DBA Built-Up Areas

Ubar

Scratch-built city to serve as a BUA for my Central Asian City-States - Samanid DBA morph and for a future Pre-Islamic Arab army. The city is built on a thick card base, 120mm by 120mm square, with walls made of foam core anchored on balsa wood towers. I cut windows and doors into the towers with an Exacto knife. Once assembled with white glue, I sprayed the model with textured paint ("stone" color), and then drybrushed in a sandy brown. The buildings are commercial 6mm scenics from JR Miniatures modern Middle-East range.

This BUA was inspired by reading a book on the search for the fabled lost city of Ubar, the so called "Atlantis of the Sands." Legend holds that the Adites of Ubar angered the gods who caused their city to be swallowed up by the sands. Located in southern Oman on the Arabian Peninsula, this ancient city was rediscovered in 1992 with the aid of remote sensing from space. It is believed to have been inhabited from as early as 2800 B.C. to about 300 A.D., and served as a jumping off point for caravans that carried frankincense across the great Rub al Kali desert. Built around and over a large well, the city collapsed into the sinkhole created as the climate changed and as water was gradually withdrawn.

Model by Chris Brantley

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