To the Bedouins near Petra her name is "Fatima," but to her family and friends in New Zealand—from which she came on a visit—she was once called something else: Marguerite van Geldermalsen.

They called it the Decapolis in Greek - "the ten cities" - but to this day the archeologists digging into the earth in Jordan don't know how many cities there were, or where they were.

The scholars are skeptical, but the legend persists: in the mists of antiquity an Egyptian princess led an invading army into Ireland - and is buried there today, beneath a great stone in Foley's Glen.

At dawn in the old, medieval quarters of Cairo, a profusion of domes and minarets rises from the haze of the crowded crumbling streets: tall and short, lean and heavy, alone and in clusters.

On so-called "skinny skis," two Americans climb and ski the Toubkal Massif in Morocco's Atlas Range where, today, skiing as a sport and ski-mountaineering as a challenge are catching on.

In Riyadh this spring, a millennium of Islamic art was put on display in one of three galleries built to house the hallmarks of a civilization that once reached from Morocco to Malaysia.