‘AlUla, Wonder of Arabia’ Exhibition Opens in Beijing
The “AlUla, Wonder of Arabia” exhibition recently opened at the Palace Museum in Beijing’s UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Forbidden City.
Promising a journey through AlUla’s 7,000 years of successive civilizations and 200,000 years of shared human history, the exhibition is a collaboration between the Royal Commission for AlUla, the Palace Museum and the French Agency for AlUla Development. It features hundreds of artefacts on display, some for the first time.
“AlUla, Wonder of Arabia” was previously held at the Arab World Institute in Paris from October 2019 to March 2020, and the new edition was curated by archaeologists Laila Nehme, senior research fellow at CNRS, and Abdulrahman Alsuhaibani, executive director of archaeology, conservation, and collections at RCU.
Apart from the newly exhibited artefacts, the exhibition showcases rare sculptures, pottery, rock paintings, inscriptions, bronze relics, immersive multimedia, and works by renowned photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand, presenting the natural beauty and rich cultural heritage of AlUla.
Through the expertly curated chronological layout of the exhibition, visitors can seamlessly explore the geographical intricacies and environmental settings that facilitated the earliest human settlements in AlUla. Visitors move from one space to another, following a chronological and thematic layout, with stops at the four main heritage sites in the AlUla Valley: Dadan, Hegra, Qurh, and Old Town, exploring in each stop many secrets of the ancient civilizations that inhabited these sites.
The Dadan ruins have revealed a large number of crafted sculptures and artworks, and visitors can witness the prosperity of the Dadan and Lihyanite dynasties through these works. The UNESCO World Heritage Site of Hegra is an ancient city renowned for its stone-carved facades of tombs and well-preserved funerary monuments.
The exhibition also serves as a reminder of the legacy of trade that once connected the Arabian Peninsula with China. AlUla lies along the ancient Incense Road and later routes of pilgrimage to Makkah, and its historical significance as a trading hub is evident from the myriad of caravans that traversed the landscape. These routes enabled the transport of Chinese silk and ceramics to the Arabian Peninsula, and Arabian frankincense, among other precious goods, to China.
Visitors to Beijing’s Forbidden City can attend the exhibition until March 22.
