They stand nine feet high, weigh 300 pounds, live up to 70 years, run 40 miles an hour and do not bury their heads in the sand— though the Romans had reason to think so.

In the 1970's, historians in the Yemen Arab Republic discovered the unique "Rasulid Hexaglot" a 14th-century, six-language dictionary written by a king—for fun.

In the marshes of Iraq, an ancient life-style based on reeds and water buffalo exists cheek by jowl with modern technology: power lines, refrigerators, television sets and outboard motors.

In Syria, a forward looking antiquities department has undertaken a challenging project: the first facelift—in 8,000 years — of Damascus, though t to be the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world.

From some 570 miles in space, LANDSAT satellites, with sophisticated sensor systems, scan, measure and record reflected sunlight to produce unusual and invaluable "images" of the earth.