Where the sands meet the cliffs
Al-Faw lies in the south of the Kingdom, where the Empty Quarter meets the sandstone outcrops of the Tuwayq plateau and escarpment. It stood at a strategic point on the ancient trade routes of the Arabian Peninsula, a relay for caravans travelling from Najran to central and eastern Arabia.
The cultural landscape holds nearly 12,000 archaeological remains, from Palaeolithic and Neolithic flint tools to funerary structures from the third and second millennia BCE.
Qaryat al-Faw
The caravan city of Qaryat al-Faw appeared in the middle of the first millennium BCE and lasted almost a thousand years. It was the capital of the kingdom of Kinda, and it was abandoned in the fifth century CE when its water ran out.
Its remains include necropolises, homes, a commercial quarter and forts for caravans, an oasis with a wide irrigation network, and the sacred mountain of Khashm Qaryah with its rock inscriptions. UNESCO inscribed the site in 2024.