Million-year-old lava field yields archeological treasures

Updated September, 2013

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HARRAT KISHB

Million-year-old lava field yields archeological treasures

In our previous visit to the stark basalt fields of Harrat Kishb, we located several lava tube caves but mapped only one of them. On top of that, we never set eyes on the “really big one” discovered by a certain Mr. Faisal Allam on one of his hunting trips. Therefore, we put Saudi Arabia's harrats at the top of our list for the new year and returned to Kishb on 2/2/2002.

DANCES ON LAVA

Once again we set off for one of the roughest and most remote places on the planet without the walkie-talkies, extra spare tires and new vehicles we really should have had. In fact, on this trip we were stuck with three old rattle-traps that you would hardly trust on a visit to the supermarket. Fortunately, we had been issued a satellite telephone, but, unfortunately, it had been accidentally left behind. Present on this expedition were Cave Unit members Susy Pint, Mahmoud Alshanti, Saeed Alamoudi, Abdulrahman Aljouid, John Pint, with guest John Roobol plus our  indefatigable  drivers Hamadi Alharbi and Abdulwahed Alafghani.

So we were entirely on our own that evening, as sunset caught us circling round and round like dervishes, on a rough surface of swirls, eddies and waves of chunky black basalt, only five kms (by GPS) from our caves, but unable to reach them. On top of that, dark ugly clouds were gathering above us, perfectly positioned to deposit a deluge upon our heads. It was at this strategic point that one of our decrepit old war horses decided to throw a shoe… er, I mean, blow a tire. ..

...Well, that particular spot was probably the worst place on earth for camping, as there was not a soft or flat spot to be seen in any direction. This no doubt inspired our drivers and everyone else to make this the fastest tire-change in history, after which we finally forgot about reaching the caves and began searching for a place to spend the night. As you can see through the tent door, a smooth spot is well appreciated in a place like Harrat Kishb.

PATCH OF ASH

Lucky for us, we did stumble upon a suitable campsite before darkness engulfed us. It was a flat patch of black ash (a description easier to type than to pronounce) and we barely got our tents up before a light rain began to fall. That night, the temperature dropped to ten degrees Celsius which, combined with a steady wind, made us delicate Jeddah-ites feel like we had arrived at the North Pole. . But that doesn't mean we didn't have time to hold an impromptu fashion show before the rain sent us all scurrying... and look who won!

Next morning, we all tromped over to Mut’eb Cave where we tried out an idea for doing a “geological description” of a cave without a pencil, that is, by speaking into a tape recorder while walking through the cave from end to end. We talked John Roobol into doing this first one and we were all impressed by the number of details that came to our attention as we slowly made our way through the lava tube. For example, we hadn’t really noticed the hundreds of wasps nests (fortunately, abandoned) on the ceiling nor the dark brown splotches of sticky bat pee nor paid much attention to a basalt lava “curtain” six meters long, hanging from the ceiling like the keel of a ship.

Basalt curtain resembling the keel of a ship.

In my opinion the tape recorder technique is much more fruitful and effective than taking written notes or (worst of all) trying to remember the cave’s characteristics days or weeks after visiting it. The details on the Kishb lava tubes will eventually be incorporated into an official SGS report. Of course, the tape system works better in stand-up caves with no sandy belly-crawls!

Next, John went off to visit Faisal Allam’s camp where he hoped to get the coordinates for the “really BIG” lava tube located farther north.

  GHOSTS

The rest of us drove a car out to the edge of Ghostly Cave and connected a cable ladder. Two etriers (lengths of nylon webbing with footloops) made it easy for everyone to get a handhold while going over the lip. I was impressed how easily our team of Saudis now handle knots, ladders, belaying, cable ladders and surveying.

Here you can see the three geologists working on mapping the cave... which left Susy and me free to concentrate on photographing this curious cave.

When we finished shooting the entrance and the tall guanomites lurking just inside, like silent statues, the survey team was back from passage one, all three of them coughing, rubbing their eyes and wondering how a khowagi (foreigner) had ever talked them into entering a place like THAT.

The cause of their misery was, of course, the thick layer of “dust” on the passage floor. But, as good geologists, they had taken a sample of it, which, in the daylight, looked much like grey volcanic ash. This powder is so thick inside the cave that a crust has formed on the top and when you break through it, your foot sinks into in as far as 20 cms. A lab analysis later showed this substance to be very rich in phosporus, which might indicate it incorporates the remains of ancient, long-gone guanomites.

Susy and the Guanomites   Click on the thumbnail to get the full effect of this surreal world in the twilight zone of the cave.

We then took a look at the large room and passage on the east side of the entrance hole. This one led about 100 meters back to a bat chamber where a glimmer of daylight could be seen through the obviously thin ceiling, which sported several brown bat-urine stains.

FLAT-HEADED NEOLITHIC LEFT-HANDERS

In this cave, Mahmoud discovered two flat, nearly L-shaped sticks which look much like boomerangs. We didn’t think too much about them until John Roobol stated that throwing sticks like these were used in this area by Neolithic people six to eight thousand years ago, a claim he later backed up by showing us pictures of rock art – discovered near Hail – which depict flat-headed people holding L-shaped sticks much like the ones in Ghostly cave.  

One of the throwing sticks was found deep inside the cave, next to this sofa-like rock.

Because these may be the only Neolithic throwing sticks found in Arabia, Roobol did a lot more research on them. He discovered that the wood they are made of comes from the upper branches of the camel-thorn tree, one of the hardest woods available in this part of the world. He also informed us that both of these near-boomerangs were "owned by a left-handed person." This Sherlockian observation was backed up by the explanation that both sticks have a top side (slightly more rounded) and a bottom (flatter) and can only be thrown properly with the left hand. Then, caver and aerodynamics expert Martin Danks informed us that the shape of these sticks gives them lift when they are thrown, but more skill is required than for a boomerang.

By the way, if you go exploring near the entrance to Mut'eb cave, you may come across a humble plant that could, mind you, SAVE YOUR LIFE because it is edible. This plant we decided to call Roobol Salad after the hardy explorer who pointed it out to us. Naturally, this plant may affect different people in different ways. Just place the cursor on this picture to see what we mean!

TALEBAN CANYON

Next morning we drove off to First Cave. Miraculously, Mahmoud accomplished this in about 20 minutes, instead of the usual hour or two of wandering about the lava. We had planned to rappel into this 21-meter-deep cave, but the more we looked at its ceiling and walls, the less enthusiastic we became. In many places it looked like only spit was holding the slabs of lava together and in the end we decided to leave this hole in peace. Instead, we did a recce of this lava flow, hoping to find another – but less treacherous – tube.

A cave we did not find, but plenty of olivines we did. Then we set off for Window Cave, whose smallish entrance I had spotted on the last trip. Well, the GPS said the cave was less than a kilometer away, but every time we headed for it, it seemed to retreat, inevitably relocating itself on the other side of a big hill or canyon. That is how we came upon Taleban Canyon, which we gave this name not because it has high, narrow passages with beautifully sculpted walls and weirdly shaped overhangs, but because its floor is covered with bombs… well, volcanic bombs, thrown up from deep in the earth’s mantle. To our delight, some of these bombs turned out to contain solid masses of olivines.

After much meandering, we at last found the right track to window cave. “THAT is what we have spent so much effort to find? THAT is your cave?” shouted the crowd, glaring at me when they saw the little hole we had been searching for.

More shadow than cave!

Well, I had first seen this “window” in the late afternoon shadows. Now, in the bright sun, it looked about a meter deep, and that’s just what it was. But one must consider the advantages of such a cave: surveying it would take no time at all! And dotting the hillside all around it were very interesting “hot blocks” which had been carried out of the belly of the earth in pyroclastic flows.

HOT BLOCK regurgitated by Mother Earth

KNOTTY DISCOVERY

We returned to camp and found John Roobol waiting for us. He had been to Faisal Allam’s camp and had succeeded in getting the coordinates for the BIG lava tube.  

After a delicious meal of chicken roasted on a flat slab of basalt, we walked over to Mut’eb Cave to try some Lars-Bjurstrom-style photography by Coleman lamplight...

...The yellow glow of the lamps give us an idea of how these lava tubes must have looked during their formation.  I was happy to have several models, patient enough to pose for 30-second-long exposures... And here you can see our rendition of  "Birth of a Lava Tube"

...Our last shot was in a small alcove at the very end of the cave. We needed a hiding place for one of the lamps and I asked Mahmoud to try using a big, flat rock lying on the dirt floor. He picked up this rock and suddenly I heard a gasp and “Oh-oh!”

“What’s wrong, Mahmoud?” I cried, “Are you OK?” He put down the rock carefully and pointed at what had been under it.

“Do you know what that is?”

I saw a very old-looking piece of rope with a knot in it.

“Looks like a very old piece of rope with a knot in it,” I replied.

“John… This is –how do you call it—a curse.”

“A curse?”

“Yes, the knot represents a spell and it was hidden in a place like this so the victim couldn’t come and untie it.”

Well, here was a whole new use for caves I knew nothing at all about! Anyhow, after a short reflection, Mahmoud uttered a quiet prayer and carefully untied the knot. I hope that gave some relief to someone somewhere, but if the rope was as old as the boomerangs we’d found, Mahmoud may have undone one of the longest-lasting curses in history. Guiness, take note!

A subsequent examination of the rope fiber showed it is of plant origin, not animal hair or leather, which have been used for rope-making in recent millennia. This suggests that the rope may be as old as the throwing sticks.

FAISAL’S B-I-G CAVE

Next day we broke camp early and drove off to meet Faisal Allam not far from his camp, a place just as solitary as our own. “Ah, but their camp is quite luxurious;” said John Roobol, “they even have showers.”

“They may have showers,” I replied, “but don’t forget, we have guanomites.”

Faisal guided us to a lava field where no cave could be seen at all. But after taking a few steps, we suddenly saw a small hole, less than a meter wide, leading to a dark chamber below.

This entrance was unlike that of any other lava tube we had seen in this country so far. All the others are obviously the result of a collapsed roof, with broken rock strewn everywhere, whereas this small hole was smooth, with a melted look, as if air had been sucked through it as the molten lava receded below. In later times, water must have flowed down the same hole, coating it with a layer of sparkly, white, calcareous tufa. . Faisal at the entrance to his Dahl.

It was exciting to make our way through an entrance that may still be about the same as it was a million years ago. Below the hole we made our way down a pile of loose rocks, obviously placed there by local people, to the spot which Faisal had figured was the starting point of a BIG passage. If you can’t see the end, it MUST be kilometers long, right? But all it takes is a good flashlight to destroy the most imaginative of myths. This task fell to Mahmoud, who took one look and shouted, “Twenty meters!” before Susy and I had even got inside.   Susy below the cave's small entrance.

Those twenty meters, however, were packed with interesting features, such as shelf-like “levées,” the remains of a crust formed when the lava began to cool, and thousands of small lava stalactites and stalagmites. Farther into the cave, the weight of one levee had proven too heavy and had torn away from the wall. However, it had cooled to hardness right in the middle of its fall, bequeathing to the discriminating lava caver, a million-year-old 3D picture of one step in the process of tube disintegration.

Finally, at the back of the cave, we could see a bowl-shaped hole in the dirt floor. Dug by an animal, you say? Ah no, my friend, that is a “dust volcano” according to Dr. Roobol, the result of gas escaping from the dust after the cave had been flooded. The rare and wonderous Dust Volcano

KING SOLOMON’S MINE

From the BIG cave, we headed north toward the town of Mahad al Dhahab and a paved highway. Following the time-honored tradition of the SGS Cave Unit, we managed to get ourselves thoroughly lost, having carefully avoided gassing up at a little village we passed. But, as usual, in the nick of time, just as the gas tanks were approaching empty, we spotted the workings of the Mahad al Dhahab gold mine… and civilization.

The mine – which very reliable sources claim was truly one of King Solomon’s mines – could be the subject of an entire report like this, so let’s stop here and merely comment that the harrats of Saudi Arabia no doubt hide a lot more fascinating secrets … and we have 85,000 sq. kms of them left to explore!

John and Susy Pint