HE TOMB OF LIHYAN, son of Kuza, stood tall in front of me: 22 metres tall to be exact. Surrounding it were sandy outcrops, a few desert shrubs, giant boulders, and the vast expanse of the orange desert. The Hegra Archaeological Site, or Mada’in Salih, is the first UNESCO World Heritage Site to be inscribed in Saudi Arabia, and is known to be the second city of the Nabataean civilisation (the first being Petra in Jordan), which flourished here from the end of the first millennium BCE into the first millennium CE. It is located around 22 kilometres from the ancient city of AlUla—a crossing point for caravans on the incense trade route—that was unveiled to visitors in 2019. As my sneakers scrunched the gritty sand of the land that had been left practically undisturbed for almost 2,000 years, I recalled
