Rock Art in the Hail Region of Saudi Arabia
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How it came to be
The Rock Art in the Hail Region lies at two places in the Nafud desert: Jabal Umm Sinman at the town of Jubbah, 90 kilometres north-west of Ha'il, and Jabal al-Manjor and Raat at Shuwaymis, 250 kilometres south-west of Ha'il near the border with Medina province.
The Umm Sinman hills rise some 450 metres above the surrounding desert and once overlooked a lake up to 20 kilometres long, a source of fresh water for people and animals that has since disappeared. The ancestors of today's Arab populations left numerous petroglyphs and inscriptions on the rock. The oldest carvings show ibex; cattle and horses were added as they were domesticated, and after the lakes dried up about 3,000 years ago camels appear in abundance beside Thamudic and Arabic script.
Jabal al-Manjor and Raat form the escarpment of a wadi now covered in sand, carved with men, animals, palm trees and footprints. Both places were inscribed at the 39th session of the World Heritage Committee in 2015.
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