✦ The Ancient Atlas

AlUla (Dadan & Lihyanite Capitals)

City / RuinsMiddle East

Pre-Nabataean kingdom capital in the AlUla valley, northwestern Saudi Arabia, occupied by the Dadanite and later Lihyanite kingdoms from approximately the 8th century BCE through the 1st century BCE. Predates Madain Saleh (Hegra) by several centuries. Features rock-cut tomb facades carved high into the sandstone cliffs of Jabal al-Khuraibah, Lihyanite-period inscriptions in Dadanitic script, the Lion Tombs, and the monumental lion guardian statues at Jabal Ikmah's open-air library. Excavations have revealed earlier Bronze Age enclosures and well systems indicating continuous occupation across multiple millennia, with subsurface foundations that don't align with later street grids — suggesting cycles of reoccupation that left incomplete stratigraphic signatures.

26.6280°, 37.9244°

Look Closer — this site carries open questions: stones fitted without mortar, almost no gap; stones heavier than the period's tools could lift; dating rests on thin stratigraphic evidence.
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Saudi Arabia's Lost Megastructures From a Civilization We Can't Explain | Epoch MysteriesSaudi Arabia's Lost Megastructures From a Civilization We Can't Explain | Epoch MysteriesEpoch Mysteries

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