Description

In the sandstone mountains north of Najran, Saudi Arabia, on the edge of the great Arabian desert, hundreds of thousands of rock engravings have been carved over time. These are figurative representations or small graffiti, incised by the natives or by people travelling between Yemen and the far reaches of northern Arabia. The area was inscribed by UNESCO on the World Heritage List in 2021. In 2006, a Saudi-French mission was set up to map and analyse these rock engravings. Every year since then, it has been surveying the area, systematically documenting and recording specific sectors. The first observations show that petroglyphs from the Islamic period (after 622 CE), mainly horsemen and female figures with raised arms, are as numerous as the pre-islamic carvings. This volume is devoted to the rock engravings of a rocky peak called 'An Jamal, some ten kilometres east of the wells of Hima. This peak is a landmark in the desert landscape, which partly explains the number and diversity of engravings.Its chaotic relief and the innumerable superimpositions provide us with the first markers in the difficult chronological ordering of the Arabian rock art.

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