In pictures: Madain Saleh is one of the most beautiful archaeological sites in the world

ArabiaWeather.com - Madain Saleh or (the city of stone) is located 22 km northeast of the city of Al-Ula in Saudi Arabia. It is considered one of the most important archaeological sites in the Arabian Peninsula, the Middle East and the continent of Asia. It is located in the Al-Ula governorate of the Medina region.

Madain Saleh was the capital of the northern kingdom of Lihyan in the north of the Arabian Peninsula, and Al-Hijr is the name of Diyar Thamud in the Valley of Villages between Medina and Tabuk.

It was inhabited throughout the ages, by the Ma’een in the third millennium BC, then the Lihyanids in the ninth century BC, and in the second century BC, the Nabataeans occupied the city of stone and overthrew the state of Bani Lihyan and took from the houses of stone temples and tombs, and the Nabateans attributed the construction of the city of stone to themselves in the inscriptions found.

In 2008, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization declared Madain Saleh a World Heritage Site, thus becoming the first site in Saudi Arabia to join the list of World Heritage Sites, followed by Al-Turaif neighborhood in the historic city of Diriyah.