From ancient accounts, the basis for Ubar's existence was frankincense, a sweet smelling incense then as valuable as gold. It was used as a fragrance, for medicinal purposes, and for embalming. The frankincense was prepared from the gum or sap of trees grown in the nearby Qara mountains. From there it was transported by camel caravan to the world centers of Alexandria, Jerusalem, and Damascus, and beyond to the western Mediterranean. Ubar became enormously rich from this trade in frankincense. What started as a small town around an oasis became a walled city of great renown.
 

Then, according to legend, great wickedness flourished in Ubar, and the Almighty Allah destroyed the fortress city and blotted out the roads that led to it. Ubar was lost for thousands of years, perhaps buried under the shifting sands of the desert of the Arabian peninsula. T. E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) called it the "Atlantis of the sands," but he died before he could lead his own expedition to find it. Many archaeologists believed that the existence of a prosperous trading center was much more than a fable told by nomadic tribesmen, but all searches for Ubar came up empty.