First published: 05/10/19.

Zoë Sheng 2.5

Himā Cultural Area

Himā Cultural area (Inscribed)

Himā Cultural area by Zoë Sheng

It is hard to figure out where these rock art sites really are. The only place I found was the Hima wells area and nearby the well was one, fenced off, with a sign stating tourist visits should be arranged with some phone number. Well, too bad. I noticed there is an opening to the right of that place and it was clearly used by others before. Not much climbing required. I don't want to promote breaking rules, especially in the KSA where you can get into deeeeeeep problems for doing this, but it is the only easy way to actually see them close up. Okay so you don't need to break the law if you have binoculars or a zoom lens. What I saw wasn't impressive either and there are a staggering 7 "similar sites" listed on the document alone, showing not just me that there are enough of rock arts like this. Sure, it's not the same, yes, it does show there was someone here before and lived in the area - but, hello, that's not enough for me looking at the site.

So I did some checking online and the rock art could potentially be impressive if it's open for us to visit. The Mediterranean rock art is open to visit while still being fenced off so we should be able to look at it without a 60m barrier around it that also protects sand. There is a lot of pre-Islamic rock art in the country and I couldn't pinpoint which pictures match to the Najran area. Sad really but I have to give it thumbs down. I really liked the rock art in the north of the country.

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