Kingdom welcomes findings

‘God’s final revelation’

SAUDI Arabia’s Prince Sultan bin Salman encouraged the country to embrace groundbreaking archaeological work in the kingdom, saying it bolstered the practice of Islam and did not detract from it.

Addressing an auditorium packed with local and international archaeologists and Saudi leaders, both civil and clerical, on the second day of the kingdom’s inaugural archaeological convention on Wednesday, Sultan said the new findings proved scientifically that the religion remained the final revelation from God, the great religion for all humanity, and that Mecca had occurred and evolved exactly as it is told in the holy Qur’an.

“There’s a reason why God chose to reveal his revelation here,” he said.

Earlier, archaeologists Paul Breeze and Matthew Stewart had presented their findings on Green Arabia.

Dr Breeze has been mapping the so-called palaeo lakes for the past five years, with 8 000 recorded so far, 10 of which have been able to be dated, showing that monsoon rains fell in Arabia 130 000 years ago.

“The earliest fossils of our own species came from Africa 100 000 years ago. It’s the first time out of Africa for Homo sapiens.

“We had always thought this was a failed dispersal because the Arabian and Sahara deserts would present a barrier, though 125 000 years ago the Sahara was green,” said Breeze.

What his team has found at their 10 research sites is that the palaeo lakes show repeated formations of dry and wet.

“There are signs of Homo erectus (a forerunner to H sapiens), maybe even Homo sapiens, but no evidence of populations between the periods.”

The archaeologists are going further into the desert than ever before, with at least one 85 000-yearold Homo fossil from the Nefud Desert.

His assumption is that there was at least one green corridor through the desert to the Levant.

“This wasn’t an isolated event during the last interglacial period. They could have moved to south-east Asia or even back into Africa.

“These findings bring Arabia front and centre into our own species and the dispersal of others. It’s a really exciting time to be working in Arabia.”

Stewart told of finds of hippos at six sites spanning 800 000 to 8 000 years, suggesting palaeohydrologic corridors – chains of rivers and lakes – because hippos have a maximum range of 3km from water before they start dehydrating.

There have also been finds of Pelorovis, the largest bovid or grazer, dated from 420 000 years to 80 000 years, which could only have existed had there been abundant grasslands, as well as hartebeest and roan antelope, animals which need water every 48 hours. There are signs of giant elephants, at least 1.5 times bigger than the African elephant, which would also have had a prodigious hunger for grazing.

There is evidence of “butcher activity”, or “hammer stone percussion”, as early humans broke animal bones to get the marrow of the animals they’d killed.

They’ve found fossilised foot prints, at least eight of them at one site suggesting at least three individuals, maybe more.

“The size places them in the range of normal humans or perhaps Neanderthals.”

All of these findings, as well as Arabic script, dating back well before the revelation of the Qur’an, make Sultan convinced of the righteousness of the Saudi Commission for Tourism and National Heritage to have encouraged this co-ordinated archaeological exploration in earnest for more than the past 10 years.

“We have always had the questions, why did God send Islam to the Arabs? Why did the sacred house built by Adam, the father of mankind, come to the Arabian peninsula? Why was Ibrahim sent to rebuild it as the Ka’aba?

“The calligraphy that we use is the calligraphy that was used to write the first verses of the Holy Qur’an about creation. We have rock art of people riding elephants, in the Qur’an we speak of the elephant road, of people riding elephants to destroy the Ka’aba. Here we have scientific proof.”

The findings, he said, were a message for Islam and for humankind.

• Ritchie is in Saudi Arabia as a guest of the Saudi Commission on Tourism and National Heritage

‘There’s a reason why God chose to reveal his revelation here’