Archaeological Wonders

The Arab world contains one of the densest concentrations of archaeology anywhere, and much of it is still being excavated.

Some sites are known everywhere: Giza and Saqqara, the Valley of the Kings, Petra and its Saudi counterpart Hegra, Palmyra, Baalbek, Leptis Magna and Carthage. Others are less familiar but no less important — Ebla and Mari in Syria, whose clay archives contain tens of thousands of tablets; Ur and Uruk in the Iraqi south; the Bronze Age tombs at Bat in Oman.

The region also holds some of the oldest human art in existence. The rock paintings of Tassili n'Ajjer in Algeria and Tadrart Acacus in Libya record a Sahara of rivers, cattle and hunters; Laas Geel in Somalia keeps its pigment almost intact; the Hail rock art of Saudi Arabia spans ten thousand years of engraving.

Work continues at scale. Underwater excavation at Alexandria and Thonis-Heracleion, survey in the Empty Quarter and AlUla, and restoration in Iraq and Syria are all producing material that has not been seen for centuries.