Bir Hima Rock Petroglyphs and Inscriptions
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How it came to be
An ancient caravan route of the Arabian Peninsula ran through the arid mountains north of Najran in southwest Saudi Arabia. The wells of Bi'r Ḥimā date back at least 3,000 years and still produce fresh water, at the oldest known toll station on the route.
Travellers and armies camping by the wells carved images and inscriptions into the rock until the late 20th century. The rock art shows hunting, animals, plants and ways of life across 7,000 years of cultural continuity. The inscriptions are in Musnad, Thamudic, Greek and Arabic scripts among others, and one of them, Ja 1028, helps explain the massacre of Najran's Christian community under the 6th-century Himyarite king Dhu Nuwas.
Saudi Arabia's antiquities department turned to the rock art in earnest only after 1976. The property and its buffer zone still hold many unexcavated cairns, stone structures, burials, stone tool scatters and ancient wells. The Ḥimā Cultural Area was inscribed in July 2021.
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