George Hedges

George Reynolds Hedges (February 26, 1952 – March 10, 2009) was a lawyer with a list of celebrity clients including Mel Gibson and David Lynch who gained attention in the field of archaeology for what at the time was thought to be the discovery of the ancient city of Ubar.

[1] An active Hollywood lawyer, Hedges listed one of his favorite cases as one that allowed super-agent Ed Limato, a partner and co-president at International Creative Management, to leave the firm and take clients including Richard Gere, Mel Gibson, Steve Martin and Denzel Washington, despite a non-compete clause that would have prevented him from staying in the business.

[1] After a conversation with filmmaker Nicholas Clapp, Hedges learned about the lost city of Ubar, a major hub in the ancient trade of frankincense over 3,000 years ago.

[1] The two worked together with Jet Propulsion Laboratory scientists Ronald Blom and Charles Elachi, who were able to locate NASA photographs that showed traces of trade routes used by caravans in southern Oman.

[1] Together with archaeologist Juris Zarins of Southwest Missouri State University, they traveled to Oman and found a site near a present-day settlement of Shisr in the Rub' al Khali in early 1991.

[1] Later in 1996 Hedges, along with Juris Zarins and Ronald Blom, founded The Archeology Fund which contains a large quantity of information about the Dhofar region, Trade Routes, and many other related subjects to their work at the Shisr Site.