Tag: Lihyanites

Al Ula, the gateway to Mada’in Saleh, is a small town about 400 km north of Medina. Once an oasis with fertile soil and abundant water, it was founded in the 6th century BC and originally inhabited by the Lihyanites. The town was formerly a strategic trade route for spices and incense from the Levant, Egypt and North Africa. The 2,000-year-old ghost town was made of stone and mud. The preserved archaeological site still contains many distinctive tombstones and inscriptions written in ancient Nabatean scripts, which historians believe was an old form of the Arabic alphabet. Al Ula, Abandoned city ... Read more