- Arabian and German researchers examine the ancient legend that a mighty ruler of Babylon would have spend ten years in the measly desert oasis of Teyma, in present Saudi Arabia, on the Ancient incense trade route, which a Swede explored in 1879, finding ruins with an Aramaic inscription, referring without legible name to a Babylonian king. Teyma's still conserved spring, remains one of the world's largest, was an amazing engineering feat, able to serve 50 camels simultaneously. The fortified city once covered over 500 hectares, including a giant, repeatedly transformed temple. Recent finds, including cuneiform inscriptions on several spots, testify to intense trade as far as Egypt, and indicate the exiled monarch was Nabonit, Babylon's 6th century BC last king, his residence and motive for refuge or even banishment (on account of his veneration for his mother's regional god from another part of Mesopotamia?) remain unknown, but his son and representative at the Babylonian capital was the one who received the biblical writing on the wall before the kingdom was overrun. Teyma obviously remained important many more centuries, probably also in the Nabathaean realm (capital Petra, in modern Jordan).—KGF Vissers
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