This property includes two components situated in a desert landscape: Jabel Umm Sinman at Jubbah and the Jabal al-Manjor and Raat at Shuwaymis. A lake once situated at the foot of the Umm Sinman hill range that has now disappeared used to be a source of fresh water for people and animals in the southern part of the Great Narfoud Desert. The ancestors of today’s Arab populations have left traces of their passages in numerous petroglyphs and inscriptions on the rock face. Jabal al-Manjor and Raat form the rocky escarpment of a wadi now covered in sand. They show numerous representations of human and animal figures covering 10,000 years of history.

Brief synthesis The serial property of the ‘Rock Art in the Hail Region’ is comprised of two components: Jabal Umm Sinman at Jubbah, located approximately 90 km northwest of the city of Hail, and Jabal Al-Manjor and Jabal Raat at Shuwaymis, approximately 250 km south of Hail. At Jabal Umm Sinman Jubbah, the ancestors of present-day Arabs left marks of their presence in numerous petroglyph panels and inscriptions within a landscape that once overlooked a freshwater lake; and at Jabal Al-Manjor and Jabal Raat, Shuwaymis, the large number of petroglyphs and inscriptions has been attributed to almost 10,000 years of human history within a valley with flowing water. Together, these components contain the biggest and richest rock art complexes in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the wider region. Processes of desertification from the mid-Holocene altered the local environmental context and patterns of human settlement in these areas, and these changes are expressed in the numerous petroglyph panels and rich inscriptions. The attributes of the property include the large number of petroglyphs, inscriptions, archaeological features and the environmental setting. Criterion (i): The rock art of Jabal Umm Sinman Jubbah and Jabal Al-Major and Jabal Raat near Shuwaymis contain an exceptionally large number of petroglyphs, created by using a range of techniques with simple stone hammers, against a background of gradual environmental deterioration, and are visually stunning expressions of…