An archaeological guidebook to the awe-inspiring site of an ancient Bedouin city

In the vast alluvial plains of the Saudi desert lie the ruins of a once-thriving ancient city, remarkably well preserved with more than 100 monuments and tombs along the sandstone massifs. Though they existed for many years as a number of nomadic Bedouin tribes, the ancient Nabataean people eventually established their kingdom in the Hejaz region of western Saudi Arabia in the 1st century. They built a vast city surrounded by a rampart beyond which lay the necropolis where they buried their dead and the area reserved for their religious brotherhoods.

This guide to the ruins of Hegra is the first of its kind and offers readers a detailed photographic tour of the site and its superb monuments as well as chapters on the history of the Nabataeans accompanied by maps, a glossary and a bibliography for further study.