JEDDAH, 12 May 2004 — Officials have poured cold water on the hopes of a man who spent months trying to find a treasure he saw in a dream.
Mubarak Abdullah Al-Qahtani said he started his search after he had the same dream three times and a prominent scholar identified the possible site of the treasure.
With the support of his sons and friends, Al-Qahtani began excavation three months ago at a mountain pass in the Al-Fawaz district in south Riyadh.
When Al-Qahtani’s treasure hunt became public, Riyadh Governor Prince Salman set up a committee chaired by Abdullah Saad Al-Rashid, director general of antiques, to discover the truth.
The committee said the area was devoid of antiquities of any kind. “The pieces of stone Al-Qahtani collected were just natural formations. They were not remnants of ships or humans or animals or anything else,” it said.
The committee advised the authorities to immediately halt digging as such illegal activities could set a potentially harmful precedent.
It also proposed that the civil defense took immediate action to close the cave Al-Qahtani created as it posed a danger to people in the neighborhood.
Al-Qahtani told Al-Watan that he found a tunnel “leading to a large room under the earth” but stopped digging three days ago after his generator was stolen.
The dig drew substantial crowds, with some visitors even entering the tunnel.
Muhammad Al-Baqami, who was one of them, said he saw human skulls in the roof of a large cave in addition to formations of ships, camels and some unusual structures.
“We were terrified after seeing these objects,” Al-Baqami told Al-Watan. “It could have been a graveyard or a hideout for predatory animals,” he added.
