This section provides the visitor with the content and background for the subjects in the petroglyphs, such as humans, animals, and plants. It also provides interpretations of complex scenes that incorporate many figures that together convey an event. The scenes mostly depict activities relating to hunting and warfare. In this section, the visitor will learn about the people who created the rock art of Saudi Arabia and their environment.
Subjects & Scenes
Examples:
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Lion
The lion is one of the four large felines, second in size only to the tiger. The male lion has a distinctive mane, and their coats have been very valuable through history. Lions have been associated with persons of high status through the millennia and across the continents. Lion hunting has been a sport of royalty and nobility around the ancient world.
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Arabian Wolf
Wolves are the largest members of the Family Canidae. The wolf has a large head with a wide forehead, powerful jaws, bone-crushing teeth, and long, blunt muzzle. Its ears are short and triangular in shape. The neck is thick and muscular, particularly in the male; the limbs are long and powerful. It carries its head down at the same height as its back unless at attention, when it [...]
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Ibex
The ibex is similar to the wild goat in terms of the shape of its head, body, and tail. Like the goat, it has scimitar horns that curve backward in a large semi-circle, but with the addition of a series of regularly spaced transverse ridges along the outer edge of the curve. Ancient artists depicted these ridges distinctly on the more realistic panels, however, where a caprine [...]
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Ostrich
The ostrich is the largest living bird, lays the largest egg of any living avian species, and has the largest eyes of any terrestrial vertebrate. Ostriches are in the same order, Struthioniformes, with the other flightless living species, kiwis, rheas, emus, cassowaries, and the extinct moa and elephant bird.