Heyerdahl - The Tigris Expedition

PLATES

Between pages

1 In a Marsh Arab reed house 20 and 21

2 In the marshes of southern Iraq

3 The riverbanks and floating reed islands of the marshes

4 Old and new cultures meet in the marshes; berdi reeds for our reed ship

5 Three stages in the building of Tigris

6-7 Shipbuilding as in the days of the pyramid builders

8 The reed ship Tigris on the Shatt-al-Arab

9 The Garden of Eden; the river at the building site, where the

two rivers meet 4 and 85

10 Pollution on the river Tigris

11 Entering the gulf at the river's mouth; adrift among ships of all nations; steering toward Kuwait

12 A view from the topmast

13 In the shallows of FaUaka: the dhows; the Russian lifeboat gives a tow

14 Towed by Slavsk, the Russian merchantman

15 Farewell to Captain Usakovsky, and to Slavsk

16 The hole ripped in Tigris' bow

17 Geoffrey Bibby shows a sm-vival from antiquity; the bow of

Tigris is repaired with palm stalks 116 and 117

18 Burial mounds at Bahrain

19 Bahrain: a long-lost port city with walled harbor basin

20 Imported stone at Bahrainheavy monumental pedestals, cut blocks of a temple and walls of a sacred well

21 Prehistoric quarries on Jidda Island

22 Oil platforms and supertankers in the gulf

23 Carlo preparing ropes; the cliffs of the Arabian peninstda

24 Timiing into shelter outside the Hormuz Strait; southward from the Strait

25 The people of Oman 148 ^^^ ^49

26 A Sumerian mini-ziggurat in Oman?

27 The lost copper mines of legendary Makan

28 Paolo Costa at the prehistoric slag heaps; bundle boats in north Oman

29 Sightseeing in a land closed to tourists

30 Rowing a reed ship away from land

31 Thor I again

Between pages

33 The island of Astola; the limestone cliffs of the Makran coast 180 and 181

34 Ashore beside the Ormara peninsula: women hurrying away; houses of mats

35 Yoimg and old in Ormara bay

36 Mohenjo-Daro, the lost metropolis of the Indus Valley

37 Mohenjo-Daro: two-storied houses, brick-covered sewers, and a swimming basin

38 A reed ship incised on a seal; berdi reeds beside the Indus

39 Past and present in the Indus Valley

40 Norman and Yuri prepare for departure; map studies at the dining table

41 Tigris in the Indian Ocean 244 and 245 42-43 Far from land

44 The topmast broken after a storm

45 Pollution; a red belt in midocean 46-47 Tigris still floating high

48 At home in the ocean

49 Inside the main cabin; around the deck table 276 and 277 50-51 The international crew of Tigris

52 No lack of seafood

53 Norman on the yardarm; adjusting the sail

54 Rowing at sea; remora fish under the bottom

55 A dangerous calm

56 Waiting for wind; radioing for a landing permit

57 Forbidden waters: nearing Socotra; within shooting range 308 and 309

58 A birthday photo as the wind fills the sails again

59 Into the African war zonemilitary airplanes, helicopters and warships off Djibouti

60 Into the final port, Djibouti; a welcome from French warships

61 Abandoning ship in Africa: Tigris is prepared for a proud end 62-63 Farewell to Tigris

64 The end of Tigris

Plates 1 and 6-7 by David Graham. All other photographs by Carlo Mauri and the expedition crew.

THE TIGRIS EXPEDITION

Chapter 1

IN SEARCH OF THE BEGINNINGS

T

X HE begmning. The real beginning.

This was the place.

This was where written history began. This was where mythology began. This was the source of three of the mightiest rehgions in human history. Two billion Christians, Jews and Moslems all over the world are taught by their sacred books that this was the spot chosen by God to give life to mankind.

Here two large rivers, the Euphrates and the Tigris, drift slowly together, and their meeting place is shown on every world map. Yet it is not a spectacular scene. Silent as the rivers when they meet are the narrow rows of date palms lining the banks, while sun and moon, passing over the barren desert, are reflected day and night on the cahn waters. A rare canoe ghdes by, vdth men casting nets.

This, most of mankind believes, was the cradle of Homo sapiens, paradise lost.

A narrow point of green land is drawn out between the two rivers as they meet and greet each other with slow whirls, forming a single river, the Shatt-al-Arab, which quickly hides from view be

hind a palm-lined bend. Between the rivers, at the very point of the land, a httle rest house was once built and subsequently half abandoned. With its three guest rooms, large hall and still bigger terrace facing the sunrise over the river Tigris, the modest building bears an impressive name in big letters above the door: the garden

OF EDEN REST HOUSE.

This boastful name is justified if we are to take a nearby bulletin board hterally. Hardly a stone's throw from the rest house, and separated from it by a greensward large enough for building a boat, are a couple of inconspicuous green trees leaning over the Tigris. Between them hes a thick, short stump. This was part of a fallen tree of undefined species, but venerated by modest candles and solenmly fenced in as a very simple sanctuary. Old men from the nearby town of Qurna sometimes come here to sit and meditate. A placard with text in Arabic and Enghsh tells the rare passerby that this was the abode of Adam and Eve. Abraham, it says, had come here to pray. Indeed, according to the scriptures, Abraham was born at Ur, a few hours away.

The long-lost branches of this aged tree certainly had never carried apples. And Abraham had probably never venerated that pleasant riverside spot, since the ground level has risen an estimated twenty feet in the last few millennia and must have altered the original water course. Nevertheless, the meeting place of the two rivers, the whole locahty, merits the hmnble meditation of the passerby, for something began in these siu-roundings. Something of importance to you and me and most of mankind.

As I moved with my luggage into the rest house and leaned over the terrace fence to watch the silent rings made by fish as they broke the surface, the sun shpped away behind me and drew a red curtain over the sky, causing the black silhouettes of date palms on the other side to be reflected for a while in a river that seemed as if turned to blood.

There was adventure in the air. How could it be otherwise? Here was the homeland of the Thousand and One Nights, of Aladdin's lamp, the Flying Carpet and Sindbad the Sailor. Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves belonged to these riverbanks. Downstream, the waters drifted past Sindbad Island, named after the great yam-spinning sailor of Arab folktales. Upstream it had its source near the foot of the soaring cone of Mount Ararat, where Hebrew records have it that Noah grounded his ark. Near the banks, modest road

signs still point to time-honored ghost cities like Babylon and Nineveh, whose bibhcal brick walls still seem to shake off nibble and dust in their attempt to reach the sky. Jetliners roar into timeless Baghdad, where modem cranes and concrete buildings crowd between golden domes and minarets.