
Modern fiction
- In several tales of the Cthulhu cycle, HP Lovecraft uses the columnar city of Iram, e.g. B. City with no name and Cthulhu's reputation .
- Friedrich Wilhelm Mader (approx. 1910): Die Messingstadt (adventure about a mysterious city in the Sahara, with German researchers and their battles in the desert), later title: The secret of the Sahara .
- Ernst Schnabel (1979): At the height of the brass city , Zurich [u. a.].
- In Sylvian Hamilton 's first book The Bone Dealer (2001, English original: 2000), a magician from Irem is an important supporting character and antagonist.
- In the video game Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception , the main plot revolves around the search for the city of Iram, which is located in the center of the Rub al-Kali desert .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Yahaya, Harun (2001): Falling Peoples . Translated from Turkish by Ahmet Karamercan, SKD Bavaria Verlag & Handel GmbH, Munich
- ^ Noblecourt
- ↑ Naville: The Temple of Deir el Bahari
- ^ Brugsch and Maspéro
- ↑ Naville
- ↑ thigh
- ^ Noblecourt: Hatshepsut
- ↑ Here the full text: http://www.physiologus.de/komment/lit/mess1.htm
- ↑ Harold W. Glidden, Koranic Iram, Legendary and Historical. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 73, 1939, 13
- ↑ Harold W. Glidden, Koranic Iram, Legendary and Historical. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 73, 1939, 13-15
- ↑ Nicolas Clapp 2001, The City of Fragrances
literature
- Nicolas Clapp: The city of fragrances. 2001.
- engl. (1998): The Road to Umbar , Boston-New York.
- Ranulph Fiennes : Atlantis of the Sands: The Search for the Lost City of Ubar. 1993, ISBN 0-451-17577-8 .
- Kahlil Gibran : Iram, City of Lofty Pillars.
- Enno Littmann (ed.): The stories from the thousand and one nights. Complete German edition in six volumes. Based on the original Arabic text of the Calcutta edition from 1839, transferred by Enno Littmann, Insel Verlag.
- HP Lovecraft: Ctulhu. Ghost stories.
- HP Lovecraft: Azathoth.
- HP Lovecraft: City Without a Name.
- Charles Pellegrino (1994): Return to Sodom & Gomorrah.