Exploring the Arabian Peninsula in search of Ancient Civilizations

Dazzling landscapes and mighty sand dunes along the trail of Lawrence of Arabia is what the epigraphists of the Belgian Philby-Rijckmans-Lippens mission saw 65 years ago when crossing the Arabian Peninsula. This big adventure did not only lead to the discovery of an ancient scriptural society in the Arabian desert, UCLouvain scientists also laid the base for the deciphering of the Ancient South Arabian script and language. Anno 2017, a UCL team is ready to embark on a new adventure in the Arabian Desert in order to continue the work of their Belgian predecessors. Next to the preliminary results of this epigraphic campaign, TEDxUCLouvain will give us the chance to demonstrate to a larger audience the dedication and creativity of research teams that work in remote parts of the world often in inhospitable landscapes. We want to show the world that history is not only book knowledge, but often also depends very much on the exploration of areas where hardly anyone has gone before. A survey of these inhospitable areas may result in finding back the missing link between several ancient civilizations and contribute to a large extent to our future historical knowledge that we want the share with the TED community