Unearthing AlUla’s Old Town - Part 2: The Rebirth of Arabian Heritage

Explorer Journal by Charles Phillips. 2023. Written for the Royal Commission of AlUla’s website: The Living Museum.

Part Two of this story continues my journey through the Old Town as I now try to learn about its rebirth and the modern restorations taking place. After learning what life was like in the town in the time of both Ibn Battuta in the 14th century and Charles Doughty in the 19th century, what can I learn about how this ancient town is being rejuvenated today? How is it bringing a new generation of travellers back within its walls? And what does the re-embrace of this heritage mean for the future of AlUla and the region?

Traditional Techniques

Led by my guide and local storyteller, Layal, whose family once lived in the Old Town, we continue the second part of our tour and walk to a section of the town where restoration work is yet to begin. Here, Layal explains how the whole town was built purely from the local environment; using only materials that were available from the surrounding areas. Many of these we can see within the exposed alleyways and crumbling houses that we pass. They offer a window into the secret innards of the Old Town that you wouldn’t usually have seen when it was inhabited and well-maintained.

In one alley, a large dusty palm tree log lies on the floor with a few fallen stones and mud bricks laying alongside it. Scattered palm reeds line the path too. One door I pass is so old that barely any of it remains. Another door has what remains of a beautiful faded blue paint. Looking up, where ceilings have fallen in, I can see that the first-storey floors were skilfully constructed using three layers: tree trunks, dried palm leaves and mud.

In some of the ruined houses the ground is covered with piles of fallen palm trunks, chunks of mud, remains of pottery, and dried palm reeds. Some are scattered and some are piled high from where the ceiling has completely fallen in. It is a really interesting site to see. I feel I am behind the scenes and that I am almost transgressing the sanctity of this place. It would have wanted foreign visitors like me to see it in all its glory, not disrepair. Yet it is fascinating to see, and there are numerous signs that it won’t always be like this. In one courtyard, I see wheelbarrows and rocks neatly piled up next to a fallen down wall, ready to be restored. On the ceilings of some of the houses, I see new logs that have been laid, from the same local trees as would have been used in the past. Layal tells us these come from both tamarisk trees and palm trees.

From the Earth

Being here you develop a respect for ancient and traditional building methods and materials. I am finding that it is a really special experience to walk among homes built from the earth. There is something very natural, grounding and peaceful about it. The organic materials used makes the Old Town feel like an extension of the environment itself, existing in harmony with it. It almost feels as if handfuls of earth have been picked up and the town sculpted out of it. I felt similar feelings of admiration and wonder when visiting beautiful stone houses in the south western Saudi provinces of Aseer and Al-Baha. Whereas modern buildings using man-made materials seem to become dated quickly, these traditional buildings built with natural materials seem to have a more timeless quality about them.

It makes me think how, despite the remarkable benefits, many of the comforts of modern life have separated us from nature and often from others. In our modern buildings, we’ve grown less reliant on our surrounding environment to live and we tend to understand it less. This disconnect has tragically resulted in our mistreatment of nature, often polluting it without concern. Yet, those who lived in the Old Town had to care for nature, they relied on it and had to learn to live in harmony with it. They also had to learn to live sustainably and not take more from nature than could be replenished for future seasons and generations. I think these are all wonderful lessons we can and should relearn today.

The tranquillity of Old Town living is reflected in the testimonies of some of its former residents. One former resident, Abdulaziz Alharbi, declared, “The most beautiful times of my life were spent in the Old Town.” It is these sentiments that make the restorations I am seeing today so powerful.

Constant Repairs

Using knowledge passed down from her family, Layal explains that mud brick buildings were constantly repaired and renovated by their residents. If there was rain for more than seven days, residents had to check all parts of the structure and repairs were often needed. Though he doesn’t mention it in his writings, Doughty might have seen such repairs when he was here. He reports: “Two days after my coming the morrow broke with thunder and showers; the rain lasted till another morning: in nearly three years they had not seen the like.”

We walk on and come to an open square, slightly more spacious than the other places we’ve been to so far. Here we can see in real time some of the restoration work underway. There are people in hard hats and high-visibility jackets walking around and I can hear a mix of French and Arabic being spoken. I stop to say hello to a younger woman who I learn is French and is a trained archaeologist here on rotation for six months. It gives me a glimmer of insight into how AlUla is becoming a crossroads of cultures once again.

We stop to talk to yet another international expert, British archaeologist and conservation specialist Michael Jones, who is working in the Old Town. He tells us that what we see here in the town today is the outcome of centuries of repair, explaining that the same materials would have been recycled repeatedly by subsequent generations.

Michael explains that local knowledge has been the most important resource for the restoration work currently taking place. The community has been closely involved, including many former residents who only moved out a matter of decades ago.

Wisdom of the Past

This is one of the things that has surprised me the most about the Old Town. People still lived in these buildings all the way up until the early 1980s. And they did so without electricity or modern plumbing. Yet a vibrant community remained. Things changed however in the 1970s when a booming economy and the tantalising pull of modern amenities and comforts drew the Old Town’s inhabitants into modern neighbourhoods built nearby. Stone and mud were replaced with steel and concrete. Modernity had arrived. I have learnt that AlUla was not alone in this formative transition. It is a trend that took place throughout the country, which has a surprising number of abandoned mud brick towns and traditional buildings scattered throughout it. I have seen many of these throughout my travels in Saudi Arabia. Most of which remain little known to outsiders.

Until recently few people had looked back to these abandoned dwellings, focusing instead on the future, but there is now an effort to come full circle and a push to reembrace this heritage, as a source both of culture and national pride. There’s no doubt that these are places that will attract tourists too. There is also interest in the wisdom held in this ancient architecture that could help modern communities return to a more sustainable way of living.

Returning to our tour, Michael is pointing out more of the restoration work and telling us more about the local community. Imparting their wisdom, he says the older generations of AlUla have been sharing stories of how the Old Town’s houses were repaired and built and which materials were used. As children, many of them witnessed or helped with the routine repairs of their houses. I learn that what’s perhaps most special, is that the former residents alive today have been able to reinstate an ancient chain of knowledge sharing. They are once again passing on wisdom about these techniques that would have been transmitted from generation to generation over centuries.

Had these restorations been happening decades from now, this knowledge would already have been lost. One of the things that is most exciting to hear is that this knowledge is being passed down to a new generation of younger AlUlans who are being trained in these methods, in the hope that they can make a career of this and apply these techniques to new developments in the future.

New Life

As part of our final meanderings through the Old Town, we begin to see examples of life beginning to return. Echoing the times of old, when Ibn Battuta and Doughty were here, a new heritage guesthouse has opened in the south east corner of the Old Town, the Dar Tantora hotel. We walk to see it. I can see that the attention to traditional details and the revival of age-old customs are evident throughout the premises. A local man brews coffee over an open fire. Oil lamps light the rooms just like the past. There is almost no electricity here; just a few concealed plugs to charge your phone. It’s a small intimate experience that encourages you to focus on the tranquillity of the historical surroundings. I really like it here. I’m shown one of the guest rooms and I can see how they re-create what a traditional house would have been like, with a bedroom on the second level and a majlis on the ground floor.

As we exit the shade of the Old Town’s alleyways, it’s time to end our tour after a glorious afternoon of delving into the past and gazing into the future. Layal bids me farewell and I thank her profusely for her cherished insights and patience as she allowed us to explore. I wish her well and I hope many more travellers can be guided by her and her fellow Rawis. She walks back to the Old Town visitor centre, ready to meet her next group of visitors and shower them in yet more stories.

I finish my explorations of the day by wandering along the restored market street on the western edge of the Old Town. Reading a sign here, I learn that the unification of Saudi Arabia in the 1920s brought increased stability to AlUla. This made it possible for the Old Town’s merchants to move outside the town and set up shop here. Abandoned in the 1980s, this street and the shops that line it have been restored over the last few years. It gives me yet another example of the ways in which new life is returning to the Old Town. There are now places to eat, traditional craft shops that have opened up and social places to gather in the evenings.

After a full day where I have learnt so much, I pick a café to rest at and reflect on all that I have seen. What a joy it has been to retrace the footsteps of famous explorers and come to understand the past, present and future of the Old Town. I am served traditional Saudi coffee of a golden yellow colour and I smile as I look towards the town, still full of mysteries and stories, but ones that I now understand just a little bit more.

Unearthing AlUla’s Old Town - Part 2: The Rebirth of Arabian Heritage

Unearthing AlUla’s Old Town - Part 1: In the Footsteps of Explorers