Camel Hill, ‘Throwing-Stick’ Rocks, and People Rocks: motif concentrations in the rock art of the al-Ḥawrāʾ hinterland, Tabūk Province
Keywords:
petroglyphs, Umluj, Saudi Arabia, Neolithic, herdingAbstract
This paper presents three petroglyph sites documented during the hinterland survey of the Saudi-Japanese archaeological project at al-Ḥawrāʾ (Umluj, Tabūk Province, Saudi Arabia), jointly conducted by the Saudi Heritage Commission and Waseda University. ‘Camel Hill’, c.60 km east of Umluj, contains seventy-one camel depictions, together with Ancient North Arabian and Islamic inscriptions. The other two sites were identified in February 2025 during ground-truthing based on satellite-image analysis carried out by the Tokai University Research and Information Center. ‘Throwing-Stick’ Rocks, located c.60 km south-east of Umluj, comprise two rock surfaces bearing a concentration of motifs resembling throwing-sticks, which may belong to an early phase of rock art in the region. ‘People Rocks’, c.43 km east–south-east of Umluj near al-Shithāth, contains forty-four anthropomorphic figures and four handprints, while lithic artefacts from a nearby rock shelter suggest prehistoric activity, possibly dating to the Neolithic period. These sites indicate that the inland areas of Umluj Governorate preserve a more varied rock-art record than has previously been recognized, and that the rock art of southern Tabūk formed part of a broader cultural landscape of north-western and central Arabia.
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