I’ve visited AlUla in Saudi Arabia many instances, watching capturing stars streak above honeycombed cliffs in the Ashar Valley, and peering down over the oasis from the black volcanic mesa at the Harrat viewpoint. I’ve gazed at the pachyderm type of Elephant Rock at sundown, and stood in silent awe in entrance of the tomb of Lihyan, Son of Kuza, that one immediately recognisable, solitary tomb, carved out of a single sandstone boulder by Nabataean masons.
On every journey, I’ve heard various tales about how these fascinating landscapes had been carved by water when AlUla sat at the backside of an historic sea. But it all the time felt that one thing in the explanations was lacking, incomplete or incorrect. This time, I’m hoping to study the actual tales about a spot that’s considered one of the most mesmerisingly lovely I’ve ever been, and have made a date to go mountaineering with Jan Freedman, the Royal Commission for AlUla’s geologist.
My first query for Freedman is whether or not all of AlUla was as soon as underwater. The reply, he tells me, is “kind of yes and no”. Freedman has spent the previous three years strolling, mountaineering and exploring the dramatic landscapes right here, sharing the tales written in the rocks with residents and guests. AlUla’s big-ticket sights are the greater than 100 Nabataean tombs at Hegra, carved instantly into sandstone outcrops. “When people come to AlUla, they go to Hegra to see the incredible tombs, and then they start to look at the rocks and spot weird features and wonder why they’re there,” says Freedman. “They don’t come here for the geology, but when they’re here, it’s all around them and it’s different and beautiful.”
Travellers have been drawn to AlUla for millennia. There are traces of human life right here courting again 200,000 years. Nomads made use of the wealthy water sources. The Nabataeans made AlUla their southern capital, constructing a strategic hub for his or her incense commerce. Pilgrims handed by on their method to Makkah. And in more moderen years, vacationers have come to see the extraordinary heritage websites. But one factor has united all of those arrivals. Whether they had been conscious of it or not, they had been all drawn right here on some stage by AlUla’s geology.