The Arab Regional Centre attends ceremony for the inscription of Hima Cultural Area in Saudi Arabia
The Arab Regional Center for World Heritage (ARC-WH), represented by the Director of the Center, Dr. Heba Abdulaziz and Deputy Director Sheikh Ebrahim bin Hamoud Al Khalifa, participated in the ceremony of the Heritage Commission of the Ministry of Culture in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, on the occasion of the inscription of Hima Cultural Area in Najran on the UNESCO World Heritage List during a ceremony held under the patronage of Prince Jalawi bin Abdulaziz bin Musaed, Governor of Najran, on Monday evening at the Hima site, in the presence of Princess Haifa bint Abdulaziz, the Kingdom’s permanent representative to UNESCO, and CEO of the Heritage Authority, Dr. Jasir Al-Harbash.
The inscription the site on the World Heritage List comes after the inscription of Al-Ahsa Oasis in 2018, the rock inscriptions in Hail in 2015, Historic Jeddah in 2014, Historic Diriyah in 2010, and Mada’in Saleh in 2008.
The area of the rock art area in Hima Cultural Area extends over an area of more than 500 square kilometers and includes hundreds of rock art paintings that contain hundreds of thousands of inscriptions and rock drawings, making it one of the largest rock art complexes around the world. The rock art on the site varies between the scripts of the Thamudi, the Southern Musnad and the Nabataean, as well as early Syriac, Greek and Arabic writing.
