(Hegra was also the “second city” of the Nabataean Kingdom, which called Petra, in Jordan, its capital.) Dadan, a second ancient city, was once the capital of the Dadanite and Lihyanite kingdoms and pivotal to local trade routes. Jabal Ikmah, a remote mountain close to Dadan, is a “library” for its thousands of pre-Arabic inscriptions in Aramaic, Dadanitic, Thamudic, Minaic, and Nabataean, making it the area with both the highest concentration and the highest variation of languages in Saudi Arabia. “I imagine myself as Alice walking and discovering these places.”ĪlUla has five primary attractions: Hegra, a 52-hectare ancient city, is a UNESCO World Heritage site with 111 intricately carved cliffside tombs, and is thought to have been the most southern outpost of the Roman Empire. “I call it a Saudi wonderland,” says Mashail Makki, the first woman tour guide in AlUla and the fifth woman tour guide in Saudi Arabia. AlUla is a key component of Saudi Arabia’s broader Saudi Vision 2030, which looks to reduce the country’s dependence on oil and fortify its recreation and tourism offerings.
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Yet if you are unfamiliar with AlUla, you would hardly be alone: Saudi Arabia itself only began issuing tourist visas for the first time ever in 2019, and the Royal Commission for AlUla (RCU), formed in 2017, only opened AlUla to visitors full time in phases in October 2020 after undertaking a “sensitive renewal” of the region. a bustling outpost criss-crossed by caravans carrying spices, incense, beads, and ceramics along the trade routes from Arabia to Jordan and the Mediterranean. Those familiar with AlUla have called it “an open-air museum the size of a country” and an “oasis in the desert.” At roughly 8,710 square miles-bigger than Slovenia-the area in the remote upper pocket of northwest Saudi Arabia was from 900 B.C.E.
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