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onager

(9,356 posts)
Fri Apr 12, 2013, 08:15 PM Apr 2013

Arabia Uncovered (Smithsonian Channel)

Just another quick entry in the never-ending series, "How I Waste My Spare Time..."

On 6 April, the Smithsonian Channel ran this fascinating documentary on recent archeological discoveries in Saudi Arabia. I'm sure it will be re-run many times, and is probably available from the usual Internet suspects.

For many years, AFAIK, this sort of thing was strongly discouraged in The Magic Kingdom. Pre-Islamic history was pretty much all lumped together as "the time of error." At least that's what I heard when I lived in Saudi Arabia, from 1989-92.

Among the discoveries - giant statues buried underground, with incredibly detailed musculature.

To their credit - for once - the Saudis didn't pull a Taliban and destroy these artworks because they are "graven images." Everything is being carefully preserved, and local/foreign experts are invited to study them. A Saudi royal prince is in charge of the project.

Even more exciting...well, to me anyway: the finding of stone tools dated to about 1.5 million years ago. That's (relatively speaking) not long after our earliest ancestors were making the same kind of tools in Africa. So we have an indication that some of those ancestors headed east when they left Africa.

http://latestdocumentaries.com/2013/04/arabia-uncovered/

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Arabia Uncovered (Smithsonian Channel) (Original Post) onager Apr 2013 OP
Very interesting! JNelson6563 Apr 2013 #1
Great stuff! defacto7 Apr 2013 #2
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