Ancient Arab sites show potential of exchanges
What we have in AlUla is wellpreserved humanity. To keep and preserve this heritage is not only our own responsibility ... and we thus invite people around the world to excavate and discover.”
Abdulrahman Alsuhaibani, executive director of archaeology, conservation, and collection at the Royal Commission for AlUla and the Saudi curator of the exhibition
Mesopotamia or Egypt may come first to mind when discussing initial civilizations in the present-day Arab world. Thanks to archaeological excavations in recent years, people now have a more comprehensive picture.
For millennia, AlUla, an oasis city in a valley in northwestern Saudi Arabia, demonstrated its glamour and key role in human history as a home of various kingdoms and a key place in intercontinental trade networks.
The flow of time may have eroded the spectacular ancient architecture, but unearthed artifacts there, thanks to joint work by archaeologists from Saudi Arabia and France, now help the Chinese public to imagine its lesser-known yet remarkable past long before the Islamic period.
Opened earlier this month in the west wing of the Meridian Gate Galleries in the Palace Museum in Beijing, the exhibition AlUla, Wonder of Arabia, ushered visitors to time travel to trace the trajectory of evolving civilizations through 236 artifacts, of which 50 items have never been publicly displayed before.
Various precious sculptures, pottery, rock paintings, inscriptions, bronze ware, and other items jointly present scenarios of civilizations from as far back as 7,000 years ago.
Laila Nehme, French archaeologist and co-curator of the exhibition, has worked on the sites in AlUla for more than 20 years. In her eyes, recently excavated relics and animal bones in 120 sandstone monuments known as “mustatils” and thousands of funerary structures from the Bronze Age greatly contributed to people’s understanding of that era. Many of the new findings are on show in Beijing.
For example, some animal horns were believed to be used in sacrificial rituals.
During the first millennium BC, the region emerged as a hub on the trade route when each oasis was ruled by a particular king.
“AlUla then became a strategic transit area for camel caravans transporting frankincense, myrrh, and other aromatics across Asia,” Nehme explains.
As the exhibits indicate, kingdoms like Dadan and Lihyan left many traces of their existence, including hundreds of carved inscriptions, monumental statues representing either kings or divine figures mixing local artistic schools and those of ancient Egypt, and small sandstone figurines used as offerings in sanctuaries.
Hegra, which is only a few kilometers north of AlUla, later rose as a prosperous city when Nabataeans settled down around the first century BC. Coming from their capital of Petra of Jordan, Nabataeans turned Hegra into a key regional center.
Its booming period continued after the Nabataean Kingdom was annexed to the Roman Empire during the reign of Trajan. Archaeologists discovered many Greek and Latin inscriptions left by Roman legion soldiers.
Hegra was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2008, as one of the first entries to the list from Saudi Arabia.
There is tantalizing evidence of long-distance exchanges.
Discovery of a dyed silk piece in AlUla, for example, may create room for scholarly conjecture as silk was originally from China.
Frequent trade and changing rulers also brought an evolution of cultures. Many carved inscriptions are particularly chosen for a section of the display focusing on the evolution of the writing systems and languages in the region.
Arabic script was thought to be developed through continuous evolution from Nabataean, a local version of Aramaic script. Scholars widely believe that Jesus Christ used Aramaic.
According to Nehme, the exhibited bilingual inscriptions and studies of their calligraphy just offered physical evidence to show how Nabataean evolved into Arabic script. Both have 28 letters.
Following the exhibits, a time journey continued throughout the eras of the following centuries until the modern time.
“Not only Hegra, but also the whole of AlUla showcased meetings of different people and civilizations in history,” says Abdulrahman Alsuhaibani, executive director of archaeology, conservation, and collection at the Royal Commission for AlUla and the Saudi curator of the exhibition.
“Generosity of this land inspires us today to engage with other people around the world,” he says.
After its debut in Paris in 2019, AlUla, Wonder of Arabia, was the first exhibition in China to comprehensively showcase the city with historical significance. It will run through to March 22 in the Palace Museum.
“We have so far 12 archaeological missions (in AlUla), and all of them are international,” Alsuhaibani says. “To work with Chinese partners (in the future) is an objective of such an exhibition.
“What we have in AlUla is wellpreserved humanity,” he tells China Daily. “To keep and preserve this heritage is not only our own responsibility … and we thus invite people around the world to excavate and discover.”
From 2016 to 2020, China and Saudi Arabia conducted joint archaeological research surrounding al Serrian, a site of port ruins near Mecca. China helped to train the first Saudi underwater archaeologist.
Now, before Chinese archaeologists set foot in Saudi Arabia again for another key site, its glamour has hooked wide Chinese public attention, not only through this exhibition.
Divas Hit the Road, a popular Chinese traveling reality show that premiered last month, chose AlUla as its second destination in the country after the capital, Riyadh.
For two lands with brilliant ancient civilizations, it is perhaps the continuation of a beautiful friendship.