AlUla hotels collection

Hegra shows how the Nabataeans worked: they cut their tombs into the sandstone starting from the top, and Qasr al-Farid, alone on its rock, still bears rough chisel marks at its base, never having been finished. Older still, Dadan carved seated lions above the tombs in its red cliff. On the valley floor, among palms and citrus trees, the old town packs its mud-brick houses along narrow lanes; their roofs rest on palm trunks, and they are being restored with earth dug on the spot.