BIDA BINT SAUD NECROPOLIS

A miniature Jebel Hafit, set back on the left of the road. The outcrop is 320 meters high and nearly 700 meters long, known as Qarn. The stratified rocks have single-chambered Bronze Age (3000 B.C.) Hafitic tombs on its flanks that were originally covered by a dome. At the top of the hill, Danish archaeologist Jens Vellev found Iron Age (1300-380 B.C.) multi-chamber tombs, which were reconstructed in 1985 and are clearly visible. Their contents are in the National Museum, which is unfortunately closed for renovation. Numerous paintings in red and dark gray representing symbols, not yet explained, have been discovered as well as figurines and animals carved on the walls. Perhaps they were used to indicate the entrance to a tribe's territory, or were they inscribed on a sacred place? To the west, an enclosing wall (invisible because it is deliberately hidden), bearing the mark of twelve pillars, testifies to the existence of a meeting place or a place for monitoring nearby wells(bida means well) that fed the pipes. These falaj from the first millennium B.C. provide proof of local mastery of an ingenious irrigation system long attributed to the Persians. At the beginning of the 20th century, Mariam Bint Saud came to draw her water from them!

To go further: Rock Art in Abu Dhabi Emirate, by Walid Yasin Al Tikkriti. The book can be bought in the Jahili Fort bookshop.