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800BCc. 800 BC – AD 106 · AlUla

Dadan, Hegra and the incense-road kingdoms of AlUla

Qasr al-Farid, a Nabataean tomb facade carved into a lone sandstone boulder at Hegra
Photo: Carole Raddato. CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The AlUla oasis sat on the incense road that carried frankincense and myrrh from southern Arabia to the Mediterranean. The kingdoms of Dadan and Lihyan ruled here first, leaving inscriptions and cliff tombs. The Nabataeans then made Hegra their second city after Petra, carving more than 110 monumental tombs before Rome annexed their kingdom in AD 106. Hegra became Saudi Arabia's first World Heritage Site.

Sites

  1. Site 1: Hegra (Mada'in Salih) and Qasr al-FaridSandstone tomb façades with Nabataean inscriptions, including the lone four-storey Qasr al-Farid.Map ↗
  2. Site 2: DadanRemains of the Dadanite capital, with lion tombs cut high in the cliff.Map ↗

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