Rat'a and Al-Manjur World Heritage Site

Type: Interesting

Description:
The (Rat'a and al-Manjur) site is located southwest of Hail city, about 320 km away, administratively belonging to Al-Hayt governorate. It is registered as a UNESCO World Heritage Site and consists of sandstone elevations known as Jabal Rat'a and al-Manjur, surrounded by the Harrat area and crossed by Wadi Rat'a. This site was discovered by the regional archaeologist / Saad bin Abdulrahman Al-Ruwaysan in the month of Safar of the year 1422 AH. The site consists of sandstone elevations whose faces and the faces of the fallen stones around them contain many magnificent artistic panels executed by an artist of that era with utmost precision and in a style of utmost beauty and mastery. In total, they are drawings of complete human forms that appear sometimes alone or accompanied by animal forms (dogs) and also animal forms (lions – leopards – donkeys – ibex – dogs – long-horned cows), all sculpted by rubbing or pecking or drilling and approximately natural size and in a style indicating superior skill of the artist of that period and in a way that arouses astonishment and admiration for what he achieved in rock carving art. What distinguishes these sites from other rock drawing sites in the region is the precision of execution, and those beautiful and wonderful frieze panels that the site contains. It is believed that all discovered rock drawings in these sites may date back to three different periods based on the patina layer overlying them. It has several periods; the first period is the one with the densest patina layer tending to black, which we believe dates to the end of the Middle Stone Age, specifically between 12 and 14 thousand years from the present, characterized by animal and human drawings approximately natural size. The second period is also characterized by drawings of animal forms (buffaloes – donkeys) and human forms that appear sometimes alone and sometimes accompanied by animal forms (buffaloes) and it is completely similar to the drawings of the first period in terms of execution precision and size, except that the patina layer in these drawings is less dense than that overlying the first period drawings. The third period is the most recent in the drawings discovered at these two sites, which we believe dates to the Thamudic period and is characterized by ostrich bird drawings and camel drawings executed approximately natural size and which mostly appear accompanied by Thamudic written texts, mostly names of people or gods or a commemorative phrase or an indication of ownership.

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Video length: 07:31