Hegra and Dadan

Our state trained guide for the site.

Like its sister city Petra in Jordan, 

the tombs in Hegra are carved into the rock.

The second tomb from the left was the only one not plundered.

Qasr Al-Farid tomb.

It is unfinished but an amazing feat of construction.

My lunch of camel meat.

The locals eat here too.

Dadan museum and artifacts.

The Lion Tomb site.

The lions engraved in the rock.

Pictographs...

text...

and stories related in the 'library'.

My unsuccessful attempt at engraving sandstone.

The sudden wind blowing our campfire 

as my phone started to ping.

Friday January 23rd.

I was up early and cold as I had trouble with the wall heater. I finally got it working in the morning and left the bathroom door open to warm it up too. I went for breakfast in the eating tent, which was a mixed bag of basic stuff from yogurt to fruit, omelets, juices and coffee. When I got back to the room I found it toasty enough to have a shower which was piping hot and welcome. Then we loaded up on the coach for the hour-long ride to Hegra. In the archeological sites of Saudi Arabia company tour guides are not sanctioned to guide. We had a special mandated state trained Saudi guide. Hegra is an ancient civilization site created by the Nabataeans. They were the same people who created Petra in Jordan. The location was on a trade route through what used to be called Asia Minor. The Nabataeans became very rich trading with the caravans and collecting taxes for passage through the area. After the trade routes changed it was abandoned and it was left to the sands of the desert for centuries due to its remoteness but, after the King visited the site they evicted anyone living there, fenced it and began the archeological work. So far they have found over 400 tombs. As in Petra the tombs are carved into the sandstone formations and the area where the people actually lived has been wiped out by the elements because they were mudbrick homes. It is amazing how these people carved into the rock and adorned the tombs with intricate artwork in the frames. The most incredible one was the Jabal AlAhmar tomb. It is carved into a large stand-alone almost round formation. Unfortunately the sun was in the wrong place and the facade was in the shade. 

Then we went to the  nearby town of Alula for lunch at a local restaurant. Most of us tried the camel meat with rice. It was tasty and not dissimilar to beef. After that we had a bit of down time where we could go for a walk around the farming plots of the oasis. Darren, David, Mariuz, Brad and I wandered around for about an hour and managed to find our way back. Next we went to another area of Alula and had another tour with a different Arabic guide to the Dadan site that pre-dates the Nabataean site. Here we saw their tombs which were also carved into the rock in the form of a square that apparently were originally covered by wooden doors, long since removed. From there we went to yet another nearby site where they are excavating a buried town. Next up was a trip to the nearby ‘library’ which is a narrow canyon covered with ancient pictographs and scripts from different ages. UNESCO has recognized it as the site that has the most stories told on rock in the world, hence the name library. Our last stop was a rock workshop where we were encouraged to try our hand at carving our first initial into a piece of sandstone. I failed miserably as I broke the rock twice before the guide showed me how to hit it on an angle. Then I had some success but will not be bringing it home. At the welcome/information site today at Hegra we saw the first evidence of tourist souvenirs, hats, shirts and the like which were really over priced. Hats were $50US (converted from Saudi riyals) and a scarf was $100. No one bought anything. We boarded our coach and made the return journey to our camp by 6:30 and immediately had another nice dinner of chicken and rice with veggies. 

After dinner I went out to the bonfire that they’d built for us in the fire pit with David, Brad and Wendy from Australia. We got into a discussion about politics and Trump. The camp has no cellphone or wifi coverage and as such we are cut off from the world. As we are talking the wind blew up quite strongly like a storm might be coming. It caused the fire to flare up and suddenly I got a series of messages from people back home. I got 9 WhatsApp messages and one text, from John Mahaffy’s wife Dianne informing me that John had died yesterday while walking his dogs…. I can’t believe it… the wind abated shortly after… I tried texting back but nothing is going out, and I’m here for two more nights. I won’t be able to contact her until Monday at the earliest. Poor John, and what a horrible shock it must have been for her.

John Mahaffy on Whistler Mountain June 2023