Pillars of Irem

I'm quite aware the city of Irem is from Lovecraft's writing. But I was wondering if it has any stock in a real city, or something else that's real it's based off of. Like a city that was built in the dessert and supposedly vanished, blah blah blah.

"In Arab legend Irem is located in the Rub al Khali...To the Muqarribun, the Rub al Khali also has a 'hidden' meaning (incidentally the art of encoding and decoding 'hidden' meanings in Arab mystical or magical writing is called Tawil). Rub al Khali translates as 'the empty Quarter'. In this case empty refers to the VOID and is the same as AIN in the Cabalistic traditions. Rub al Khali is the 'secret' door to the Void in Arab magical traditions. It is the exact Arab equivalent to DAATH in the Kabbalah. To the Muqarribun the Rub al Khali is the secret gate (Daath) to the Void (Ain) in which is the 'city of the Old Ones'."

www.acacialand.com...

[edit on 6/7/05 by SFRemmy]

Babylon also "vanished", its nothing but ruins now, as are many ancient cities in the desert.
One was found several miles from Giza, buried under many many feet of sand.

I saw pictures in National Geographic over a decade ago of towns in the midwest that were practically buried in sand as well.

Strangely enough the site economicexpert
claims Irem may have been the city know as Ubar.

The excavations uncovered a large octagonal fortress with thick walls ten feet high and eight tall towers at the corners. The archaeologists also found Greek, Roman, and Syrian pottery, the oldest of which was identified as more than 4,000 years old (predating the 21st century BC). The discovery of these types of artifacts – including pottery that showed influence of the Parthians of Iran and other faraway places – indicated that this was indeed a major center for trade, and likely the fabled Ubar. Crystallized frankincense was also found at the site.

One startling result of the excavation was that it appears that Ubar did meet with a catastrophic end as the legends describe. The excavation revealed a giant limestone cavern beneath the fortress. It is believed that Ubar may have been destroyed when a large portion of it collapsed into the cavern.

Now where is R'Lyeh?

Strangely enough the site economicexpert
claims Irem may have been the city know as Ubar.

The excavations uncovered a large octagonal fortress with thick walls ten feet high and eight tall towers at the corners. The archaeologists also found Greek, Roman, and Syrian pottery, the oldest of which was identified as more than 4,000 years old (predating the 21st century BC). The discovery of these types of artifacts – including pottery that showed influence of the Parthians of Iran and other faraway places – indicated that this was indeed a major center for trade, and likely the fabled Ubar. Crystallized frankincense was also found at the site.

One startling result of the excavation was that it appears that Ubar did meet with a catastrophic end as the legends describe. The excavation revealed a giant limestone cavern beneath the fortress. It is believed that Ubar may have been destroyed when a large portion of it collapsed into the cavern.

Now where is R'Lyeh?

Dang you.....I just got over my Lovecraft phase.
I forgot about Irem being linked to Ubar, I always thought they both were legend so I didn't give it much thought.

As for R'yleh, I really got into Cthulhu about 7 months ago and found out so much crap about it. Apparently R'yleh is an island that sunk beneath the sea thousands and thousands of years ago. All the signs and clues point to somewhere in the pacific between new zealand and hawaii, but under china and japan.

dgwiki.joncapps.net...

Looking for the location of this on my (rather inadequate) map, the anomaly (a 100km wide seamount which if I interpret the article correctly, shouldn't exist) is just off the right hand side of New Zealand to the north (putting it nearer 25o S Lat, 175o W long than 47o9' S Lat and 126o43' W Long as mentioned in the Johansen narrative)