I’m plagiarizing myself here just a bit, since I actually wrote this for another venue, but it’s not actually on the Web anywhere, so … here goes.
I spent more time over the winter holiday than I probably should have playing Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception on the PS3 (I actually forbade my partner from taking the PS3 with him when he went to visit his family so that I could keep going). If you’re not a gamer, you might just want to skip this post. Unless you’re a history geek like me.
Kill the bad guys, but stop blowing up the historical treasures!
This third installment in the Uncharted series, an Indiana Jones-style series of adventure games that follows anti-hero Nathan Drake and his companions as they venture off to the far corners of the globe in search of lost treasure, has earned stellar reviews and several awards, including the top spot on several “Best of 2011″ lists.
Drake’s Deception puts players on a trek to find the real lost city of Ubar—believed to be Iraam of the Pillars of antiquity, mentioned in the Qur’an and 1001 Nights–deep in the Empty Quarter (Rub’ al-Khali) in Saudi Arabia. On the way, the story takes a surprisingly accurate voyage through a few Middle Eastern locations. And, being the history nerd and Middle Eastern-ist that I am, I thought to myself, “Wow, someone should put together a resource guide to all the stuff in this game.”
And then I realized that I’m probably one of the best qualified nerds for the job.
Making allowances for the fact that this is a video game and that the action has to move forward in a suspenseful manner–not every dark alley in Sana’a leads to a secret chamber of secrets waiting to be discovered–the overall plot outline incorporates an impressive corpus of research on topics near and dear to the Middle East historians’ hearts: Players read through excerpts from T.E. Lawrence’s Seven Pillars of Wisdom and learn about his career for British intelligence in World War I; explore nearly every inch of a crusader castle in Syria (clearly based on the Crac des Chevaliers near Homs); chase bad guys across rooftops in an painstakingly accurate digital re-creation of a Yemeni souq (complete with locals who engage you in Arabic); solve puzzles that incorporate old Sabaean script and pre-Islamic South Arabian civilizations; and finally find themselves on a sun-baked trek across the sands of eastern Arabia before finally landing in what is the least accurate part of the game for the climax: the lost city of Ubar itself (fortunately, this most fantastical part of the plot resolves itself somewhat satisfactorily for the nit-picky among us, but I won’t spoil it).
Below, I’ve compiled some resources to offer up for anyone else whose curiosity about the people and places visited may have been piqued over the course of game play. Naturally, this effort came entirely out of my dedication to research <he says, looking innocent>.
This isn’t an actual walkthrough — there are plenty of those out there if you just Google it.
On with the nerdening!
Ubar / Iram of the Pillars
Ubar–the real one–was a city in ancient Arabia. Legends speak of a fabulously wealthy trading center, active from around 3,000 BC to around 1,000 AD. The city was identified as Iram of the Pillars in the 1001 Nights. According to Arabian tradition, the city was founded by the grandsons of Noah (he of the Ark), and cast into the sands by God after failing to adhere to warnings by the Prophet Hud, whose tomb lies in the nearby Hadramaut region of Yemen.
The ruins of what is believed to be Ubar were found in the 1980s, using geo-sensing technology and photographs taken by the space shuttle Atlantis. The quest was the subject of an installment in PBS’s NOVA series (unfortunately, the video isn’t online, but the transcript is). http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/ubar/
The discovery was further discussed in the New York Times: “The Frankincense Route Emerges from the Desert” (April 21, 1992)
And (at least) two books have been written about the discovery of Ubar:
Nicholas Clapp, The Road to Ubar: Finding the Atlantis of the Sands, Mariner, (1999).
Fiennes Ranuph, Atlantis of the Sands: The Search for the Lost City of Ubar, Bloomsbury (1992), ISBN 0747513279.
Arabian/Indian Ocean Trade:
Ubar grew wealthy by serving as a trading center for goods coming off of the Indian Ocean, as well as the trade in Arabian goods, notably incense and scented woods. The first stop for anyone should be Indian Ocean Trade resource developed by the Sultan Qaboos Cultural Center: http://www.indianoceanhistory.org/
In the November/December 2000 issue of Saudi Aramco World, Eric Hansen discussed the trade in scented wood such as frankincense, which was one of the commodities that made Ubar so wealthy “The Hidden History of Scented Wood.” Saudi Aramco World is a cultural magazine put out by the Saudi state oil company. As long as they’re not talking about modern Saudi Arabia (which they tend to depict as the most fun place in the world except maybe Disneyland), the material is pretty good. Subscriptions are free, and the entire backlog is online.
More on the trade routes across Arabia can be found in “The Roads of Arabia” article from the March/April 2011 issue of Saudi Aramco World.
The Rub’ al-Khali desert was the subject of “The Living Desert“, which appeared in the March/April 2010 issue of Saudi Aramco World.
Ancient Arabia:
Not much is known about the kingdoms of ancient Arabia (in comparison to, say the period immediately preceding and after the advent of Islam), although it is known that Yemen has been populated for millennia.
An article from Saudi Aramco World: Norman M. Whalen and David W. Pease, Early Mankind in Arabia.
The British Museum: The Kingdoms of ancient South Arabia online exhibit.
Sana'a, Yemen. Photo by Ai@ce
Yemen:
My biggest nitpick of the game (other than the magical/fantastical Ubar) was the lack of specificity in the Yemen portion. Yemen is a country, not a city, and the designers did such a great job creating a digital version of old Sana’a that it’s kind of amazing that they let other details drop. Plot required a coastal city, though, and Sana’a is in the mountains–so it’s just “Yemen.” Complete with “Yemen International Airport” (which, for the record, does get service on real planes, not just rickety second hand DC-3s and Antonovs as in the game).
On the other hand, I don’t think I could have dealt with the characters trying to say “Sana’a” properly. Elena’s “Arabic” ability when she asked someone to open an iron gate … well, it was a nice try 
Fotopedia freaking loves Yemen. Check out these photo essays:
Some articles:
Eric Hansen: Sana’a Rising (Saudi Aramco World, Jan/Feb 2006); see also Tim Mackintosh-Smith in the same issue, The Secret Gardens of Sana’a, (Saudi Aramco World, Jan/Feb 2006).
Another piece by Tim Mack-Smith: Moonglow from Underground (Mar/Apr 1999).
Richard Covington, A New Light on Old Yemen (Saudi Aramco World, March/April 1998).
G. Lankester Harding, Inside Arabia Felix (Saudi Aramco World, Jan/Feb 1965):
Crac des Chevaliers, Syria. Photo by Bernard Gagnon.
Syria’s Crusader Castles:
The part of the game set in Syria was clearly inspired by the Crac des Chevaliers, a well-preserved castle in the Syrian mountains on the highway between Homs and Lattakia. Drake’s castle is a might bit larger and more rambling, but the influence is there.
Check out the UN World Heritage entry on Crac des Chevaliers and Qal’at Salah El-Din: http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1229
Robin Fedden, The Castles of the Crusaders (Saudi Aramco World, May/June 1970): http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/197003/the.castles.of.the.crusaders.htm
T.E. Lawrence:
Seven Pillars of Wisdom, quoted at some length, is in the public domain in Australia: http://www.wesjones.com/lawrence1.htm
The T.E. Lawrence home page (maintained by his official biographer): http://telawrence.info/telawrenceinfo/index.htm
History geeks of the world, unite!
