ALULA: Ikmah Mountain, also known as Jabal Ikmah, one of AlUla’s landmark archeological sites, is offering visitors a new experience this week as part of the Winter at Tantora programming, which ends on Jan. 10.
Near the ancient city of Dadan, Ikmah highlights AlUla’s role as a major cultural and religious center long before the rise of the Nabataeans. It is being activated under the stars in a brand new, old way.
The site, often described as “an open-air library” for its hundreds of ancient inscriptions carved on its canyon walls thousands of years ago, provides visitors with have a chance to etch their own names, using the ancient alphabet, on a block of stone they can take home.
The team at ‘Ikmah After Dark: Secrets of the Scribe’ showing a visitor how to carve on a stone. (Supplied)
Written mainly in Dadanitic and Lihyanite, the ancient texts once recorded religious dedications, laws, names of rulers and traced everyday life, providing rare insights into the beliefs and social structures of early Arabian kingdoms.
