Atlantis of the Sands as seen at the end of Chapter 20
Atlantis of the Sands, also known as Ubar, Wabar, the City of Brass and Iram of the Pillars is a location in Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception. It was a lost city located in the Arabian Peninsula, in the Rub' al Khali desert.
T.E. Lawrence described it as "a city of immeasureable wealth, destroyed by God for its arrogance, swallowed forever in the sands of the Rub' al Khali desert".
Overview
Atlantis of the Sands, located in the middle of the Rub' al Khali desert, was a legendary city made of brass architecture. It had a unique underground water system, supported by pillars, that kept the city's water supply clean. It was fueled by an underground spring & rested on a vast underground cavern. The city was obscured by a massive sandstorm, helping its elusiveness as countless people looked for it.
Three thousand years ago, King Solomon commanded the power of the Djinn"In Arabic it's means devils or demons", demons born of smokeless fire. The Djinn rebelled, and Solomon imprisoned them in a brass vessel and cast it into the depths of the city's water system. Because of this brass vessel, the water in the city became tainted. When ingesting this water, the drinker would see illusions because of a hallucinogen in the water (with this agent coming from the brass vessel). The people of Ubar drank the infected water and went mad, causing the destruction of the city (rather than it being "destroyed by God for its arrogance").
The Crusaders looked for the city. Some time in 1580 or 1581, Queen Elizabeth sent Sir Francis Drake to find the city, but Drake soon understood during his six month voyage that she only wanted the power of the Djinn so she could control her enemies through fear with the hallucinogenic agent that polluted the water supply. Drake hid all clues of his journey to find the lost city so no one could gain this power. Centuries later, T.E. Lawrence also attempted to look for the city when he was an archaeologist.
Katherine Marlowe wished to reach the city to obtain the hallucinogenic agent just like Queen Elizabeth I so she could use her control through fear (both the Queen and Marlowe were the head of the Hermetic society that wanted to achieve this). Once she and her secret organization reached Atlantis of the Sands, they used a winch to pull the brass vessel containing the Djinn from out of the waters. However, Nathan Drake destroyed the winch and the pillars supporting the underground structure of the city, causing the entire city to be engulfed by the desert in a sink hole.
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References
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