Located in an arid, mountainous area of southwest Saudi Arabia, on one of the Arabian Peninsula’s ancient caravan routes, Ḥimā Cultural Area contains a substantial collection of rock art images depicting hunting, fauna, flora and lifestyles in a cultural continuity of 7,000 years. Travellers and armies camping on the site left a wealth of rock inscriptions and petroglyphs through the ages and until the late 20th century, most of which are preserved in pristine condition. Inscriptions are in different scripts, including Musnad, South-Arabian, Thamudic, Greek and Arabic. The property and its buffer zone are also rich in unexcavated archaeological resources in the form of cairns, stone structures, interments, stone tool scatters and ancient wells. This location is at the oldest known toll station on an important ancient desert caravan route, where the wells of Bi’r Ḥimā date back at least 3,000 years and still produce fresh water.

Brief synthesis Ḥimā Cultural Area is located in southwest Saudi Arabia on one of the ancient caravan routes of the Arabian Peninsula. The region contains some of the most significant and ancient desert wells in the Middle East. The passage of large armies and myriad caravans through the region has resulted in an unequalled historical library on rock, comprising vast numbers of rock inscriptions and petroglyphs that reflect Arabia’s history over the duration of the Holocene period. These spectacular petroglyphs cover a period of at least 7000 years, continuing up to the last 30 years. Most are preserved in pristine condition. Inscriptions are in different scripts, including Musnad, Aramaic-Nabatean, South-Arabian, Thamudic, Greek and Arabic. Criterion (iii): The Ḥimā Cultural Area bears an exceptional testimony to a number of ancient traditions over the span of many millennia, chronicling the history of the Arab people more effectively than any other place and thus representing an immense outdoor library of that history. The property bears an exceptional testimony to a long series of cultural traditions, arguably from the Paleolithic and at the very least to the Neolithic and stretching from then until the present day. Over this long period, the people passing through the region left a pristine record of their presence and passage in the form of rock inscriptions and rock art, the former in some cases describing their lived context and environment, the themes in the rock art…